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Author Topic: What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?  (Read 12076 times)

Armagon

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« on: December 03, 2005, 09:57:25 am »
Greetings!

Being a newbie (with tons of information to absorb), I'd like to learn from your mistakes and triumphs:
  • What do you wish you'd known as a newbie?  
  • What do you wish you'd done or hadn't done?  
  • What pitfalls lurk for the unwary, and what treasures await the keen?
  • If you could go back in time and speak to your former self, what would you tell him/her (aside from the winning lottery number   )?
Newbies like myself are dying to learn from you!

Armagon
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ev1l

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2005, 12:29:22 pm »
- Don't bother with the standard ROM, or PIM apps. As an extension of that, I wish I'd have been aware of just how shitty they were before I bought the Z.
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Da_Blitz

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« Reply #2 on: December 05, 2005, 06:19:35 am »
What i need to learn, And where to find it, Plus what order to learn it in so it makes sense

ie learning somthing like the flags for pppd before knowing what the command line is.
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craigtyson

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« Reply #3 on: December 05, 2005, 07:14:17 am »
Once you have got what you want and where all setup.........

BACK IT UP
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Craig
SL-C1000, Angstrom GPE 2007.12r13
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gr8ful

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« Reply #4 on: December 05, 2005, 09:42:02 am »
Quote
Greetings!

Being a newbie (with tons of information to absorb), I'd like to learn from your mistakes and triumphs:
  • What do you wish you'd known as a newbie? 
  • What do you wish you'd done or hadn't done? 
  • What pitfalls lurk for the unwary, and what treasures await the keen?
  • If you could go back in time and speak to your former self, what would you tell him/her (aside from the winning lottery number   )?
Newbies like myself are dying to learn from you!

Armagon
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=105885\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

1. ...wish you'd known...
~  How to properly backup/restore user data when upgrading a ROM or switching between ROMs.
~  Better understanding of the Linux OS and how to navigate around, Linux commands, etc
~  VI editor

2.  ...wish you'd done or hadn't...
~  Taken a week or so and try every ROM and then pick a favorite

3.  ...pitfalls...treasures...
~  Be careful in the service menus, can easily brick a Z
~  Treasure - ability to easily create your own code

4.  ...go back in time...
~  Be patient, especially if you are coming from the Palm OS world where you have little to no access to the OS level.  The Z and Linux allow you a lot of opportunity to tweak and fine tune that other platforms do not.  Take the time to learn what's going on behind the scenes and you'll have a more enjoyable user experience.
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bluedevils

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« Reply #5 on: December 05, 2005, 10:14:46 am »
When I first got my 5500, I wish I had known that sandisk SD cards were not compatible with the stock rom.  Eventually there was a fix for this, but it was frustrating at that time.  I myself now stay away from sandisk (except the ultras)

When buying new hardware for the Z, make sure it is compatible before hand.  There are enough people here to give a concensus of what works and what doesn't.
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lardman

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« Reply #6 on: December 05, 2005, 10:15:39 am »
* When asking question about anything, state the device & 'ROM' version & program version if possible.

* If a program doesn't run, try it from the command line and post whatever it gives as output in addition to anything else you have.


Si
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Greg2

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« Reply #7 on: December 05, 2005, 10:34:22 am »
Quote
* When asking question about anything, state the device & 'ROM' version & program version if possible.

* If a program doesn't run, try it from the command line and post whatever it gives as output in addition to anything else you have.
I believe this is the best advice here for a newbie... or 'anyone' that doesn't already do that.  

Greg
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koen

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« Reply #8 on: December 05, 2005, 10:36:06 am »
Quote
3.  ...pitfalls...treasures...
~  Be careful in the service menus, can easily brick a Z

Actually, you can't brick a Z. You can only really brick StrongArm based zaurusses, all xscale models have a rescue image in a real ROM chip, which you can only break by either using a hammer or a large EMP (which would probably kill every device in your neighbourhood as well)
« Last Edit: December 05, 2005, 11:05:04 am by koen »
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craigtyson

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« Reply #9 on: December 05, 2005, 10:44:22 am »
Quote from: koen,Dec 5 2005, 03:36 PM
Quote from: gr8ful,Dec 5 2005, 02:42 PM

3.  ...pitfalls...treasures...
~  Be careful in the service menus, can easily brick a Z

Actually, you can't brick a Z. You can only really brick StrongArm based zaurusses, all xscale models have a rescue image in a real ROM chip, which you can only break by either using a hammer or a large EMP (which would probably kill every device in your neighbourhood as well)
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=106101\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Speaking of EMP..........

Dont leave your Z in your car hooked up to the speakers when its going to have some welding done........

:-(
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Craig
SL-C1000, Angstrom GPE 2007.12r13
Ambicom WL1100C, SanDisk UltraII 1GB SD
 
Old Faithfull - SL-5500 battery out of the C750 (see below) TKC v1 (New) 1GB SD
Dead - SL-C750, Cacko 1.23 lite (Dropped, very messy!)
Ambicom WL1100C, SanDisk Dead - 1GB SD
Keep your Z on a bungee, you never know.....

Armagon

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« Reply #10 on: December 06, 2005, 12:35:30 am »
Quote
Speaking of EMP..........

Dont leave your Z in your car hooked up to the speakers when its going to have some welding done........

:-(
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=106103\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]
What a vivid, horrific image -- say it didn't really happen.  Oh, man.

Armagon
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bam

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« Reply #11 on: December 06, 2005, 12:45:20 am »
run the program from commandline, debug dealie.
backup
Take Notes, lots of them
backup
no vim, pico(its easier)
did I say backup?
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ThirtyOne

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What Do You Wish You'd Known As A Newbie?
« Reply #12 on: December 06, 2005, 07:40:56 am »
I wish I had set up python as my preferred native development environment earlier.  While there is a performance penalty on my SL-5500, I find python is the best fit for the device and works on both sharp-based and pdaxrom (I am not sure about OZ/OPIE).  I wasted a lot of time trying to get java, C++, and other things to work well.
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Hrw

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« Reply #13 on: December 06, 2005, 10:48:45 am »
OZ contain python
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cesarcardoso

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« Reply #14 on: December 06, 2005, 11:19:48 am »
I REALLY wished I had learnt earlier the marvels of Unison to backup my Z
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