Messages

1

Software / Textmaker Review

« on: March 28, 2005, 07:48:44 pm »

TextMaker is a truly excellent word/document processor; I just posted a (belated) review on bargainPDA, with a fair number of screen shots and so on.

If you want the tool I used to make the GIF animations, I can post that too, but it's just a wrapper for imagemagic - it really takes the work out of manually rotating, GIFfing and combining all those BMPs!!

Best Regards
Ian.

2

General Discussion / Can A Plain Text Filename Define Access Rights?

« on: March 06, 2005, 04:14:06 pm »

I have found that if I call a file "qslamrpt.pl" on my SD card, I cannot read it through the Samba USB TCP/IP connection; I get "access denied". This happens to be on my SD card, which is formatted to ext3, although I'm not sure if this is relevant.

If I rename or copy the file to [so far] anything else, e.g. "qslam_report.pl", it works fine and I can edit it through the samba server as I normally do (using a Windows PC).

This sounds completely mad, but I have checked it several times. I don't know if it persists through a reboot  but I'll test it next time I have to reboot.

Can anyone explain what might cause this odd behaviour?

Thanks!
Ian.

3

Sharp ROMs / Ok, No More Major Issues In Cacko 1.22?

« on: January 22, 2005, 03:44:57 pm »

I can't find the hostap.conf file - where is the file please, and how do I work out what to put into it to ID my card?

Hi Ian,

the filename is hostap_cs.conf and it is located under /etc/pcmcia

If your card is reported as "Zcomax Xi-325H 200mW" it has the same manfid as many other cards (for example my D-Link 660W).

You can just edit the Zcomax entry....

OK... originally I posted here becase my card didn't seem to work at all, but  after reviewing all the posts I realised that I could probably make it work, even if the name was wrong...

So today I did two things:

First I made a small donation to Maslovsky (to ensure good karma), and then I tried cycling through all the settings and "hey presto!", I found some which work. They do look exactly like the ones I had before, so the donation must've helped

The SMC2642W card is still reported as a "Zcomaz XI-325h 200mW" but I don't really mind about that, as long as I'm online again. Here are the settings just in case they're non-standard:

Specific ESS-ID selected
ESS-ID = SMC    (...of course this will be different for yours)
Network Type = Infrastructure
WEP = 40-bit (64bit)
Hex entry for WEP Key1
Authentication: Open System

no other options set, IP and DNS automatic.

Anyway, it all works, Maslovsky rules and my Zaurus does everything I need it to again.  

Thanks,
Ian.

4

General Discussion / Better Late Than Never - C3000 Review

« on: January 18, 2005, 10:38:20 pm »

We just posted a review of the C3000 (4 GB HD Zaurus) on www.bargainPDA.com ... please point out any errors or omissions and I may be able to update it.

Zaurus SL-C3000 review

Usually the format of my [insanely huge] reviews get changed a lot but this is pretty much as I wrote it. I hope it is helpful to anyone considering the C3000; my intention is always to write the sort of review that would help me make up my own mind about a $700 device like that!

Best Regards
Ian Giblin.

5

Sharp ROMs / Ok, No More Major Issues In Cacko 1.22?

« on: January 13, 2005, 09:59:00 pm »

But, it looks like the hostap_cs.conf file only changes what is displayed on-screen, or I just don't know what's going on. I looked at the format and I deleted everything except the SMC 2642W (which was in there but had the "manfid" field commented out).

I'm going to have exactly this card soon for testing. After that I'll be able to either make it work and include an update in hotfix A or confirm that it doesn't work with hostap drivers meaning it won't be supported by Cacko ROM...

So, please, just wait a bit...

Of course - I am not holding my breath, The work you've done on these ROMs is amazing and has been a big boost to the community. I'm not trying to bug you :-)

The SMC 2642W card worked fine in Cacko 1.21 (+hotfixes) just before I upgraded... if you can't support it any more that's OK. I'll either upgrade by card or revert to 1.21, which was perfectly good really! I only wanted the new NetFront 3.1 with the cool extras because I'm reviewing the C3000 and I am getting jealous.

Regards
Ian.

6

Sharp ROMs / Ok, No More Major Issues In Cacko 1.22?

« on: January 12, 2005, 11:27:42 pm »

I can't find the hostap.conf file - where is the file please, and how do I work out what to put into it to ID my card?

Hi Ian,

the filename is hostap_cs.conf and it is located under /etc/pcmcia

If your card is reported as "Zcomax Xi-325H 200mW" it has the same manfid as many other cards (for example my D-Link 660W)....

Thanks for the reply, Jan.

But, it looks like the hostap_cs.conf file only changes what is displayed on-screen, or I just don't know what's going on. I looked at the format  and I deleted everything except the SMC 2642W (which was in there but had the "manfid" field commented out).

It still doesn't work - with my modified .conf file, the LED comes on on the card but stays on (while trying to detect it). It doesn't ever get to the point of being connected to the Zaurus (i.e. ejectable). At least when the C860 thought it was the Zcomax I could eject it cleanly, although I couldn't connect the the network.

Unfortunately I haven't got much time to play around (and do I really have to reboot it every time? I'm pretty clueless about this stuff...)

Thanks,
Ian.

7

Sharp ROMs / Ok, No More Major Issues In Cacko 1.22?

« on: January 11, 2005, 11:37:55 pm »

I have an SMC 2642W card - doesn't look like it's been mentioned here yet. The new ROM thinks it is that 200 mA one, "Zcomax Xi-325H 200mW" I think (sorry, I haven't got the card with me) and I can't get it working.

I can't find the hostap.conf file - where is the file please, and how do I work out what to put into it to ID my card?

Thanks
Ian.

8

Cxx0 General discussions / Zaurus good for "road coders"?

« on: September 15, 2004, 09:56:40 am »

I use my C860 for (in decreasing order) perl, C, C++ and bash scripts.

For my commute (New York - buses and subways) it's perfect because of the tiny footprint and instant on/off characteristics. The C860 is probably the single most empowering tech device I've ever owned. It is also good for email and web surfing in the various Wi-Fi locations in NYC, although I don't use it so much for that. I have developed some large perl programs (1000+ lines) and modified some large C programs, although as the source gets bigger you will notice a slowdown in the editors. My editor of choice is tkcEditor (make sure you get the Cx00 version) which has syntax colouring and so on. It's commercial software and you can get it from theKompany.com

You can install gcc with a pretty small footprint (about 7 MB) and perl is available in numerous variations from tiny to a big 30+ MB installation which I saw on the Zaurus Softwtare Index. There are some tweaks to get this stuff installed and running but they are very minor - just a few system variables etc - and I could even post them here. I'm not sure if the Zaurus GCC I use is still available on the net. Let me know if not and I'll post it somewhere.

Regards, Ian.

9

6000 - Tosa / Updates/corrections to my review of SL-6000?

« on: September 15, 2004, 09:39:05 am »

I will be updating my SL-6000 review in the next week or so, mainly to put it back into the original format with images inline and so on. It was all cut down by the web site editors to minimise bandwidth, but it didn't stop it getting slashdotted.

here is the bargainpda review

Anyone who has any comments on that review, or spotted any mistakes, please post them here. I know of a few errors which I will correct. One error is that I think I said it has IPSEC support in the networking, and it does not. Anything else like that?

I'm not just being lazy by asking this; I just want the review to be as accurate as possible  . I had to give back my SL-6000 after I finished the review.

Many thanks!
Ian.

10

Sharp ROMs / Aerlink card not working in Cacko ROM 1.21

« on: May 17, 2004, 11:15:50 pm »

Might be a serial_cs driver. Try to replace it with the one available for download at this site.

Thanks for the suggestion, Maslovsky... I looked at that but it looked too complicated for me, sorry. I have only a small amount of tie for hacking my Zaurus. I do appreciate your reply (and also the Cacko ROM, which is outstanding). Thanks.

I had a similar problem with Cacko ROM 1.21 / 1.21a on SL-C750 with a Pretec CompactModem 56k CF modem card  
and solved it by removing the following line in \"/etc/pcmcia/serial\":  

Hey... That is just about within my threshold. It looks like that fixed it - I will double check tomorrow. After commenting that line out, it gets as far as dialing the modem on the T610. Unfortunately there is no signal where I am but it looks very promising. Thank you very much, I was about to throw the phone into the junk drawer (I only bought it for that project, not really for talking).

I am very impressed, especially considering that was your first post :-). I only hope I can be as helpful to other people.

Regards,   Ian.

11

General Discussion / C860 (or 7XX0) Top (most favorite) apps

« on: May 13, 2004, 12:24:25 pm »

I use tkcEditor all the time to edit perl, which I then run using the Zaurus perl build from http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/ ... but I\'d love anyone to tell me of a better text editor which works on the Cacko ROMs and has syntax colouring and multiple file support (i.e. you can open more than one file at a time). I suppose another application on the list for me is QKonsole even if it does crash when you wake up the Z.

Using the C860 for perl coding makes it probably the single most useful (and already cost-effective) thing I\'ve ever owned - I basically salvage 1-2 hrs of commute time which would otherwise be almost wasted.

Ian.

12

Cxx0 General discussions / c860 original sharp software CD

« on: May 12, 2004, 04:59:53 pm »

I can put it on a server for you if you really need an original 860 CD. Send me a message (via the board - somewhere on the left) if you need this.  - Ian.

13

6000 - Tosa / Zaurus SL-6000 Monster Review on BargainPDA.com

« on: May 06, 2004, 10:22:02 am »

As far as I can tell the review is completely back up, although they are still linking the images rather than putting them all in-line the way I originally wrote it.  :roll:

Thanks for the comments and feedback.  - Ian.

14

6000 - Tosa / Zaurus SL-6000 Monster Review on BargainPDA.com

« on: May 05, 2004, 11:45:43 pm »

I don\'t mean to pick on Ian, but he got the dimensions all wrong. Cut and paste from the SL-6000 Start-up Guide:

Excluding the display protection cover (excluding protruding parts)
Approx. 79.8 (W) × 158 (D) × 20.4 (H) mm
Approx. 3.2 (W) × 6.2 (D) × 0.8 (H) inches

Including the display protection cover (excluding protruding parts)
Approx. 79.8 (W) × 158 (D) × 23 (H) mm
Approx. 3.2 (W) × 6.2 (D) × 0.9 (H) inches

Maybe he typed that part on the SL-6000 keyboard....

Ack! You\'re right - what happened was I actually had three manuals open next to me and I think I copied the numbers from the wrong one; probably the C860 (duh... should have noticed everything except the numbers were in JAPANESE!).

But there\'s always something which slips through my fingers...  :oops: but I can probably fix it before the review comes back from the dead (or whereever it went after it got slashdotted - hopefully not the Write Only Memory).

Don\'t worry about picking on me, I appreciate the feedback, er up to a point       --- Ian

15

6000 - Tosa / possible CF write problem on SL-6000

« on: April 26, 2004, 09:14:58 pm »

I have found that the SL-6000 I\'m testing here has a problem with ejecting a CF card before writing the directory, or something like that. I am using the \"proper\" eject feature, not just pulling the card out.

For example, when I take some screen shots using Fn-Shift-C, it takes the shot and the image appears in the Image browser, but when I eject the CF card it is not in the directory. If I run Windows 2000 Check Disk on it, I find the files in for form of FILE0000.CHK and so on. The files are complete but not the directory.

I\'ve tried this on two different CF cards; I\'d like to know if anyone else can reproduce the problem or has noticed it. Thanks! - Ian.