Computer Ease
(archived) Technology News
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Computer Ease
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This page documents random thoughts, observations, reviews, criticisms, rants,
anecdotes, tips, tricks, and discoveries by Blake
Nancarrow. The notes here pertain specifically to information technology. They are
dated and arranged in reverse-order, the newest items at the top. 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | the '90s
Index of Postings
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26 Dec 2003 - resume timerSome time ago, I started programming in 32-bit OPL (Psion's built-in interpreted language) on my Ericsson palmtop, so to build a 4-car racing timer. For many years I have used D.C. Roennau's excellent Stop Watch application but it unfortunately can only record 1 car and up to 20 laps. I got so far in development as to complete the raw timing logic and capture hundreds of lap times for 4 cars. Then I shelved the project... Over the holidays, I packed all my OPL books and notes, determined to reignite my work. I designed and programmed the main screen.
Now I just need to write the file-generation logic and I should be ready to then tie all the pieces together. It will represent my first, complete, menu-driven, touch-screen, full Psion OPL application! back to top 11 Dec 2003 - lots of spamIt is estimated that more than 50% of e-mail traffic on the internet is spam. AOL says it blocks 2.4 billion spams a day. - source: Yahoo!News / Reuters back to top 13 Nov 2003 - new Netscape 7.1Recently downloaded and installed Netscape 7.1 (128-bit version to make my bank happy) onto my Windows 98 box. I like the ability to put multiple web sites onto separate tabs inside the browser... As I tend to leave my computers on continuously and keep the internet connection up constantly, over time, I'll have 10 or 15 or 20 different web sites up. This tabbed environment is going unclutter my windows... This latest offering from Netscape feels fast. This is not empirical but the rendering looks faster. back to top 10 Nov 2003 - new direction with Notes DominoI began my studies of Lotus Notes database development. I am receiving private tutorials, working from written materials provided, and practicing building databases. I think my computer programming and RBDMS background lends itself to this. As well, my interest in web technology including HTML, XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript will prove useful. Let's see where this goes... back to top 23 Oct 2003 - expansys comes to NAReceived the following email...
Yeh: reduced shipping costs! Visit http://www.expansys.us/ for more info. back to top 21 Oct 2003 - Office StatsMS Office runs on 94% of desktop PCs in the workplace, reaching 400 million users globally. Source: The Globe and Mail newspaper/site. back to top 15 Oct 2003 - Stats CDNI learned that 7% of Canadians use a PDA and 60% have a PC. These are estimates from Palm quoted in The Globe and Mail newspaper/site. back to top 13 Sep 2003 - More AnimationI started using MSN's instant messenger version 6 at work. And I installed the newest version (2.0 beta) of Trillian at home. They have more new icons many of which are animated. So I'll be updating the emoticons list soon... back to top 7 Sep 2003 - Media CheckI received a Digital8 video tape today (of me racing at Mosport, woo hoo!). This is a new format which I don't have any others of. Which is thusly some new storage media in my life. Which reminded me that it's been a long time since I've done a "media check." We have a lot of different media (and the necessary "readers") in our lives. Think about it... I have:
I'm sure I've forgotten a couple... Updates:
back to top 1 Sep 2003 - FateWas I tempting fate? It had occurred to me, over the course of 6 to 12 months, that I didn't have an extra EPOC palmtop as I considered that my Ericsson MC 218 was working well. And that it had been a long time.... Blam, on Sun 10 Aug, the ribbon cable broke! And it went quickly--usually you have a week or so of limited use of your screen until the cable completely lets go. I had but one day! Still, I sprang into action with a multi-pronged attack! having it repaired I considered calling Ericsson Canada to see if they could help. Never followed up on that... I looked into UK and US repair depots. I contacted an acquaintance at Psion/Teklogix (in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) to see if they might be able to help. He said they could try. Never followed up on that... Called Shiva of Palmtop Support Services (in Toronto, Ontario, Centre-of-the-Universe) and asked if he specifically repaired the ribbon cable only as opposed to swapping an entire (good) screen--he did, for US$160. I dropped off the machine on Thursday, we experienced the biggest blackout (see powerless) in history, and I had my tuned Ericsson back by Tuesday. repairing it myself I reviewed my blog and contacted SRS. They had the LCD screen ribbon cable available for purchase for EUR 55. So I obtained my first ever money order for Euros, sent it off, and a short time (and more dollars for duty, CDN$18) later the ribbon cable showed up. I'm looking forward to repairing my old functional Psion Series 5mx with busted screen cable so that I will have a backup machine. Except I need to learn how to solder properly... purchasing new Looked for machines at the usual sources, really hoping for an Ericsson. From expansys, they had 30 to 40 new Psion 5mx in stock for sale for £299. I checked Psion USA and they had machines available for US$449. I really wanted an Ericsson! I'm still not sure why exactly... It's blue? purchasing used So I searched on eBay and there were lots (of used ones)! I missed an auction closing by a couple of hours and could have had a machine for very cheap; I did not make that mistake a second time--I bought a used MC 218 for US$82. So my "backup" machine is sitting in the closet, sleeping... accessing EPOC data without an EPOC device When I couldn't see the screen, I immediately thought "I need the emulator!" I have an old version of the Psion EPOC emulator on my Windows 95 machine but I couldn't run it (long story). I had a slightly more recent copy of the emulator on my Windows 98 machine--I transferred critical files (like my calendar, people database, a handful of Word documents) so I could work. I also needed a copy of the emulator at the office, on the laptop. I searched high and low before finding it! Ha, now I can't find the link... It was either at Symbian or Teklogix... No matter, I have a copy of the Symbian OS System Development Kit (SDK) v5 if you are having a hard time tracking it down... back to top 28 Jul 2003 - RenewedI renewed the computer-ease.com domain name for another 3 years. So you're stuck with me for a while yet... back to top 10 Jul 2003 - Old 'n TinyNeed an old browser for testing purposes? The Countess found Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows back to version 2 at the University of Victoria. Have fun! http://helpdesk.uvic.ca/how-to/support/win95/msiexpl.html They also have Mac versions... Wow. I just found Netscape Navigator there, back to version 1.22! Funny/sad observation: the oldest browser is less than 2MB; the latest, more than 75MB... back to top 8 Jul 2003 - Bookmark Anti-ChaosIn the real world (now would that be inside or outside The Matrix...?) I do not have enough bookmarks. On my computers, I have way too many. I bookmark in Netescape (or add to my favourites in MS Internet Exploder) everything! Probably a bad habit. But if I find something interesting and I think I'll need, if I find something involved that I don't have time to fully explore now, if I find something after a protracted search, then I want it stored for future reference. The problem now is that I have a ton of web site bookmarks in my Netscape on my Windows 95 box, favourites in IE there too, a ton of favs in IE on my Win98 box, and... well... it's getting messy. Or I can't find them. Or I can't remember which machine it's on. So today I wandered into TUCOWS and take a peek. And once again, I come to the conclusion that... I love shareware!Not only do I find a category called bookmark utilities but I find several highly rated products. I download and install the promising Compass 2.83. I import all my IE favourites (I do detest the MS IE favourite dialog manager mess). And I'm immediately blown away! I can drag-n-drop into and out of it and within it, it's easy to use, the searching is super-smart, it ultimately saves everything as an HTML file, it supports multiple browsers, it supports searchable descriptions (like Netscape), it has auto-saving, etc. These are my discoveries after 5 minutes! While it doesn't look it will do "shortcuts" or aliases in other folders, the powerful searching should make up for it. Looks like I'll be buying some more excellent shareware soon... And keeping track of a few thousand web sites with ease... back to top 4 Jul 2003 - kartooWho? Was bored. Had some time to kill. Had web access. Thought: I need a new web site. Started to snoop in http://www.webbyawards.com for an interesting new site but tired of that quickly. Somehow I stumbled across Time magazine's web and their top-50 pick list. There are some very interesting selections there... My favourite? It represents a brilliant, powerful, visual way to (meta) search the web... back to top 10 Jun 2003 - IronyTested my web site yesterday in Netscape 7.0 for Windows. Slick looking product. And, when viewing this IT news page, I discovered the "back to top" links don't work. Every other browser I've tested it works fine on... Turns out that I'm missing the "top" named anchor bookmark tag—oops! It is very interesting that Netscape 7.0 highlights this... I remember hearing people pan recent Netscape versions, saying it was buggy and their web sites didn't work anymore. True bugs in the software notwithstanding, the reason their sites started acting wobbly was because of bugs IN THEIR SITE! They used bad HTML code that old, "improper," poorly deployed browsers tolerated, misinterpreted, or ignored. Netscape's browser is getting better and better all the time. (So are the other browsers.) Netscape is clearly trying to make a product that adhere's to the World Wide Web Consortium's standards for web technology. Isn't it time you ensure that your site uses HTML properly? back to top 5 Jun 2003 - Ribbon Repair 2I heard (on PEAT) of someone buying a replacement LCD ribbon cable for their Psion 5mx. If this is true, then it means we can keep our wonderful machines alive for a long time! I did a search for "Neo" in the PsionWelt site. There's an article (in German) here from mid-May that shows a ribbon cable and describes the repair. While in PsionWelt, I noticed an ad for Schubert & Roth Service (SRS) GmbH, in Germany. They are a Psion repair centre and they're offering to repair your Psion or sell the cable as a separate item. back to top 3 Jun 2003 - Expansys has 5mx'sExpansys in the UK has a limited supply of refurbished Psion Series 5mx's (in a value pack) at approx. £ 310. This is a great price. Hurry! back to top 7 May 2003 - Trilly Pro emoticonsI've updated my web site of instant messenger emoticons to include additional static and animated icons for Trillian Pro 1.0. back to top 11 Apr 2003 - CSS master list found!
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| times | transfer rates |
|---|---|
| x | per sec |
| 1 | 150KB |
| 4 | 600KB |
| 12 | 1.8MB |
| 24 | 3.6MB |
Some premium cards come with "lifetime" warranties...
A quick peek at the Radio Shack (Canada) web site shows they have some CF products. E.g. Lexar 256MB CF for CDN$220.
To learn more about CF technology, be sure to visit the CompactFlash Association or CFA at http://compactflash.org/.
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I clued in that I was using the wrong method for sizing fonts on this web site. Oops! Sheesh, and I teach the stuff too. CSS permits sizing by points, which is appropriate for print media; it also allows pixels. So I have corrected this web site's external Cascading Style Sheet to use pixels for font size.
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Snooped around for Psions (Series 5mx) and Ericssons (MC 218). I'm concerned that when my Ericsson breaks or dies then I will be without a machine.
I checked Clove Technology and Proporta but they do not have these specific machines for sale.
I tried New World Technology. They are now Handango. They have the Nokia 9290 but no Psions or Ericssons.
I revisited Expansys where I bought my current Ericsson unit (at an awesome price). They have archival pages, for reference purposes, for this machine and bundles. But it is noted as discontinued.
Finally, I surfed into Psion USA. It looks like this is the only place in North America where you can buy a Series 5mx (online). They are US$450.
Maybe it's time to buy a "backup" machine...
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After a long time, talked to my good buddy Gerry. We talked about Psion. He caressed my Ericsson MC 218 in a most inappropriate way! I was surprised to see his "organizer" is presently a little tiny coil notepad and a little tiny pencil...
His is missing his old Psion.
He has three out-of-service palmtop computers. The last unit's screen ribbon cable broke. Again. Damn.
I mentioned to him that I recall hearing about a ribbon cable fix! It might be performed by Shiva of PSS. Yahoo. Gerry and I are researching this. I'll try to report our findings soon...
[updated on 5 Jun 2003]
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