Messages

1

General Discussion / Is The Z, Archos Pma, Etc Dead?

« on: August 16, 2007, 10:50:29 am »

I will say that no device has excited me more than the OpenMoko/Neo1973.  The base phone has pretty much the ability to do everything I regularly did with my Z, but the lack of a keyboard was a killer--on the other hand, the small device size looks great.

However, with the possibility of a USB host cable and the ability to carry around a small USB (or bluetooth if supported) keyboard if I expect to need it will probably push it as my favorite mobile device.  I love the Z as a 'mini pc' but it has never quite lived up to that promise except for a few times (biggest block to me when traveling: getting the browser to click that "I accept the hotel's rules" page when getting a net connection; just never was happy most of the time).

So yeah, I'd say the era of the "pocket PC" as a mass device is probably over.  I still think you'll see them around for some time in niche markets.

2

General Discussion / Bluetooth Cf Recommendations?

« on: June 11, 2007, 02:58:36 pm »

Not trying to derail the thread, but what exactly do folks use BT with on the Zaurus?  I've been wanting to try it, but don't have any application whatsoever.

3

Off Topic forum / Which Distro To Try

« on: June 08, 2007, 10:57:02 am »

Sorry to hear you had a bad Gentoo experience!  I keep trying other distros and always come back to Gentoo when I need something to 'just work'--so I'm surprised that it did so poorly for you.  Ah well.

Myself, I just can't love debian-based installs.  I use them if I need to get something up and running fast (just put together a 'spare parts' computer to freecycle and threw Ubuntu on it), but it always seems like I somehow manage to get the package database wedged and then it's toast as far as upgrades go.  I can NOT figure out how to unwedge a broken debian.  No matter how many iterations of "dpkg -f" or wotever, I always wind up having to reinstall.

So it's gentoo for me.  I do notice that a lot of folks on the Gentoo boards seem to like Arch, though, so it's probably worth looking at.  And if you are satisfied with stable debian, deb's probably not bad either.

4

General Discussion / Sl-c1000 Portability

« on: May 26, 2007, 02:35:03 pm »

I have a cheapie Case Logic "case" which is just a sleeve with stretchy sides that clips onto my belt--actually works very well, although I wish the sides were just a bit looser, as occasionally they will press the power button while walking around and help drain the battery.  On the other hand, it works just fine.

Incidentally, if you like carrying your PDA in your shirt, the "5.11 Tactical Shirt" has a "napoleon pocket" behind its real pocket that not only fits the Zaurus just fine, but won't let it fall out when you lean over--and it carries the weight well enough that you don't look too lumpy.

Teeny bit spendy (about $50 USD), and you have to put up with ordering them from places that try to be entirely too manly (SO TACTICAL!  lol), but they really are good shirts--sturdy, lots of storage, vented, and a handy pen pocket on the left sleeve.

http://www.511tactical.com/index.asp?dlrID...=2&number=72157

I like their pants too, but they're just a wee bit too cargo-y for all the time (although they do carry a ton of stuff and don't look too bad doing so).  And if you do a lot of cable running and stuff, the hidden "removable kneepad pockets" may actually come in handy...

5

Off Topic forum / Objects Of Desire

« on: May 15, 2007, 04:26:24 pm »

Atari 2600 -- I wish I'd kept those cartridges!

Heh... I installed Stella just a bit ago and played through a bit of "Adventure" -- ah, the mighty block, armed with his golden arrow of dragonslaying... those were interesting times.  My wife, who never had access to an Atari, had NO IDEA what the possible appeal was (she's a more modern gamer, but at least she's a gamer, so I can't complain).

6

General Discussion / The Future Of User Interfaces

« on: May 02, 2007, 11:09:52 am »

Incidentally, I've been using a multitouch gesture-recognition pad (from the now-defunct Fingerworks) for a while and while it still functions as a single pointer, even the extra abilities from gesture recognition make it a really nice, intuitive tool (basics, like click, drag, scroll, etc, of course--but also things like cutting/pasting/zooming/lots of others are possible too).

But yes, it should be about NEW interfaces.  I'm STILL amazed that after years and years of mousing, no apps offer the possibilities of two mice, for example (really now--click your painting, then move the mouse over to the palette of buttons, then back... why not have two mice, one for buttons and one for action?  Same goes for real-time strategy games, for example).  So I'm pretty excited about new ideas as well, and the multitouch screen is a really neat idea.

7

Off Topic forum / Battlestar Game

« on: May 02, 2007, 11:05:59 am »

They did a great job.  Unfortunately (since I haven't watched the series) I can only say that if the pilots are as immature, undisciplined, and idiotic in the series as they are played in the game, it's a wonder the Cylons haven't destroyed all life by now.

I also evidently really, really, really suck at Freespace2-derived games.  Not sure why--I loved the old X-Wing/Tie space sims, but in Freespace2 I can't hit the broad side of a barn.

None of this detracts from a very well-done free game, though; worth a look.

8

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / One More Time: External Usb Keymappings For Oz?

« on: January 19, 2007, 03:01:49 pm »

We need people like you guys, with these peripherals, to test and pass along the settings so that they can be made to 'just work'.
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And to file bugs stating what doesn't work so that developers not reading this forum know what to fix.
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Well, I'd love to help, and am willing to install OE again to try different things, or hack entries in the keyboard driver and try them periodically or whatever; just tell me what to do!

9

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / Convert Kapi Database To Gpe Equivalent?

« on: January 18, 2007, 02:50:12 pm »

Okay, so Ko/pi and Ka/pi aren't yet ported to GPE.  I'd love to use GPE, but these two and opie-reader keep me with opie.

I used to really like Ko/pi and Ka/pi because of their sync ability with the equivalents in Windows, and I still treasure that, but until I can try and compile them for GPE, but I'd still like access to my data.  I would love to try getting kopi and kapi running on GPE, but I can't afford to be without access to my data--so an important middle step would be getting the data in the GPE tools' format.

Anyone managed that yet?  Any good first steps?

10

Angstrom & OpenZaurus / One More Time: External Usb Keymappings For Oz?

« on: January 18, 2007, 02:47:06 pm »

Sorry about this, but I've searched and seen several solutions, so I honestly just don't know what's the most current.

I'm trying to use a Fellowes Stowaway USB keyboard, but the mapping is wonky when I plug it in to OZ (3.5.4.1, I think; don't have it with me) on a C1000.  How do I fix it again?

11

New products and alternatives / Will The Iphone Replace The Zaurus?

« on: January 11, 2007, 11:21:49 am »

I'm way, way more interested in the OpenMoko phone...

12

Off Topic forum / Looking For Linux-compatible Mp3 Player

« on: November 06, 2006, 11:53:06 am »

Let me know how it works, that is one of the players that I have been lookig at. I'm finding it hard where it states if a player is compatibe to Linux or not.

In a word: AWESOME.

The key is to immediately ditch the stock firmware and install the H120 version of rockbox.  This is easy--you go through a brief flash to install modified bootloader firmware and then just drop the rockbox program on the disk, which appears under Linux as a mountable disk drive.  Boot up the player, wham, Rockbox.  (if you turn on the player while it's connected via USB, you get "usb mode" in which it just acts like a USB mass storage device).

From there, just drop your songs onto the disk however you want.  Here's why RockBox is better: you can browse either in filesystem mode OR you can initialize the tag cache, which will have RockBox scan your files and build up a database so that you can browse by genre, artist, album, track, date, most-listened, etc.  Since RockBox is doing all the work on the player side, it's OS-independent.

It's also, typical of many open-source projects, ludicrously over-featured (there are plugins for semi-useful things like on-screen sound level meters, audio metronome, etc... but also things like a gameboy emulator and Doom.  Yes, you can make your MP3 player play Doom on its little LCD screen.  Why would you do this?  Doesn't matter--you CAN, and that's the important part...).

Seriously, I'm very impressed with RockBox; I'd recommend it on any player it supports.  I like the H120 because it supports .ogg and some other formats (if you install RockBox on some players that only have hardwired MP3 decoders, that's all you get).

Anyway, that's my endorsement.  Good stuff!

13

Off Topic forum / Looking For Linux-compatible Mp3 Player

« on: October 31, 2006, 12:22:40 pm »

I just got an iRiver h120 off ebay reconditioned for about $100 actually--looks like a pretty good player; I'll throw rockbox on it and I'm pretty sure it'll work fine with Linux.

14

Software / Korgnanizer Pim / Kopi Still Alive?

« on: October 25, 2006, 07:38:38 pm »

I appreciate the enthusiasm, Chero, and yes, I'm still using Ko/Pi and Oz/Opie.  But I do believe that the future of OZ is in GPE, and Ko/Pi doesn't work there, so unless someone grabs the maintenance of it and figures out how to build the silly thing, its future is certainly limited, and having no active maintainer currently makes it an abandoned project--and that's never a good thing.

15

Software / Korgnanizer Pim / Kopi Still Alive?

« on: October 23, 2006, 09:16:53 am »

actually kopi and kapi data files can be used with other apps or imported into other standard linux pim apps.  Since gpe is X11, it might not be too hard to migrate your data to new pim software for GPE.
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True, blue, but the nice thing about ko/pi was that it really was (for the most part) platform independent and could fairly seamlessly sync between them--so keeping, say, addressbook data sorted between the zaurus, my desktop, and (most importantly) my wife's Windows computer was easy and "just worked", a luxury I didn't see in the GPE apps.