Totally wired.

[reddragdiva]

Having beaten it round a bit, I've brought the Palm to greater usefulness. This is posted from Handhelj, Web Pro 3 is on and usable, TCPMP plays all known formats and there's a keyboard for when Graffiti 2 gets all too much. Minus point: PalmOS has no multitasking, so no music while playing cards on the Tube.

Arkady has discovered Second Life. I may never see her again.

Comments

[daneel-olivaw.livejournal.com]

PalmOS has no multitasking

This is a lie. RealPlayer on my T3 will happily play MP3s in the background whilst other apps are running in the foreground. Only at 48kbps mind, but through average headphones on a tube you'll not notice that.

Chews batteries like a silly thing mind.

[reddragdiva]

O rly? It lacks multi-something, which is why VLC isn't ported to it and why Minimo is apparently remarkably difficult to port to it.

I shall try RealPlayer for it as well.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

It doesn't have real pre-emptive multi-tasking, but there are AIUI ugly ways for apps like RealPlayer to cheat.

[reddragdiva]

That'll be the one - the apps have to do the work any reasonable OS would be expected to do, so VLC don't bother porting and the Minimo devs consider it a problem for someone who cares, preferably someone who will pay a developer to do so, i.e. no-one at this late stage of the game.

[reddragdiva]

RealPlayer works a bewdy! Once I went through ridiculous contortions to extricate the .prc files from the Windows InstallShield binary, with the devastating one-two knockout of Wine and UnShield. Eegh.

Except it doesn't seem to have an option to ignore the auto poweroff and just keep playing as TCPMP does. Bah!

And the C is mono only. And the 2.5mm socket is actually a proprietary Palm horror, which I can buy a converter including microphone for from Expansys for ten quid, which puts it out to a split-mono 3.5mm socket. I see that every review from 2003 said "almost the perfect PDA except the sound system." Bah!

[daneel-olivaw.livejournal.com]

Did I mention that I have a T3 (with 3.5mm jack) that has a functioning (probably) screen and non-functioning everything else, that I want rid of for the price of a few beers? Oh, I did already...

[reddragdiva]

:-) I shall see about gathering more of your dead gadgets when we're safely moved in a few weeks ...

[barakta]

Everytime I read 'handhelj' I assume that is one of those 'handwriting recognition errors'.

What's the basic battery life like on your palm, as most modern PDA things suck in that respect.

[reddragdiva]

Seems to have lasted workably around the house, even using it mostly for wifi, and it charges pretty fast on the cradle. Haven't timed it out in the world yet.

[barakta]

Cool. My partner has an XDA Exec thing, she got it dirt cheap a year ago cos of a 'mistake' in O2's catalogue... It barely does 4 hours on 'low use', and might do 3 in constant actual use. I keep trying to persuade her to build a batterypack bolt-on as it /will/ come in use.

In contrast my Palm IIICs do 15.5 hours on the thrash-the-battery-o-matic application, which equates to a few weeks of use at the rate I use them for reading in bed or on journeys. I only just charged them up from my new year trip yesterday.

[reddragdiva]

It's not really comparable IMO - I have a TRG Pro (a Palm III clone) and the battery lasts for weeks, but it's never going to have colour, web browsing, wifi or music/video playing. People want 'l33t overpowered machines, and running only a few hours is the price. It's annoying because I remember how cool it was that a Palm could run for weeks on its batteries.

[barakta]

I guess it depends what you want the machine for. I use the IIIC as an electronic book effectively which is why battery life is vital. Means I don't have to carry the charger when I visit friends.

If I want a web browser I'll use a PC, music an MP3 player and a phone can be a phone. Integrated wossnames seem to have the worst features of everything they try to be. I also suspect that people don't 'expect' decent battery life, so the manufacturers don't give a monkeys. It's a bit like laptops - I wonder when people will catch onto the idea of using CF or similar flash memory to get uber battery life out of them.

I believe the XDA's problem is software and poor power management as much as anything. The model after it is much more respectable. Shame as it has the nicest keyboard of a PDA I've seen in ages, and I'm REALLY picky about keyboards.

[reddragdiva]

I may repurpose my TRG Pro as a robust long-life book reader. Its big selling point in the Palm III era was that it took CompactFlash cards, so if you want just plain text it utterly, utterly WINS.

Expectations are great. With Windows CE, you can have an MP3 player that crashes! If the "$100 laptop" plan involves first-world people being able to buy one at a suitable premium, expect expectations to go way up.

[redcountess]

There are battery tweak apps out there (I installed one on the TRGPro), there's probably one for the XDA.

[barakta]

I think it's a firmware issue as well, and a lot of the development stopped when the successor came out and people started developing for that. She does need to go and look, knobble the firmware and see what she can find - but tuits ;)

[baljemmett.livejournal.com]

Yep, this is why I still use a Psion Siena as my pocket machine -- it has an agenda for appointments, a spreadsheet to keep my mileage records in, a word processor for random note taking and a few games. No connectivity worth speaking of, no backlight, and no multimedia, but on the other hand I changed the batteries last week and discovered the previous set had lasted three months.

Maybe one day I'll upgrade to a Series 5 or Series 7, but they probably need more than one set of batteries a month. Bah.

[paulsoth.livejournal.com]

Arkady has discovered Second Life. I may never see her again.

Ah, but once she finds the drama or the multi-colored winged wolfmen with the twelve inch cocks, she'll be back.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Only twelve inches? Pah. There are much scarier things on furry MUDs. And on FurBid.

I must admit it's a bizarre feeling being introduced at a sex club, and finding yourself staring at the wares - trying to choose which model of cock to buy for your male avatar, and reading about models with full ejactuating, peeing and crapping ability with optional genital piercings....

[reddragdiva]

Yes, but did you stick a blue one to your head, as officially approved for DeathBoy fans?

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Uh, no....

[secretlondon.livejournal.com]

Second Life - oh no - dooomed!