Re: one more nail to the coffin ?

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:22:09 +0100, Daniel James wrote:

In article news:<20071008100102.GB13918@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, David
Cantrell wrote:
On Sat, Oct 06, 2007 at 09:46:36AM -0500, Thomas P Brisco wrote:

Zaurus is probably a little more to my taste (any comments as to why
you didn't like it?)

The address book and calendar were rubbish, both with Sharp's software
and after I'd installed OpenZaurus. And there are very few
applications available for it that I care about. Unfortunately, the
weird windowing system means that the vast amount of free Unixy
software that you would think would be available on a Linux platform
just isn't.

Just chipping in here:
A PIM device with PIM applications you can't use is a disaster.

Heh. You guys got me re-thinking this a bit. I'm a loving slave to
Datebook6 -- one of the things that has kept a Palm in my satchel since
my Handspring days. I'd _hoped_ that something like korganizer or
evolution (not my favorite) would work on a palm-top distro that I'd like
to use; but maybe that's not to be. The N800 still looks good -- but I'm
wondering if I'm not going to have similar problems... (as the
OpenZaurus, I mean).

One of the first things I did with mine was to put in a 10minute dental
appointment ... and the Hansol calendar software created an entry 1/6 of
an hour high in the day-view, which was too small to read (and too small
to tap-on to see the details). That's absolutely typical of the way in
which the built-in PIM apps fail ... [...]

Do the same thing on a Palm and it creates a new full-height line in the
day view for that appointment, and another new full-height line for the
remaining 50 minutes of that hour.

Again; Datebook5/6 is what really hooked me. The flexibility of that
package is both what keeps me, and frustrates me. I can put down events
that "float" forwards - e.g. I need to pick up the laundry on wednesday
3PMish, but if it's thursday, or friday, no big deal (each day, the
"appointment" advances a day, reminding me at the same time - until
checked off, like a to-do item).

The above kind of event, though, when sync'd to most brain-dead
calendaring software is a nightmare. Ramming such things into
("pestilential") Windows calendaring is close, but I'm a linux user, and
getting things reliably into evolution (forget it) or korganizer
(possible) are problematic at best. Evolution likes to explode non-
trivial events, and put them back on your palm -- so a sync is out of the
question (go for overwrite). Kalendar, as I remember, was substantially
better, though.

Palm is intentionally simple and Just Works.

Agreed. Palm's interface is unsophisticated but it does most of what
most people want and any idiot can learn how to use it in 10 minutes.

You have to agree here. Palm's interface is about as an intuitive
approach as I've ever seen.

Palm's lack of applications, communications, and inability to
interact with something other than pestilential windows

Funny, it's the applications that are one of the things that keeps me
on Palm. Communications? My Treo talks GPRS, which is all I need.

Again, I agee with David. The Palm has /tons/ of applications, many of
which are excellent (and inexpensive). I have a tungsten not a Treo, but
I have all the communications ability I need via BlueTooth and my Nokia
phone. WiFi might be nice -- as would a browser that doesn't crash all
the time (and a screen large enough for to be worth using) -- but I can
collect my EMail just about anywhere in the world, which is what
matters.

Here, I'm going to break with you. I've a T5, and support talking to my
Samsung X820 is a nightmare. I strongly prefer different devices for
voice and PIM -- holding a brick of a blackberry or treo against my head
just seems ridiculous. If your phone isn't on Palm's aged list of
compatible sets - you're SOL. With some /bizarre/ machinations (which, I
pray to god, I never have to reproduce) I got the Palm to talk to the
phone over bluetooth as a DUN-looking device for EDGE access. SMS? -
forget it. Dial contact? - forget it. I looked at some for-pay packages
that mildly worked (dial contacts, no SMS - SMS on phones, even with T9,
is crippling). Sending contacts via BT is a bit wonky, but sending
things like photos and music works just fine.

When it comes to /tons/ of applications -- I've got to be honest and say
that I've not seen anything that isn't circa-2002 for the Palm OS
(excepting Datebk6). While I can understand that the OS hasn't change
significantly in years, other requests like "Pedit disappeared" (see
earlier posts from someone else) is disconcerting -- at least minor
updates for color support would be nice. In an open-source community-
driven environment, one looks for recent updates as a sign of active,
living software - instead of some binary that'll disappear forever with
the next server crash.

My Tungsten syncs just fine with kpilot on linux ... don't imagine that
Palm doesn't have linux interoperability just because it doesn't ship in
the box.

I have no end of headache with this kpilot/jpilot/gpilot. Kpilot is
passable, but the crippled USB support in Linux is annoying (time it
right and it works - I was using more of a hokey-pokey approach - push
left button, click kpilot's button, etc etc). Granted, this isn't really
Palm's issue - to me it's more of an artifact of a stale, abandoned
platform (Palm, I mean, not linux :)

Bizarre things in gpilot -- it doesn't seem to understand that I don't
need a full backup on every sync - you can turn that off, or on, but not
have it done once a week.

I'm using bluetooth for pretty reliable access to gpilot with PPP/BT, but
it's pretty dog-slow. Frankly, I sometimes think of getting the wireless
ethernet card (still ~$100?) -- but given my experience, I'm worried
about getting it to use WPA-PSK with 802.11g -- since both of them come
from this century.

Even if BT/DUN and/or 802.11G was workable -- the browser on the Palm is
laughable in terms of features supported (javascript?), and flakey as
hell to boot. I don't think there is an update to that thing since that
magic 2002 era. I've tried one or two of the other abandon-ware browsers
out there that have been suggested, and they're no better. I try and run
Opera(-mini?) on occasion, but that never seems to work reliably.

I, essentially, wind up with it doing not a lot more than managing my
calendar -- and I'm starting to question a $200 palm pilot vs. a $7.00
Manhattan diary planner. Syncing over bluetooth is a chore (my bedroom
is out of range of the underpowered BT1.0/1, so I've got to take it into
my office, and ...) that I've stopped updating Plucker. There's no
Vindigo agent for Linux, so ... Blazer is so old it barely talks to my
home appliances, if you could tolerate the BT1.0(or 1.1?) speeds of web
access and the pitiful rendering speeds.

Ignoring the phone part, what is it outside of being a gussied-up
calendar is that you use? I'm wondering if I really got took for my $200
(or whatever) while Palm let's it moulder on the sideline, while they try
and have the best blackberry clone.

- Tom
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