<strong>If you're not going to get a Newton [...]</strong><hr></blockquote>
I knew it was coming. I'm just surprised it took so long...
[quote]<strong>I personally like the Danger Hiptop more than either of the other two offerings. It does help, though, if you're in their coverage area.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I like the Hiptop, it's an interesting device, but it's definitely a communicator above all else.
Must be the battle for second in the PDA/handheld computer world.
If you're not going to get a Newton, I personally like the Danger Hiptop more than either of the other two offerings. It does help, though, if you're in their coverage area.
Fran, I'm afraid the e740 is an adequate replacement for the newt. :eek: I know I shouldn't say that, but it's pretty damn good. It doesn't work for some people, but it's filled a hole where my newt 2100 used to be. And it's smaller with a color screen and decent HWR. Not breath-taking or revolutionary (both of which the newt was), but good enough. Too bad it's not from Apple so I don't have to use VPC to use it.
Certainly, to issue voice commands and small discrete speech notes, the technology is there, people would want a really good natural dictation system, and I'm not sure anyone can really provide one. Too many outliers in the language game for current technology (even on the desktop)like people with accents or speech impediments. I remember trying out dictation (Dragon and IBM) for accessibility testing. Better than nothing, but not that great. Too many mistakes, and you have to imput punctuation. But even if that were perfect, it's still a pain listening to yourself compose. I hated it, couldn't get anything really going, and had to revert to typing to do anything useful. It's just wierd and not like writing at all.
Still, even without natural speech dictation, an eminently usable notation device is within our grasp. That DSP could convert speech to any number of compressed music formats, like MP3. Now if the PDA had a facility to automatically organize voice notes chronologically and then to let you give them a very extensive tag with brief notes, keywords and cross references to other notes, all automatically dropped into a nice database for your perusal, I think that makes a pretty useful tool. You could drop older files to your PC and archive them, burn them to disc, what have you. Perhaps even a way to do the voice transcription after the fact, either on the PDA or on your desktop machine, where you can correct it as it goes.
I can see that working. Although part of the appeal of a PDA is being able to compose text instantly, for most purposes, other than immediate e-mails, conversion after the fact would be fine.
On my old Visor, as I entered text I'd have to correct as I Graffiti'd, letter by letter. It was incredibly frustrating. Dictating a note, then proof-reading and correcting later would be fine. I do exactly the same thing now with my flesh and bones assistant.
Speech recognition has also come a long way in the last couple of years. I saw a demonstration of a system similar to predictive text input on a cell phone, where sounds would be matched to a dictionary, and unclear vowel sounds and stops would be guessed based upon the sound before. It seemed to work pretty well.
An interesting aside:
The name of the element tungsten is derived from the Swedish "tung sten," meaning "heavy stone."
Perhaps Apple should have thought of that for the Newton.
Belle: Any progress on your shopping decision? If you're still pondering your options, there's a thread on MacNN with (almost) exactly the same topic as this one: <a href="http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129541"; target="_blank">Palm Tungsten vs Pocket PC</a>.
I love the new iBooks. But I'd love them even more if they were half the weight!
<strong>Belle: Any progress on your shopping decision? If you're still pondering your options, there's a thread on MacNN with (almost) exactly the same topic as this one: <a href="http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129541"; target="_blank">Palm Tungsten vs Pocket PC</a>.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thank you for the link, Escher. I've not made a decision yet, but it looks like I might be able to get demo units to try out. It may eventually come down to software. I need to be able to write up stuff and post it straight into a database sitting on my server. I'm not entirely certain as yet the best way to go about doing this.
[quote]<strong>I love the new iBooks. But I'd love them even more if they were half the weight!</strong><hr></blockquote>
They are nice, as is the PowerBook update. I was kind of hoping the unruly speculation about a smaller PowerBook was true. Not all "power users" need all that screen space.
Well, Ms Belle, I bit the proverbial bullet (because I found that I hate paper and pen more than the Palm OS) and purchased a Palm m515.
I also got Docs to Go and Pocket Quicken. Well, Ma'am, it's not as bad as I thought that it was going to be, it covers what this engineer needs. I've got spreadsheet and document exchange between Appleworks on my Rev.A ibook at home, my new Palm where ever I am, and my idiot Windows machine at work (as long as I don't try any formating gymnastics).
I'm glad at least one of us isn't so pernickety, Sir.
Did you get a good deal on the m515? Have prices come down since the Tungsten T appeared?
I think I'm going to go with the iPaq H5450 for just now. It'll be available within the next couple of weeks. I've tried Palm, and didn't like it much, so I'll give Pocket PC a go. It's got built-in Bluetooth and WiFi, as well as IrDA to talk to my ageing cell phone. (Until I decide on a new Bluetooth model.)
I've already resigned myself to the fact I'll probably either have gotten fed up with it by Christmas, or will replace it a few months later when new models appear, and Palm OS 6 emerges.
<strong>I think I'm going to go with the iPaq H5450 for just now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's got to be nice to be a platform agnostic, Belle. Sometimes I really think that my strong belief in the Mac platform holds me back. Is there a lot of choice for folding keyboards on the WinCE platform? Or do they all use different connectors?
BTW: My brother-in-law's visit last weekend was uneventful in technological terms. He had a couple of demo units, with color screens and direct web access, but nothing that you couldn't buy in a store. Only difference was that he got them for free and didn't have to bother with pay-through-the-nose data and voice plans. Since he's not a computer geek like us, he didn't know anything about synchronization options. It was great having his company nonetheless.
It's got to be nice to be a platform agnostic, Belle. Sometimes I really think that my strong belief in the Mac platform holds me back. Is there a lot of choice for folding keyboards on the WinCE platform? Or do they all use different connectors?
</strong><hr></blockquote>
They pretty much all have different connectors, but there are several infrared ones that work with most brands. The one I've been looking at is <a href="http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog_name=CTLG&category_name=CT LG%5F003%5F008%5F002%5F000&product%5Fid=25%2D969" target="_blank">this one</a>.
As far as platform loyalty goes... I'm as platform loyal as a person can get, but when it gets down to it, I need the tools to do the job right. Palms just don't do it for me.
<strong>It's got to be nice to be a platform agnostic, Belle. Sometimes I really think that my strong belief in the Mac platform holds me back.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I feel this is somewhere Apple could really score. I hope it's sinking a small fortune into developing iSync to ensure compatibility with as many PDAs and cell phones as possible. The hassle involved with matching up PDAs, sync software, apps, along with backing up and uploading apps, is just such a huge pain in the ass.
[quote]<strong>Is there a lot of choice for folding keyboards on the WinCE platform? Or do they all use different connectors?</strong><hr></blockquote>
As torifile says, there are a few infrared keyboards that work with most PDAs. The <a href="http://www.pocketop.net/"; target="_blank">Pocketop</a> looks nice. The <a href="http://www.thinkoutside.com/"; target="_blank">Stowaway</a> is also available for Pocket PC, though not the XT. I'm sure it'll be available sooner rather than later, though.
I know a couple of engineer guys (as an engineer, I'm lucky to have a social circle at all) at a pharmaceutical manufacturer here in Indianapolis. Their awesome company gave them ipaqs connected wirelessly to their intranet. They love 'em, and don't mind resetting them four times (on average) per day.
There's a lot of engineers who run around and need portable-display-connectivity away from their desks who need dependable functionality and would snap up a cool iTablet. Apple, where in the hell are you?
<strong>I know a couple of engineer guys (as an engineer, I'm lucky to have a social circle at all) at a pharmaceutical manufacturer here in Indianapolis. Their awesome company gave them ipaqs connected wirelessly to their intranet. They love 'em, and don't mind resetting them four times (on average) per day.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Dammit, Aries 1B, I was pretty much decided on the iPaq, then you have to go and mention this.
I had to reset my Visor once. And that was when I was doing a full reset to delete data when I finally decided to give it up.
Dammit, Aries 1B, I was pretty much decided on the iPaq, then you have to go and mention this.
I had to reset my Visor once. And that was when I was doing a full reset to delete data when I finally decided to give it up. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't think he was referring to a hard reset, but just a soft one. A reboot of the machine. You remember what those are, right? Way back in the OS 9 days we had to do it regularly.
<strong>I don't think he was referring to a hard reset, but just a soft one. A reboot of the machine. You remember what those are, right? Way back in the OS 9 days we had to do it regularly. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Heh, strange thing is that I reset my Mac just about as often as I used to have to reset it when I used OS 9: Other than the occasional horrendous IE5 rebuild your hard disk crash, the only time I had to reboot was when installing stuff, and that situation hasn't improved all that much. Damn that little arrow in Software Update.
It really, really matters what you want to do with the device.
For me personally, I tend to use a PDA for three reasons:
1) Calendar/Agenda
2) E-Mail on the go
3) E-Books
1) There's no better PIM application than iambic's Agendus right now. Hands down: I've been using iambic ActionNames back in the times when I had a Newton. It's evolved, easy to use and has the perfect view for your appointments. So I use a Palm OS device, as iambic only does it for Palm OS devices.
2) Eudora's free Internet package has a nice webbrowser (textonly) and - more important - the perfect little E-Mail app. I only use my main account on there, but it has support for more than one account. In combination with my GRPS phone, that's just dandy.
3) E-Books. I love to read. And Sony's 320*320 resolution is just the best you'll get for reading on a small screen, as it effectively doubles the resoulution of a Palm device nicely. The new Palm devices will be 320*320, too, so this is the way to go for me. I'm using a Sony Clié PEG-425 (that's the 415 for the US market) right now. It's the thinnest and sexiest Palm device I've ever seen. If I would pay battery life for a colour screen, I'd have bought the PEG-675C (that's the 665 for the US market), but as all of my needs from a PDA DON'T require colour, I rather have more battery life.
<strong>It's the thinnest and sexiest Palm device I've ever seen. If I would pay battery life for a colour screen, I'd have bought the PEG-675C (that's the 665 for the US market), but as all of my needs from a PDA DON'T require colour, I rather have more battery life.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It does look good. It kind of bugs me that for my purposes, a monochrome (or grayscale) display would suit just fine, and I'd prefer it for battery life, but if you want other high end options like Bluetooth and 802.11, you have to go color.
As far as ideal handhelds go, does anyone have a picture of the translator used by the communications officer in "Enterprise"? That looks just about ideal in size to me.
I tried to find a picture on the internet, but Google took me to all sorts of really scary Trek places. :eek:
It actually impresses me, when I get over the fear. I mean the amount of knowledge accumulated about a fictional universe. Languages, technology overviews, technical drawings of spacecraft, character biographies, ... Even NASA has a Star Trek site! One of the major problems is that the people who run the websites seem to live permanently in that fictional universe, and while they know the ins and outs of hyper drives and phasers, they've got zero knowledge about HTML and basic design.
I still can't find a picture of that frickin' doohicky, though. Lots of Scott Bakula (Anyone else hope that the last ever "Enterprise" will end with Scott leaping to his next assignment?) and the Frankenstein Klingon lady, but no translators.
"Dammit, Aries 1B, I was pretty much decided on the iPaq, then you have to go and mention this. "
Sorry about that. I've played around with some high end iPaqs and they are niiiiiice (for Windows contraptions). They have graffiti and sub-Newton 1.0 handwriting recognition options ( or, just to get you used to your apparent future: sub-N!wton #>+ h_Ndwri%ing recogn***on OPTion!)
What I really want to hear about is any update to a rumor that 'Fryke' overheard ('from a source close to Avie') about Newton OS 3.0, or "Navi" being ready to dance...
Comments
<strong>If you're not going to get a Newton [...]</strong><hr></blockquote>
I knew it was coming. I'm just surprised it took so long...
[quote]<strong>I personally like the Danger Hiptop more than either of the other two offerings. It does help, though, if you're in their coverage area.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I like the Hiptop, it's an interesting device, but it's definitely a communicator above all else.
<strong>Palm OS 5 vs. Pocket PC?
Must be the battle for second in the PDA/handheld computer world.
If you're not going to get a Newton, I personally like the Danger Hiptop more than either of the other two offerings. It does help, though, if you're in their coverage area.
[ 11-01-2002: Message edited by: Fran441 ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Fran, I'm afraid the e740 is an adequate replacement for the newt. :eek: I know I shouldn't say that, but it's pretty damn good. It doesn't work for some people, but it's filled a hole where my newt 2100 used to be. And it's smaller with a color screen and decent HWR. Not breath-taking or revolutionary (both of which the newt was), but good enough.
Still, even without natural speech dictation, an eminently usable notation device is within our grasp. That DSP could convert speech to any number of compressed music formats, like MP3. Now if the PDA had a facility to automatically organize voice notes chronologically and then to let you give them a very extensive tag with brief notes, keywords and cross references to other notes, all automatically dropped into a nice database for your perusal, I think that makes a pretty useful tool. You could drop older files to your PC and archive them, burn them to disc, what have you. Perhaps even a way to do the voice transcription after the fact, either on the PDA or on your desktop machine, where you can correct it as it goes.
On my old Visor, as I entered text I'd have to correct as I Graffiti'd, letter by letter. It was incredibly frustrating. Dictating a note, then proof-reading and correcting later would be fine. I do exactly the same thing now with my flesh and bones assistant.
Speech recognition has also come a long way in the last couple of years. I saw a demonstration of a system similar to predictive text input on a cell phone, where sounds would be matched to a dictionary, and unclear vowel sounds and stops would be guessed based upon the sound before. It seemed to work pretty well.
An interesting aside:
The name of the element tungsten is derived from the Swedish "tung sten," meaning "heavy stone."
Perhaps Apple should have thought of that for the Newton.
I love the new iBooks. But I'd love them even more if they were half the weight!
Escher
<strong>Belle: Any progress on your shopping decision? If you're still pondering your options, there's a thread on MacNN with (almost) exactly the same topic as this one: <a href="http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129541"; target="_blank">Palm Tungsten vs Pocket PC</a>.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thank you for the link, Escher. I've not made a decision yet, but it looks like I might be able to get demo units to try out. It may eventually come down to software. I need to be able to write up stuff and post it straight into a database sitting on my server. I'm not entirely certain as yet the best way to go about doing this.
[quote]<strong>I love the new iBooks. But I'd love them even more if they were half the weight!</strong><hr></blockquote>
They are nice, as is the PowerBook update. I was kind of hoping the unruly speculation about a smaller PowerBook was true. Not all "power users" need all that screen space.
I also got Docs to Go and Pocket Quicken. Well, Ma'am, it's not as bad as I thought that it was going to be, it covers what this engineer needs. I've got spreadsheet and document exchange between Appleworks on my Rev.A ibook at home, my new Palm where ever I am, and my idiot Windows machine at work (as long as I don't try any formating gymnastics).
And I've still got 12Meg free!
Take Care.
Aries 1B
Did you get a good deal on the m515? Have prices come down since the Tungsten T appeared?
I think I'm going to go with the iPaq H5450 for just now. It'll be available within the next couple of weeks. I've tried Palm, and didn't like it much, so I'll give Pocket PC a go. It's got built-in Bluetooth and WiFi, as well as IrDA to talk to my ageing cell phone. (Until I decide on a new Bluetooth model.)
I've already resigned myself to the fact I'll probably either have gotten fed up with it by Christmas, or will replace it a few months later when new models appear, and Palm OS 6 emerges.
<strong>I think I'm going to go with the iPaq H5450 for just now.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It's got to be nice to be a platform agnostic, Belle. Sometimes I really think that my strong belief in the Mac platform holds me back. Is there a lot of choice for folding keyboards on the WinCE platform? Or do they all use different connectors?
BTW: My brother-in-law's visit last weekend was uneventful in technological terms. He had a couple of demo units, with color screens and direct web access, but nothing that you couldn't buy in a store. Only difference was that he got them for free and didn't have to bother with pay-through-the-nose data and voice plans. Since he's not a computer geek like us, he didn't know anything about synchronization options. It was great having his company nonetheless.
Escher
<strong>
It's got to be nice to be a platform agnostic, Belle. Sometimes I really think that my strong belief in the Mac platform holds me back. Is there a lot of choice for folding keyboards on the WinCE platform? Or do they all use different connectors?
</strong><hr></blockquote>
They pretty much all have different connectors, but there are several infrared ones that work with most brands. The one I've been looking at is <a href="http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog_name=CTLG&category_name=CT LG%5F003%5F008%5F002%5F000&product%5Fid=25%2D969" target="_blank">this one</a>.
As far as platform loyalty goes... I'm as platform loyal as a person can get, but when it gets down to it, I need the tools to do the job right. Palms just don't do it for me.
[ 11-16-2002: Message edited by: torifile ]</p>
<strong>It's got to be nice to be a platform agnostic, Belle. Sometimes I really think that my strong belief in the Mac platform holds me back.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I feel this is somewhere Apple could really score. I hope it's sinking a small fortune into developing iSync to ensure compatibility with as many PDAs and cell phones as possible. The hassle involved with matching up PDAs, sync software, apps, along with backing up and uploading apps, is just such a huge pain in the ass.
[quote]<strong>Is there a lot of choice for folding keyboards on the WinCE platform? Or do they all use different connectors?</strong><hr></blockquote>
As torifile says, there are a few infrared keyboards that work with most PDAs. The <a href="http://www.pocketop.net/"; target="_blank">Pocketop</a> looks nice. The <a href="http://www.thinkoutside.com/"; target="_blank">Stowaway</a> is also available for Pocket PC, though not the XT. I'm sure it'll be available sooner rather than later, though.
There's a lot of engineers who run around and need portable-display-connectivity away from their desks who need dependable functionality and would snap up a cool iTablet. Apple, where in the hell are you?
Aries 1B
<strong>I know a couple of engineer guys (as an engineer, I'm lucky to have a social circle at all) at a pharmaceutical manufacturer here in Indianapolis. Their awesome company gave them ipaqs connected wirelessly to their intranet. They love 'em, and don't mind resetting them four times (on average) per day.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Dammit, Aries 1B, I was pretty much decided on the iPaq, then you have to go and mention this.
I had to reset my Visor once. And that was when I was doing a full reset to delete data when I finally decided to give it up.
<strong>
Dammit, Aries 1B, I was pretty much decided on the iPaq, then you have to go and mention this.
I had to reset my Visor once. And that was when I was doing a full reset to delete data when I finally decided to give it up.
I don't think he was referring to a hard reset, but just a soft one. A reboot of the machine. You remember what those are, right? Way back in the OS 9 days we had to do it regularly.
<strong>I don't think he was referring to a hard reset, but just a soft one. A reboot of the machine. You remember what those are, right? Way back in the OS 9 days we had to do it regularly.
Heh, strange thing is that I reset my Mac just about as often as I used to have to reset it when I used OS 9: Other than the occasional horrendous IE5 rebuild your hard disk crash, the only time I had to reboot was when installing stuff, and that situation hasn't improved all that much. Damn that little arrow in Software Update.
For me personally, I tend to use a PDA for three reasons:
1) Calendar/Agenda
2) E-Mail on the go
3) E-Books
1) There's no better PIM application than iambic's Agendus right now. Hands down: I've been using iambic ActionNames back in the times when I had a Newton. It's evolved, easy to use and has the perfect view for your appointments. So I use a Palm OS device, as iambic only does it for Palm OS devices.
2) Eudora's free Internet package has a nice webbrowser (textonly) and - more important - the perfect little E-Mail app. I only use my main account on there, but it has support for more than one account. In combination with my GRPS phone, that's just dandy.
3) E-Books. I love to read. And Sony's 320*320 resolution is just the best you'll get for reading on a small screen, as it effectively doubles the resoulution of a Palm device nicely. The new Palm devices will be 320*320, too, so this is the way to go for me. I'm using a Sony Clié PEG-425 (that's the 415 for the US market) right now. It's the thinnest and sexiest Palm device I've ever seen. If I would pay battery life for a colour screen, I'd have bought the PEG-675C (that's the 665 for the US market), but as all of my needs from a PDA DON'T require colour, I rather have more battery life.
<strong>It's the thinnest and sexiest Palm device I've ever seen. If I would pay battery life for a colour screen, I'd have bought the PEG-675C (that's the 665 for the US market), but as all of my needs from a PDA DON'T require colour, I rather have more battery life.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It does look good. It kind of bugs me that for my purposes, a monochrome (or grayscale) display would suit just fine, and I'd prefer it for battery life, but if you want other high end options like Bluetooth and 802.11, you have to go color.
As far as ideal handhelds go, does anyone have a picture of the translator used by the communications officer in "Enterprise"? That looks just about ideal in size to me.
I tried to find a picture on the internet, but Google took me to all sorts of really scary Trek places. :eek:
<strong>
I tried to find a picture on the internet, but Google took me to all sorts of really scary Trek places. :eek: </strong><hr></blockquote>
Smart answer #1: That's what you get for looking for pictures on the Internet.
Smart answer #2: Is there any other kind of Trek site?
Pick one.
I still can't find a picture of that frickin' doohicky, though. Lots of Scott Bakula (Anyone else hope that the last ever "Enterprise" will end with Scott leaping to his next assignment?) and the Frankenstein Klingon lady, but no translators.
Sorry about that. I've played around with some high end iPaqs and they are niiiiiice (for Windows contraptions). They have graffiti and sub-Newton 1.0 handwriting recognition options ( or, just to get you used to your apparent future: sub-N!wton #>+ h_Ndwri%ing recogn***on OPTion!)
What I really want to hear about is any update to a rumor that 'Fryke' overheard ('from a source close to Avie') about Newton OS 3.0, or "Navi" being ready to dance...
<a href="http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=13216"; target="_blank">http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=13216</a>;
... Infidel that I am, I pray to this link nightly.
Aries 1B
[ 11-17-2002: Message edited by: Aries 1B ]
[ 11-17-2002: Message edited by: Aries 1B ]
[ 11-17-2002: Message edited by: Aries 1B ]</p>