The zen of Palm and how it backfires
Richard Lawrence
http://www.infosync.no/news/2002/n/2303.html
My personal opinion is that he's pretty much right, but I'm sure
others have differing ideas :o)
Anyone fancy commenting?
Rich
ps. On a personal note, I'd like a hybrid of PPC and Palm, the
features and functionality plus the stability and the decent hardware
- if it's going to happen, it won't be for a long while.
ReindeR Rustema
> Interesting article at:
>
> http://www.infosync.no/news/2002/n/2303.html
>
> My personal opinion is that he's pretty much right, but I'm sure
> others have differing ideas :o)
Some major assumptions in the article. The author assumes that Palm
licensed the Palm OS to only a few big ones and said no to others
('because Palm is Zen like Apple?!') who then were convinced by
Microsoft to join the PocketPC platform.
Knowing Microsoft's tactics I wouldn't be surprised that those who
joined the PocketPC platform were forced to sign something that they
will not market anything for the Palm OS.
Then they make the choice, are we into the business/efficiency market
(PocketPC and some Palm OS) or consumer/gadgets market (dominated by the
Palm OS)? Sony choose for the consumer/gadgets market and the Palm OS.
IBM did a Palm OS flirt (to create some distance from MS?) and the rest
sell go for PPC. And some join the effort to develop something else
(Symbian) to avoid dependency from Microsoft.
There. More assumptions. Anyone with some facts to join the discussion?
--
ReindeR
Derek
in "comp.sys.palmtops.pilot" assembled, and proclaimed:
> My personal opinion is that he's pretty much right, but I'm sure
> others have differing ideas :o)
>
> Anyone fancy commenting?
I think the concept of "Maintaining market share" is misleading.
Everybody talks about market share based upon how many units were
sold in the last fiscal quarter or the last year. What the
technology sector (producers and critics alike) seem to forget is
that people don't buy new computers every year.
Granted, I got a Pilot Pro in 1997, which I sold to a friend. I got
a Palm III in 1999, which I sold to a friend. I got a Palm Vx in
2000, which my wife now uses. Currenlty, I carry an m500.
But I'm an exception to the rule. I upgraded because I thought
there was a better option (The III had the flip cover, the Vx was
smaller, the m500 has memory expansion). The fact is, that all of
my old hanhelds still function and are still being used.
In many ways, the Palm market is saturated. Over the last couple of
years, I've noticed a DECREASE in the number of people asking me my
opinion of my handheld. The early adopters have their handhelds.
Those who were considering it, made their decision one way or the
other. Those who weren't interested didn't buy one. Now days, if
someone asks me for my opinion, it's usually because their current
handheld DIED or was damaged.
Palm's problem with simplicity is that their handhelds (as long as
they continue to function) do exactly what people want. And most
people aren't going to pony up another $250 for something that they
already have.
Derek
--
Replace "nomail" with "email" if you wish to send me mail.
Consistency is the last ditch stand of the unimaginative.
Peter da Silva
ReindeR Rustema <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote:
>Some major assumptions in the article. The author assumes that Palm
>licensed the Palm OS to only a few big ones and said no to others
>('because Palm is Zen like Apple?!') who then were convinced by
>Microsoft to join the PocketPC platform.
That would be Toshiba. That was when Palm was just beginning to license
the OS and didn't want to spread itself too thin. They have since
significantly widened the developer base.
>Knowing Microsoft's tactics I wouldn't be surprised that those who
>joined the PocketPC platform were forced to sign something that they
>will not market anything for the Palm OS.
Symbol and Acer both make both PalmOS and Pocket-PC based products.
--
Rev. Peter da Silva, ULC. 29.6852N 95.5770W WWFD?
"Be conservative in what you generate, and liberal in what you accept"
-- Matthew 10:16 (l.trans)
ReindeR Rustema
> In article <1figf1o.4y11pn172fardN%rei...@rustema.nl>,
> ReindeR Rustema <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote:
> >Knowing Microsoft's tactics I wouldn't be surprised that those who
> >joined the PocketPC platform were forced to sign something that they
> >will not market anything for the Palm OS.
>
> Symbol and Acer both make both PalmOS and Pocket-PC based products.
Maybe they are not sensitive for pressure from Microsoft? For example
because they don't develop any hardware in close cooperation with
Microsoft but just put together products?
At least that's how I know Acer. Never any innovation, just low cost
production of whatever what sells.
--
ReindeR
ReindeR Rustema
> In many ways, the Palm market is saturated. Over the last couple of
> years, I've noticed a DECREASE in the number of people asking me my
> opinion of my handheld. The early adopters have their handhelds.
> Those who were considering it, made their decision one way or the
> other. Those who weren't interested didn't buy one. Now days, if
> someone asks me for my opinion, it's usually because their current
> handheld DIED or was damaged.
>
> Palm's problem with simplicity is that their handhelds (as long as
> they continue to function) do exactly what people want. And most
> people aren't going to pony up another $250 for something that they
> already have.
This sounds like a very good analysis of the situation. Something Palm
understands as no other considering their attempts to open new markets
with products like the m105.
For PocketPCs the market is not saturated. The boss buys it, it's not
something you find under the Christmass tree. He buys it for you because
it is part of process chain, inventory management or whatever. Something
that works seamlessly with the MS software already in place at the
office. The IT consultant or IT manager already is a customer of the
brands that team up in the PocketPC alliance. The Palm OS is not a part
of those 'business solutions', it's something employees want for
themselves.
Yet another 2 speculative cents...
--
ReindeR
Peter da Silva
ReindeR Rustema <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote:
>Peter da Silva <pe...@taronga.com> wrote:
>> In article <1figf1o.4y11pn172fardN%rei...@rustema.nl>,
>> ReindeR Rustema <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote:
>> >Knowing Microsoft's tactics I wouldn't be surprised that those who
>> >joined the PocketPC platform were forced to sign something that they
>> >will not market anything for the Palm OS.
>> Symbol and Acer both make both PalmOS and Pocket-PC based products.
>Maybe they are not sensitive for pressure from Microsoft? For example
>because they don't develop any hardware in close cooperation with
>Microsoft but just put together products?
As opposed to HPaq, who hired a far-eastern product design house to
develop the iPaq and didn't put it together themselves at all.
>At least that's how I know Acer. Never any innovation, just low cost
>production of whatever what sells.
And Compaq is different exactly how?
Dan Norder
>
> http://www.infosync.no/news/2002/n/2303.html
>
>My personal opinion is that he's pretty much right, but I'm sure
>others have differing ideas :o)
The guy does a lot of talking with very few facts. Like he concludes that the
only reason HP and others don;t produce PalmOS products is because Palm won't
let them. He also blames Apple's lack of sale parity with Microsoft on them not
letting other computer manufacturers license the OS (false, when they tried it
just made things worse).
Worst of all, the article starts out assuming that Palm is struggling against
PocketPC. They aren't. They have the largest market share by far, their next
largest competitors license the PalmOS from them, and PocketPC devices are
barely on the charts.
Personally I think the only thing Palm has to fear is the installed base of IT
types who get free stuff from Microsoft and know to recommend their products
because it means more things breaking, more things to upgrade, and thus more
job security for themselves. Not to mention the average IT person is the type
of person who naturally follows the accepted wisdom when it comes to computers
and wouldn't understand practicality and long term economics if their lives
depended on it.
>On a personal note, I'd like a hybrid of PPC and Palm, the
>features and functionality plus the stability and the decent hardware
>- if it's going to happen, it won't be for a long while.
Long while? Try next month. That's when PalmOS 5 devices are most likely going
to be released.
--
Dan Norder
No song is ever over-played on the radio...
some people just listen to the radio too much.
ReindeR Rustema
> In article <1figm19.138lafp4868u8N%rei...@rustema.nl>,
> ReindeR Rustema <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote:
> >At least that's how I know Acer. Never any innovation, just low cost
> >production of whatever what sells.
>
> And Compaq is different exactly how?
Good question... At least there brandname suggests this more.
--
ReindeR
Craig Bowers
> because they don't develop any hardware in close cooperation with
> Microsoft but just put together products?
>
> At least that's how I know Acer. Never any innovation, just low cost
> production of whatever what sells.
That doesn't describe Symbol in the least though. Their stuff is highly
original to serve their market focus, and is anything but low cost.
Alphasmart would be another company with fingers in both WinCE and PalmOS.
At least in terms of camparison to the common PalmOS or PocketPC device,
Alphasmart's stuff goes beyond original to leaning towards oddball (unless
you keep it in the context of the target market). What might be less scary
to MS in the case of all of these three is market share potential. They're
all focusing on markets at least up to now, that don't threaten the mass
market consumer in North America. Though in their markets (asia,
enterprise, and educational, respectively) they would presumably command a
large share.
Craig Bowers
> brands that team up in the PocketPC alliance. The Palm OS is not a part
> of those 'business solutions', it's something employees want for
> themselves.
That's a bit simplistic though. Symbol and HandEra devices certainly have
been a large part of 'business solutions'. They're not focused at the
consumer level to much degree at all. Nor would the Alphasmart devices, nor
would the RVTec PalmOS solutions, nor would the older style Supra packaged
PalmV's for Realestate agents. Even just looking at the Oddball stuff in
the custom work area at HandEra
http://www.handera.com/services/Projects/CustomPalm.htm and in the business
tools section. The PalmOS is well into the enterprise, custom solution,
goverment, manufacturing, and service industries.
You don't see as many PocketPC's under the tree due to price and
availability of a wide affordable selection of software that interests joe
consumer or joe employee. Not because pocketPC is somehow above or more
illsuited to that same market (apart from those two reasons). Your example
above may well boost the inroads of PPC in those situations, but in my
opinion much of the time only where there hasn't been nearly enough thought
as to how they'll actually be put (and kept) into use. PPC can be the right
tool for many job's but rarely is it, when purchased by the fools who start
with the premise of, "Well we're already buying from Compaq and Microsoft,
so this has got the be the right tool, and we can probably wangle a value
add discount on them".
Peter da Silva
Dan Norder <dann...@aol.com> wrote:
>Personally I think the only thing Palm has to fear is the installed base of IT
>types who get free stuff from Microsoft and know to recommend their products
>because it means more things breaking, more things to upgrade, and thus more
>job security for themselves.
We have Pocket PCs here because Palm has lousy networking. I tried really hard
to justify Palms, but I couldn't do it in an 802.11 environment. If PalmOS 5
has decent network support (a good browser, good email, good attachment
support, remote file access over 802.11... maybe based on Samba...) that
will change everything.
If it doesn't have decent networking, it won't matter much how fast it is.
ReindeR Rustema
> > The IT consultant or IT manager already is a customer of the
> > brands that team up in the PocketPC alliance. The Palm OS is not a part
> > of those 'business solutions', it's something employees want for
> > themselves.
>
> That's a bit simplistic though. Symbol and HandEra devices certainly have
> been a large part of 'business solutions'. They're not focused at the
> consumer level to much degree at all. Nor would the Alphasmart devices, nor
> would the RVTec PalmOS solutions, nor would the older style Supra packaged
> PalmV's for Realestate agents. Even just looking at the Oddball stuff in
> the custom work area at HandEra
> http://www.handera.com/services/Projects/CustomPalm.htm and in the business
> tools section. The PalmOS is well into the enterprise, custom solution,
> goverment, manufacturing, and service industries.
I stand corrected. And actually I already knew that there are many
business applications for the Palm OS, going way back to the earliest
Palm models. After all, the Palm was supposed to be for more efficiency
from the start, not just some cool gadget.
But the market I was describing was the one you describe at the end of
this paragraph.
> You don't see as many PocketPC's under the tree due to price and
> availability of a wide affordable selection of software that interests joe
> consumer or joe employee. Not because pocketPC is somehow above or more
> illsuited to that same market (apart from those two reasons). Your example
> above may well boost the inroads of PPC in those situations, but in my
> opinion much of the time only where there hasn't been nearly enough thought
> as to how they'll actually be put (and kept) into use. PPC can be the right
> tool for many job's but rarely is it, when purchased by the fools who start
> with the premise of, "Well we're already buying from Compaq and Microsoft,
> so this has got the be the right tool, and we can probably wangle a value
> add discount on them".
My impression is that the market is big in businesses that are
completely MS dominated, with a management that doesn't understand much
about IT-stuff but only understands that it's a safe bet to choose for
something you already know and deal with. Businesses also that perhaps
don't really need handhelds but are heading that way with the huge
marketing efforts by the Compaqs etc. Anyway, it's a configuration where
Palm e.a. have difficulties fighting their way into.
--
ReindeR
Noel
> In article <20020913122121...@mb-mt.aol.com>,
> Dan Norder <dann...@aol.com> wrote:
> >Personally I think the only thing Palm has to fear is the installed base of IT
> >types who get free stuff from Microsoft and know to recommend their products
> >because it means more things breaking, more things to upgrade, and thus more
> >job security for themselves.
>
> We have Pocket PCs here because Palm has lousy networking. I tried really hard
> to justify Palms, but I couldn't do it in an 802.11 environment. If PalmOS 5
> has decent network support (a good browser, good email, good attachment
> support, remote file access over 802.11... maybe based on Samba...) that
> will change everything.
>
> If it doesn't have decent networking, it won't matter much how fast it is.
I would say the infrastructures for both PPC and Palm have some work
to be done. There are new 3G areas from AirPrime which for example an
Handspring Treo http://www.airprime.com/news04_22_02_hndsprgpartner.htm
works very well.
As far as wireless networking with 802.11b, I have used different Palm
Devices with same results as PPC. I would suggest you take a look at
http://www.palmsource.com/products/ here you will find products that
use the PalmOS and 802.11b. Symbol, Handspring, and others make
wireless communications possible within PalmOS Developed Applications.
You could also use Pocket Technologies, Inc. PocketStudio Pro
http://www.pocket-technologies.com. They ship a wireless solution or
evaluation of ASTA Skywire N-Tier servers with great PalmOS shared
libraries, plus examples of use.
As far as email and in-house developed applications, PalmOS is a
faster and more reliable OS than Windows CE (Yes the OS is Windows CE
with PPC). I do agree web browsing, and attachment handling need work,
but the new PalmOS in the works is going to address these issues.
Hope this helps.
Peter da Silva
Noel <intelli...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>I would say the infrastructures for both PPC and Palm have some work
>to be done. There are new 3G areas from AirPrime which for example an
>Handspring Treo http://www.airprime.com/news04_22_02_hndsprgpartner.htm
>works very well.
Palm's networking is reasonably well suited to low speed (say, a few hundred
kilobits per second) low traffic (email, PQA, etc) networking with simple
slients. It's not well suited at all for a high speed (megabits) high traffic
and LAN-based operation: on a Pocket PC someone can directly fetch a file
from a file server over the wireless LAN and view it in Pocket Word or Excel.
Palm's got good support for syncing office documents... possibly better than
the Pocket PC... but it's not got the networking capability.
>As far as wireless networking with 802.11b, I have used different Palm
>Devices with same results as PPC.
If you use PPCs to d the same things that you're doing on your Palm, you
would probably end up doing a better job with the Palm: it does a lot of
things very well, and many of them better than the PPC. But networking
isn't one of them. It needs, at the least:
1. VFS access to files shared via CIFS, NFS, FTP, or HTTP.
2. Background networking. This doesn't require Windows-style
multitasking... the background operations could easily be
implemented using the Palm's event driven API... but it
does require significant enhancements to Palm's network stack.
3. A good direct web browser, and it would be best if it was
a standard part of the OS package.
4. Standard support for IPSEC and PPTP.
Right now Pocket PC has Palm beat hollow on all of these, and if OS 5 is
just a hardware upgrade that edge will continue for quite a while. Remote
networking? Less obvious. Palm has excellent support for low bandwidth
information transfer with PQAs, and even with a smart proxy like the one
T-Mobile provides (the accelerator) it's sluggisg by comparison.
The other edge Palm has is the insane stupid complexity of the Pocket PC
network configuration. If you've ever had to operate through a VPN from
a DMZ you'll know what I mean: you have to lie and say the DMZ is the
Internet, even if it's got no connection at all. They really need to get
rid of this idea that there's two kinds of networks (The Internet and Work),
because the real world is much more complex.
PS: you don't need to explain to me that PPC is built on top of Windows CE...
I wasn't exhumed yesterday.
J. Clarke
rei...@rustema.nl says...
Bear in mind that there is a certain little computer company whose
middle name is "Business" and which funded the development of some of
Microsoft's "bread and butter". And that company does not sell a
PocketPC device--they sold black relabelled Palms until recently and now
they're selling Blackberrys. Furthermore, Palm is the first entry on
the supported devices list for the handheld version of their enterprise
database, as well as for the handheld version of Oracle 9i. So a few
companies that are known to have some slight presence in the enterprise
market seem to like Palm.
--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(used to be jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
The Spectre
units can those guys really have sold? My understanding is they are not even
a player in the PDA market. Could not afford OS4.0 for handera 330 and
scrapped plans for a follow-up. The ONLY licensees doing anything with Palm
is HandSpring and Sony. I can't believe palm is even still in business with
all the times they have bungled their OS and products over the last few
years. Just goes to show you that the majority of users are clueless and
don't need a PDA at all.
Pocket PC has got it almost right and I firmly the next version will be even
closer to perfect. As production increases prices will fall (look at
Toshiba e310) and palms lead will erode even faster. Finally, When you get
a Palm you usually don't get much software with it where as a Pocket PC
comes out of the box with WORD, EXCEL and a BROWSER to mention a few so tag
those to the price of a palm next time you compare the two platforms.
"ReindeR Rustema" <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote in message
news:1fii23f.1wzx0rbtina23N%rei...@rustema.nl...
Doug Hoffman
Documents-to-go with which I can view and edit my WORD and EXCEL files. It
also came with a BROWSER. Or did you mean that with Pocket PC you also get
the Windows PC versions of WORD and EXCEL? If so, that is a very good deal.
I feel compelled to share some anecdotal information here. The reason I
bought the Palm was *not* to use as a PDA (I already used a Franklin Planner
- paper version- and thought I was happy with that). I am a glider pilot,
you know, those things that look like airplanes with very long wings except
they have no motors. Amongst glider pilots recently, it has become quite
popular to combine a PDA with a GPS and PDA software to create what is in
essence a "flight computer". I won't go into the details but suffice it to
say that things like a moving map display and glide-to-destination
calculations are extremely important to the glider pilot. To have this done
by computer rather than folding maps and doing mental computations has been
a revelation to gliding! The pilot workload is greatly reduced and we don't
get lost!
Of course there seems to be two basic ways to go. The least expensive is to
purchase a Palm and an inexpensive hiking GPS. I paid $150 for the m125
(they are cheaper now?) and $100 for the GPS. The software was free. The
other way to go is to use a CE PDA and also obtain a GPS signal and
appropriate software. I don't know exactly what the CE guys paid, but I
understand it was significatly more than $250. Of course a lot of these
gliders cost $50,000 and up so cost isn't usually a big issue. To me it
still is, I fly an older glider (still have 2 kids in college).
Anyway, to get to the point, I have observed that most of the CE PDA guys
are needing to bring their laptops to the flying field as it seems their
PDAs "crash" frequently enough that they need to re-load or whatever. They
also seem to have issues with properly configuring their PDAs with the
correct ancillary files and so forth and seem to spend a lot of time helping
each other in this regard.
I on the other hand have never had my Palm crash or otherwise malfunction.
Everything just "works" with no mucking about. I really don't know much
about the Palm. It just works.
Now I realize that this is hardly a condemnation of the CE platform nor is
it intended to be. This is a very specialized market and use of PDAs. I'm
sure that there will be new machines and software that will be simpler and
more robust (at least I hope so for the sake of my flying buddies). It just
seems that there are extra layers of complexity and fragility that my
gliding friends are experiencing that I am not.
For what it's worth.
-Doug
p.s. During the week I can't fly so I decided to try the Palm as a
conventional PDA (datebook/address book/ etc.). I was extremely impressed
and have stop using the Franklin Planner!
Alan Anderson
> ...Just goes to show you that the majority of users are clueless and
> don't need a PDA at all.
I don't follow you. Regardless of how well you think Palm has handled OS
updates, a PalmOS handheld does PDA functions quite well.
> Pocket PC has got it almost right and I firmly the next version will be even
> closer to perfect.
As a handheld general-purpose computer, you have a point. As a PDA,
though, a Pocket PC system is definitely more cumbersome to use than a
PalmOS one. The bells and whistles get in the way when you're trying to
so simple PDA tasks.
> Finally, When you get
> a Palm you usually don't get much software with it...
You get a fully-functioning PDA with a supremely simple desktop
connection. You also get the option of tens of thousands of additional
applications, many of which are free for the downloading.
> ...where as a Pocket PC
> comes out of the box with WORD, EXCEL and a BROWSER to mention a few so tag
> those to the price of a palm next time you compare the two platforms.
But if you're comparing them as PDAs, I think Word and Excel and web
browsing are pretty low on the utility list.
Ben Combee
says...
> We have Pocket PCs here because Palm has lousy networking. I tried really hard
> to justify Palms, but I couldn't do it in an 802.11 environment. If PalmOS 5
> has decent network support (a good browser, good email, good attachment
> support, remote file access over 802.11... maybe based on Samba...) that
> will change everything.
Palm OS 5 has support for 802.11b networking built into the OS, and it
has a much faster networking stack than the PPP-engine that was on the
DragonBall-based devices.
Its unlikely that the OS itself will come with any sort of network file
browser, but a developer could write such a beast if there was demand.
A file browser that handled VFS, FTP, and SMB could be a pretty
interesting niche product. Already, we've seen announcements of a much
improved web browser for OS 5
(http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=3696), and several
really good email clients with attachment support are in development
right now, like SnapperMail (http://www.snappermail.com/palm/email/).
The one area where there will be little change in OS 5 is
multitasking... the device remains devoted to a single task at a time,
which works pretty well for non-connected applications, but fails when
you've started something lengthy (like downloading email or files), and
you want to do something else with the device. From talks with
PalmSource, they're quite aware of this, and there are hooks for
licensees to add background tasks into OS 5, but nothing exposed for
application developers. PalmSource didn't want to expose a new process
model in OS 5, when the internals will all likely change for the next OS
after that, and that would mean having to support two different
backwards-compatible APIs in that version.
--
Ben Combee <bco...@metrowerks.com>
CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead
Get help at http://palmoswerks.com/
Ben Combee
@bowers.net says...
> That doesn't describe Symbol in the least though. Their stuff is highly
> original to serve their market focus, and is anything but low cost.
> Alphasmart would be another company with fingers in both WinCE and PalmOS.
> At least in terms of camparison to the common PalmOS or PocketPC device,
> Alphasmart's stuff goes beyond original to leaning towards oddball (unless
> you keep it in the context of the target market). What might be less scary
> to MS in the case of all of these three is market share potential. They're
> all focusing on markets at least up to now, that don't threaten the mass
> market consumer in North America. Though in their markets (asia,
> enterprise, and educational, respectively) they would presumably command a
> large share.
When has AlphaSmart done anything with Windows CE? Their current pre-
Dana device uses a custom operating system, and there's no mention on
their site or anywhere in Google's cache that I could see about them
doing a WinCE product.
I just want to find out where this misconception comes from... maybe
I've not been informed correctly.
Ben Combee
says...
> In article <2298c71a.02091...@posting.google.com>,
> Noel <intelli...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >I would say the infrastructures for both PPC and Palm have some work
> >to be done. There are new 3G areas from AirPrime which for example an
> >Handspring Treo http://www.airprime.com/news04_22_02_hndsprgpartner.htm
> >works very well.
>
> Palm's networking is reasonably well suited to low speed (say, a few hundred
> kilobits per second) low traffic (email, PQA, etc) networking with simple
> slients. It's not well suited at all for a high speed (megabits) high traffic
> and LAN-based operation: on a Pocket PC someone can directly fetch a file
> from a file server over the wireless LAN and view it in Pocket Word or Excel.
>
> Palm's got good support for syncing office documents... possibly better than
> the Pocket PC... but it's not got the networking capability.
>
> >As far as wireless networking with 802.11b, I have used different Palm
> >Devices with same results as PPC.
>
> If you use PPCs to d the same things that you're doing on your Palm, you
> would probably end up doing a better job with the Palm: it does a lot of
> things very well, and many of them better than the PPC. But networking
> isn't one of them. It needs, at the least:
>
> 1. VFS access to files shared via CIFS, NFS, FTP, or HTTP.
Not in the OS, but possible using file system drivers or third party
software. Could be an interesting niche for a developer.
> 2. Background networking. This doesn't require Windows-style
> multitasking... the background operations could easily be
> implemented using the Palm's event driven API... but it
> does require significant enhancements to Palm's network stack.
Network stack is much improved in OS 5, but background operation not
possible, at least in an obvious way. The basic NetLib API didn't
change, but there are additional APIs to give more control over 802.11b
connectivity (base station addressing, encryption options, etc)
> 3. A good direct web browser, and it would be best if it was
> a standard part of the OS package.
PalmSource has licensed what looks to be a very good browser. I don't
know if every licensee will choose to use it, or if they will do their
own. I know too much to openly speculate.
> 4. Standard support for IPSEC and PPTP.
http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=2986&MODE=FLAT
Mergic VPN for Palm OS (with PPTP support) already exists and seems to
be pretty usable. http://www.mergic.com/
Peter da Silva
The Spectre <TSpe...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>Handera? You mean the have sold more than 5 units? I mean really how many
>units can those guys really have sold? My understanding is they are not even
>a player in the PDA market. Could not afford OS4.0 for handera 330 and
>scrapped plans for a follow-up. The ONLY licensees doing anything with Palm
>is HandSpring and Sony.
Samsung, Kyocera, Alphasmart, Symbol, Acer, ....
> I can't believe palm is even still in business with
>all the times they have bungled their OS and products over the last few
>years. Just goes to show you that the majority of users are clueless and
>don't need a PDA at all.
Or perhaps they don't need a pocket laptop?
>Pocket PC has got it almost right and I firmly the next version will be even
>closer to perfect.
Maybe. PPC2002 is a mixed blessing: the HWR is improved, but the network
configuration is a nightmare, and they removed functionality from Pocket IE.
> As production increases prices will fall (look at
>Toshiba e310) and palms lead will erode even faster. Finally, When you get
>a Palm you usually don't get much software with it where as a Pocket PC
>comes out of the box with WORD, EXCEL and a BROWSER to mention a few so tag
>those to the price of a palm next time you compare the two platforms.
It's a pity it doesn't come out of the box with DateBook and AddressBook.
Peter da Silva
Ben Combee <com...@techwood.org> wrote:
>In article <alvnl6$2o5m$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com>, pe...@taronga.com
>says...
>> would probably end up doing a better job with the Palm: it does a lot of
>> things very well, and many of them better than the PPC. But networking
>> isn't one of them. It needs, at the least:
>> 1. VFS access to files shared via CIFS, NFS, FTP, or HTTP.
>Not in the OS, but possible using file system drivers or third party
>software. Could be an interesting niche for a developer.
True, VFS should make this kind of thing much easier than it is in WinCE.
I don't think this will be really practical without background networking,
though. You *don't* want to be setting up and tearing down CIFS connections
continually.
>> 2. Background networking. This doesn't require Windows-style
>> multitasking... the background operations could easily be
>> implemented using the Palm's event driven API... but it
>> does require significant enhancements to Palm's network stack.
>Network stack is much improved in OS 5, but background operation not
>possible, at least in an obvious way. The basic NetLib API didn't
>change, but there are additional APIs to give more control over 802.11b
>connectivity (base station addressing, encryption options, etc)
That's just a matter of drivers. The problems with PalmOS networking are
deeper... much deeper.
>> 3. A good direct web browser, and it would be best if it was
>> a standard part of the OS package.
>PalmSource has licensed what looks to be a very good browser. I don't
>know if every licensee will choose to use it, or if they will do their
>own. I know too much to openly speculate.
It can be surprisingly tough to know too much. :)
>> 4. Standard support for IPSEC and PPTP.
>http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=2986&MODE=FLAT
Oh, jolly good. Looks likethey're getting closer... but background networking
is really critical when dealing with large files.
Peter da Silva
Ben Combee <com...@techwood.org> wrote:
>In article <altihq$1hov$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com>, pe...@taronga.com
>says...
>> We have Pocket PCs here because Palm has lousy networking. I tried really hard
>> to justify Palms, but I couldn't do it in an 802.11 environment. If PalmOS 5
>> has decent network support (a good browser, good email, good attachment
>> support, remote file access over 802.11... maybe based on Samba...) that
>> will change everything.
>
>Palm OS 5 has support for 802.11b networking built into the OS, and it
>has a much faster networking stack than the PPP-engine that was on the
>DragonBall-based devices.
More good news. The PPP engine was beginning to smell of the seaside, if
you know what I mean. The Amiga had better networking on the same CPU
with only 512K RAM at 7.14 MHz.
>The one area where there will be little change in OS 5 is
>multitasking... the device remains devoted to a single task at a time,
Sort of. But consider the API... everything is event driven, even in the
foreground application. The only resources that a "launched" app has that
a "non-launched" app doesn't are (1) the globals, and (2) the display, and
the display can be preempted. So in a way *all* applications are active at
the same time. This allows for all kinds of things that conventional time
shared style multitasking can't handle easily, like the search capability.
I don't see why this model can't be extended. If an application could request
"persistent globals", then would you need any more multitasking than that
for a PDA? It would be more like Windows 3.1 or Classic MacOS, but Apple
managed to do rather well with that model for a decade and a half and over
two processor families.
I would really rather see this than a completely new process model, and I
will be disappointed (though I must admit not surprised) if Palm creates
something completely new.
And you really don't even need to go that far for things like background
downloads: you just need persistent TCP connections. With a new network
stack they could easily be implemented... just notify the program when
an event occurs on the socket, and have the program do its thing and get
out of the way before the user finishes that graffiti stroke he's scrawling
in 7 hertz meat time.
Jeffrey S. Russell
I have an m505 that came with Dataviz Documents to Go Standard v.4.0. That
means Word and Excel Documents can be viewed and edited on it. It even
supports Tables in Word. My wife has an m130 that came with Dataviz
Documents to Go Professional v. 4.0. Add to the above the ability to view
PowerPoint files. Both came with software for Multimail Standard Edition
which allows one POP3 or IMAP connection.
My point in all of this is that if you want to pick apart a platform, be
sure you have all the facts and do some market research first. PocketPC is
great for multimedia and some enterprise use. Palm is great for the
consumer and again, some enterprise use. They both have their place in the
market and both are viable platforms. Let me tell you about my uses for the
Palm...
1) Mobile Internet access via cell phone and Palm Modem: email, internet
2) Document editing on the go (as I travel constantly on the job) and
syncing changes when home
3) Mini Photo album with family pictures and my woodworking projects (via
MGI Photosuite)
4) Connect to and configure my customer's network equipment
5) Street Atlas and GPS to find customer locations
6) Contact lists and task lists on the go
I am a Network Engineer for a telecommunications equipment manufacturer, and
I have found the palm to be a great replacement in the above areas instead
of lugging around a laptop and accessories.
Regards,
Jeff
"The Spectre" <TSpe...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:taRg9.124282$2L.62...@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com...
ReindeR Rustema
> Let me tell you about my uses for the
> Palm...
>
> 3) Mini Photo album with family pictures and my woodworking projects (via
> MGI Photosuite)
> 4) Connect to and configure my customer's network equipment
> 5) Street Atlas and GPS to find customer locations
> 6) Contact lists and task lists on the go
>
> I am a Network Engineer for a telecommunications equipment manufacturer, and
> I have found the palm to be a great replacement in the above areas instead
> of lugging around a laptop and accessories.
And you have woodworking as your hobby I suppose? I doubt that you
manufacture your telecommunications equipment with wood. If you do,
please share the URL, I would like to see it.
--
ReindeR
Peter da Silva
ReindeR Rustema <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote:
>And you have woodworking as your hobby I suppose? I doubt that you
>manufacture your telecommunications equipment with wood. If you do,
>please share the URL, I would like to see it.
That's an unpleasantly confrontational response. Do you really intend it
to come across that way?
ReindeR Rustema
> In article <1fikeu4.1x6hjyn1jb1l2zN%rei...@rustema.nl>,
> ReindeR Rustema <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote:
> >And you have woodworking as your hobby I suppose? I doubt that you
> >manufacture your telecommunications equipment with wood. If you do,
> >please share the URL, I would like to see it.
>
> That's an unpleasantly confrontational response. Do you really intend it
> to come across that way?
I am terribly sorry if it did. I just couldn't get the image of
woodcarved telecommunications equipment (on tiny pictures in a Palm
photoalbum) out of my head once it got in there after reading that list
of things his Palm is used for. I was too obsessed with seeing images of
such woodcarved telecommunications equipment to take the feelings into
account of the reader on the other side. That's asynchronous
communication for you.
--
ReindeR
Jeffrey S. Russell
Nope, I don't carve networking equipment out of wood, but I can carve a nice
350 Chevy engine! Though it doesn't do well at anything higher than 20
RPMs. Woodworking is a hooby that I use to fill up the dead time when I am
not working on customer equipment. As far as what networking equipment,
feel free to visit the following URL:
My woodworking consists of the Workstation desk that I built for my home
office, miniature swings and dining sets designed for teddy bears and dolls,
and the dog house I built as a small replica of my house. Unfortunately, I
do not have a URL for that!
Regards,
Jeff
"ReindeR Rustema" <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote in message
news:1fikrvz.1benr351v3w2c5N%rei...@rustema.nl...
Richard Lawrence
> The guy does a lot of talking with very few facts. Like he concludes that the
> only reason HP and others don;t produce PalmOS products is because Palm won't
> let them.
I would agree that it is a big assumption, however it's interesting to
note that HP and others aren't interested in Palm. Will they be with
OS5? If they aren't, then it'll be a severe disappointment.
> Worst of all, the article starts out assuming that Palm is struggling against
> PocketPC. They aren't. They have the largest market share by far, their next
> largest competitors license the PalmOS from them, and PocketPC devices are
> barely on the charts.
Agreed. However I wonder whether market share takes into account all
the ancient Palm's out there. What I would like to see is market share
of products under 5 years old - i think it would be a more realistic
picture.
> >On a personal note, I'd like a hybrid of PPC and Palm, the
> >features and functionality plus the stability and the decent hardware
> >- if it's going to happen, it won't be for a long while.
>
> Long while? Try next month. That's when PalmOS 5 devices are most likely going
> to be released.
I think OS 5 will be a bit of a let down and next month rather
optomistic. Yes, it'll be faster hardware but unless other
manufacturers decide to get in on the act (and so far, they haven't
stated any intentions of doing so) you won't see much else. The OS
will still be the same, nothing amazingly new - which will either be a
good or bad thing (depending on your point of view).
I personally think version 6 will be "the one", but thats a long time
in the future and no-doubt the market will have changed rapidly.
Rich
Richard Lawrence
> In article <taRg9.124282$2L.62...@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com>,
> The Spectre <TSpe...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >Handera? You mean the have sold more than 5 units? I mean really how many
> >units can those guys really have sold? My understanding is they are not even
> >a player in the PDA market. Could not afford OS4.0 for handera 330 and
> >scrapped plans for a follow-up. The ONLY licensees doing anything with Palm
> >is HandSpring and Sony.
>
> Samsung, Kyocera, Alphasmart, Symbol, Acer, ....
Granted, they're doing something. But the sum of their efforts don't
appear to account for much (if anything).
Personally, I think the only licensees doing anything of substance
with Palm is Sony and Palm. Handspring did show a bit of promise but
appear to have sunk into the background a long time ago.
HandEra showed some promise with the virtual graffitti, but again,
they seem to have sunk into the background as well.
> >Pocket PC has got it almost right and I firmly the next version will be even
> >closer to perfect.
>
> Maybe. PPC2002 is a mixed blessing: the HWR is improved, but the network
> configuration is a nightmare, and they removed functionality from Pocket IE.
Not to mention that it uses the desktop metaphor far too much. Also
the damn thing locks solid for several seconds for no apparant reasons
and the OS is unstable on occasions.
> > As production increases prices will fall (look at
> >Toshiba e310) and palms lead will erode even faster.
I agree with this. PPC prices have been dropped and each maker is
activily pushing to get better, lighter hardware, sexier designs,
longer battery life and faster machines - which can only be a good
thing. There doesn't seem to be the same sort of push in the Palm
camp.
> > Finally, When you get
> >a Palm you usually don't get much software with it where as a Pocket PC
> >comes out of the box with WORD, EXCEL and a BROWSER to mention a few so tag
> >those to the price of a palm next time you compare the two platforms.
>
> It's a pity it doesn't come out of the box with DateBook and AddressBook.
Maybe they'll get it right in the next version. That'll be version 3
of the platform dubbed "PocketPC" (yes, i know it was based on WinCE
and so it's more than 3 etc.etc) and Microsoft tend to get it right
then.
Just out of interest, is there a Contacts/Diary/Notes/Tasks
replacement for PPC that provides full (and better) syncing with
Outlook than Pocket Outlook does?
Rich
Peter da Silva
Richard Lawrence <ralaw...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>Agreed. However I wonder whether market share takes into account all
>the ancient Palm's out there. What I would like to see is market share
>of products under 5 years old - i think it would be a more realistic
>picture.
The NPD numbers that people have been quoting are month-to-month retail sales.
That's what market share means. You seem to be thinking of installed base,
which Palm has an even more commanding lead in.
Peter da Silva
>news:<am1rjp$ogn$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com>...
>> In article <taRg9.124282$2L.62...@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com>,
>> The Spectre <TSpe...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> >Handera? You mean the have sold more than 5 units? I mean really how many
>> >units can those guys really have sold? My understanding is they are not even
>> >a player in the PDA market. Could not afford OS4.0 for handera 330 and
>> >scrapped plans for a follow-up. The ONLY licensees doing anything with Palm
>> >is HandSpring and Sony.
>> Samsung, Kyocera, Alphasmart, Symbol, Acer, ....
>Granted, they're doing something. But the sum of their efforts don't
>appear to account for much (if anything).
You could make the same argument about Symbol and Acer and their Pocket PC
group.
And Samsung and Kyocera's cellphones are pretty popular among people with
that kind of spare change.
>I agree with this. PPC prices have been dropped and each maker is
>activily pushing to get better, lighter hardware, sexier designs,
>longer battery life and faster machines - which can only be a good
>thing. There doesn't seem to be the same sort of push in the Palm
>camp.
You REALLY haven't been paying attention. Palm is heading for under-$100
and Sony just came out with a $150 320x320 device. And there's the new ARM
based Palms just around the corner.
Meanwhile, the PPC hasn't changed significantly since it came out, and the
products are still at the top end of Palm device prices.
>> > Finally, When you get
>> >a Palm you usually don't get much software with it where as a Pocket PC
>> >comes out of the box with WORD, EXCEL and a BROWSER to mention a few so tag
>> >those to the price of a palm next time you compare the two platforms.
>>
>> It's a pity it doesn't come out of the box with DateBook and AddressBook.
>
>Maybe they'll get it right in the next version.
That's what they said about PPC2002 and PPC and Palmsized PC and ... the beat
goes on.
I don't think they *can* fix AddressBook without getting the Outlook group
to move away from the overspecified hardcoded design of Contact records.
>Just out of interest, is there a Contacts/Diary/Notes/Tasks
>replacement for PPC that provides full (and better) syncing with
>Outlook than Pocket Outlook does?
I don't know and I don't care: I dont use Outlook nor do I allow it at work.
I'm still boggled by the fact that *any* company considers it an appropriate
product to run on the secured side of a firewall, given its history.
Arthur Hagen
"Peter da Silva" <pe...@taronga.com> wrote in message
news:am4fll$239k$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com...
> I don't know and I don't care: I dont use Outlook nor do I allow it at
work.
>
> I'm still boggled by the fact that *any* company considers it an
appropriate
> product to run on the secured side of a firewall, given its history.
I believe that companies do it for a combination of reasons:
- It's what they're familiar with.
- It's administered through wizards, and can be "set up" by an idiot. (And
usually is.)
- It does file sharing for people who lack the clue to figure out how to
share files in a more meaningful way, or who'd lose the shares unless the
shares are forced upon them.
- Same for shared calendars.
- It's designed to be blown up over the whole screen, for people who're
unable to cope with the idea of multiple windows and multi-tasking.
- It justifies the expense for expensive zero-value-adding middleware and
glorified workstations like exchange servers, ldap servers, domain
controllers and certificate servers.
- It caters to the mindless crowd who thinks it's a good idea to have
several days (or months) worth of emails in their inbox, and delete email
every now and then to "fix" the space problem -- read or not.
- It lets mid-level management do nifty things like creating colourful
signatures in fonts that recepients are unlikely to have, enforce a
similarly useless default font on everyone else, send out poll
questionnaires to check whether you understand their new list of acronyms,
or paste in a 1MB clipart file that gets shown as 80x40 pixels.
Regards,
--
*Art
ReindeR Rustema
> Personally, I think the only licensees doing anything of substance
> with Palm is Sony and Palm. Handspring did show a bit of promise but
> appear to have sunk into the background a long time ago.
They have found their 'niche'. They believe in communicators (Treo). I
think they are right.
--
ReindeR
ReindeR Rustema
> "Peter da Silva" <pe...@taronga.com> wrote in message
> news:am4fll$239k$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com...
>
> > I don't know and I don't care: I dont use Outlook nor do I allow it at
> > work.
> >
> > I'm still boggled by the fact that *any* company considers it an
> > appropriate
> > product to run on the secured side of a firewall, given its history.
>
> I believe that companies do it for a combination of reasons:
>
> - It's what they're familiar with.
> - It's administered through wizards, and can be "set up" by an idiot. (And
> usually is.)
> - It does file sharing for people who lack the clue to figure out how to
> share files in a more meaningful way, or who'd lose the shares unless the
> shares are forced upon them.
File sharing?! You are funny. To describe spamming attachments around
the world at large 'file sharing' certainly is a diplomatic way of
putting it.
--
ReindeR
Peter da Silva
ReindeR Rustema <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote:
>File sharing?! You are funny. To describe spamming attachments around
>the world at large 'file sharing' certainly is a diplomatic way of
>putting it.
Diplomacy is Art's middle name.
Arthur Hagen
> Arthur Hagen <a...@broomstick.com> wrote:
>
> > - It does file sharing for people who lack the clue to figure out how
to
> > share files in a more meaningful way, or who'd lose the shares unless
the
> > shares are forced upon them.
>
> File sharing?! You are funny. To describe spamming attachments around
> the world at large 'file sharing' certainly is a diplomatic way of
> putting it.
I wasn't talking about attachments, but "shared folders", which are easily
accessible through Outlook without the users having to worry about UNCs and
similar.
Regards,
--
*Art
Ben Combee
> though. You *don't* want to be setting up and tearing down CIFS connections
> continually.
There is one hint I've heard about... Palm OS 5 has a sound mixer that
lets you setup 16 channels of digital audio, and the system can mix all
of these together at runtime. These channels are services by callbacks,
and apparently actually run as PACE threads in the new kernel. The idea
is that you can setup a audio provider thread, but never actually return
to the OS with an audio buffer. In doing so, you'd suddenly be able to
run code in the background, with it actually getting timeslices on the
device.
Read the new SDK 5 docs on the Sampled Sound manager, specifically how
the SndStreamBufferCallbacks work, and you can get a hint.
Richard Lawrence
> >I agree with this. PPC prices have been dropped and each maker is
> >activily pushing to get better, lighter hardware, sexier designs,
> >longer battery life and faster machines - which can only be a good
> >thing. There doesn't seem to be the same sort of push in the Palm
> >camp.
>
> You REALLY haven't been paying attention. Palm is heading for under-$100
> and Sony just came out with a $150 320x320 device.
Just because Palm's prices are going down, doesn't mean the PPC ones
aren't.
> And there's the new ARM based Palms just around the corner.
Until they are actually here, in the shops and purchasable then this
point doesn't really hold much. Otherwise you could end up in the
situation where you have two people arguing about which two
as-yet-unreleased OS' are better.
> Meanwhile, the PPC hasn't changed significantly since it came out, and the
> products are still at the top end of Palm device prices.
Again, it doesn't mean that their prices aren't going down. I don't
think you'll find anyone who thinks that PPC prices will go below
current Palms.
> >Just out of interest, is there a Contacts/Diary/Notes/Tasks
> >replacement for PPC that provides full (and better) syncing with
> >Outlook than Pocket Outlook does?
>
> I don't know and I don't care: I dont use Outlook nor do I allow it at work.
>
> I'm still boggled by the fact that *any* company considers it an appropriate
> product to run on the secured side of a firewall, given its history.
Because no-one has come up with a better and more user-friendly
integrated email/contacts/tasks/calendar? The difference between
Outlook and Windows is that just because one company uses Outlook
doesn't mean that others are forced to do the same. The product is
picked purely on merit and competition.
When another company comes up with something as integrated, better and
as user friendly then I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be
happy to move - but even it's best competitor, Notes, just doesn't cut
it.
Rich
Richard Lawrence
I think you've answered your own comment about why there are there.
It's in the sentence "which are easily accessible".
Rich
Peter da Silva
>news:<am4fll$239k$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com>...
>> >I agree with this. PPC prices have been dropped and each maker is
>> >activily pushing to get better, lighter hardware, sexier designs,
>> >longer battery life and faster machines - which can only be a good
>> >thing. There doesn't seem to be the same sort of push in the Palm
>> >camp.
>> You REALLY haven't been paying attention. Palm is heading for under-$100
>> and Sony just came out with a $150 320x320 device.
>Just because Palm's prices are going down, doesn't mean the PPC ones
>aren't.
You know, that's a really weird response. Of course the PPC prices
are going down as well... they've gone down to the price that Palms
were at three and a half years ago, so they're as cheap as a high
end Palm instead of a top of the line one. They can't get much
cheaper without a breakthrough in display technology. But let's
look at those three or so years...
In that time a top-of-the-line PalmOS device has gone from 160x160
monochrome with a 16 MHZ CPU, 4M of RAM and a unique internal
expansion slot... to 320x480 16-bit color with a 66 MHz CPU, 16M
of RAM, and an expansion slot that's shared with digital cameras
and MP3 players... the lightweight devices have gone from 160x160
monochrome with 16MHZ and 2M of RAM to 320x320 color with 33MHz
and 16M of RAM.
The operating system has added a new file system, a new network
stack, and a whole new collection of standard libraries... and it's
still backwards compatible and mostly forwards compatible with the
IIIx and V.
Meanwhile, the top-of-the-line Windows Powered device has gone from
240x320 8-bit color with a 70 MHz CPU, 16M of RAM, and a standard
CF expansion slot to 240x320 16-bit color, a 400 MHz CPU that's
not any faster than the previous 200 MHz one, 64M of RAM, and a
less capable expansion slot. The lightweight model has gone from
40 MHz to 200 MHz, 8-bit color to 16-bit color.
The operating system has changed the user interface incompatibly,
and added new drivers and applications.
So my figuring is that in the time it's taken low-end PPCs to cost
as little as top-of-the-line Palms used to, Palm's increased CPU
speed 4 times, display resolution 6 times, color depth 16 times,
and memory 4-8 times. Windows powered devices have increased CPU
speed 3-5 times, desplay resolution not at all, color depth 2 times,
and memory 4 times.
The operating system has had significant UI makeovers and new apps,
but the underlying functionality hasn't changed and some functionality
has actually been removed from the UI.
If you extend the timeline back to the first models, the differences
are even more striking. The first Palm only had 128K of RAM!
So don't tell me the Palm camp has been standing still, and expect
me to believe you have the vaguest idea what you're talking about.
>> I'm still boggled by the fact that *any* company considers it an appropriate
>> product to run on the secured side of a firewall, given its history.
>Because no-one has come up with a better and more user-friendly
>integrated email/contacts/tasks/calendar?
What's magic about that specific set of functions? Why don't people
want timecard, purchase requests, project scheduling, and inventory
control in the same application? Why, because that's the specific
set of functions Outlook provides, therefore it's the best set
there is (that's sarcasm, by the way). Notes does a whole lot more,
or you can assemble the same functionality peicemeal from individual
packages and they still work well together.
Anyay, that's not the point. The point is that Outlook's tight
binding to the Microsoft HTML Control and that module's tight
binding to Windows Explorer together make it almost impossible to
design a security model that preempts potential attacks... and I
really can't blame Microsoft for failing to do so, once they set
their feet upon the path, but they *did* decide to take that route.
The use of Outlook has cost the industry billions in wasted money
and time as people try and block viruses by makeshifts such as
"antivirus software" and filters. I can't see a competant and
informed security officer accepting Outlook within a secured area.
Unfortunately most copmanies don't have security officers at all,
let alone competent ones.
Stephen F Hawkyns
I recently tried a PPC, but went back to palm, why.. I dont use MS
stuff on the computer aside from the OS:
email - eudora
word processing - Wordperfect (user since V3) . I have a copy of
office xp, but I only use it because people send out things that need
to be opened in that format.
Presentations - OK, here I use powerpoint
finance - Quicken (no PPC equivalent yet)
I went back to my 505, I tried using outlook, could not stand it, at
all. I was impressed with some of the formatting, but again, eudora
is much easier and better.. if I want a scheduler, I want to do it in
another program, not the one I use for email..
next - Sony NR OS5 device, as soon as it come out.
On Sat, 14 Sep 2002 21:19:41 -0400, "The Spectre"
<TSpe...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>Handera? You mean the have sold more than 5 units? I mean really how many
>units can those guys really have sold? My understanding is they are not even
>a player in the PDA market. Could not afford OS4.0 for handera 330 and
>scrapped plans for a follow-up. The ONLY licensees doing anything with Palm
>is HandSpring and Sony. I can't believe palm is even still in business with
>all the times they have bungled their OS and products over the last few
>years. Just goes to show you that the majority of users are clueless and
>don't need a PDA at all.
>
>Pocket PC has got it almost right and I firmly the next version will be even
>closer to perfect. As production increases prices will fall (look at
>Toshiba e310) and palms lead will erode even faster. Finally, When you get
>a Palm you usually don't get much software with it where as a Pocket PC
>comes out of the box with WORD, EXCEL and a BROWSER to mention a few so tag
>those to the price of a palm next time you compare the two platforms.
>
>
>"ReindeR Rustema" <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote in message
ReindeR Rustema
> Because no-one has come up with a better and more user-friendly
> integrated email/contacts/tasks/calendar?
Just yesterday an Outlook user used this also as an example to convince
me that Outlook is better than Eudora. But why on earth would I want to
have those functions integrated in one program? What's the benifit?
Writing e-mail to me is a completely different functionality than a
database with contacts. Or prioritising a list with todo's. A calender
is a totally different functionality. I admit that the last three are
related enough to put them in a handheld device as 'Todo-list,
Addressbook and Datebook'. But that's more about the situations in which
I need the information (when on the road) than it is about what it does.
On the Palm, the 3 are different applications.
But to put them all together in one app which is made for writing
e-mail? I really don't understand it. Please enlighten me.
I use Mac OS X 10.2 with Eudora 5.1 for e-mail, Palm Desktop for
addresses and Meetingmaker at work for my calendar. The Memo and Todo
functionality I also use a lot, but nearly always from the Treo. So,
what am I missing?
--
ReindeR
Matthew Henry
> e-mail? I really don't understand it. Please enlighten me.
I agree. I used Outlook at home for years, and I still use it at work. I
have always found the Calendar and TODO list to be clunky to use.
My current philosophy is have separate software for those tasks.
At home, I currently use Eudora for email, Ilium's ListPro for lists, and
Palm Desktop for everything else.
And it annoys me that I have to use the Palm Desktop for three tasks:
calendar, address book and memo. It annoys me, if for no other reason that
the Palm Desktop does not have the quickest startup time.
I'd like to find separate (free) apps for the calendar and memo that sync
with the Palm.
Personal preference, I suppose. I find all-in-one mp3 solutions annoying as
well. To me, ripping an mp3 is a completely different activity from
listening to one. Why would I want that functionality in the same program?
matt henry
"ReindeR Rustema" <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote in message
news:1fio56s.1su6rt0l33beeN%rei...@rustema.nl...
ReindeR Rustema
> I'd like to find separate (free) apps for the calendar and memo that sync
> with the Palm.
I think that you are Windows user? For those with the Mac OS X there is
good news. The new program by Apple, iCal will be syncable with the
Palm. And it looks great. You can also share calenders online with
others (using some open protocol you can expect other software for!).
http://www.apple.com/ical/
Something similar probably exist for the Windows platform or will appear
shortly. Just mind the protocol the software uses to share calenders
with others (with other software).
> Personal preference, I suppose. I find all-in-one mp3 solutions annoying as
> well. To me, ripping an mp3 is a completely different activity from
> listening to one. Why would I want that functionality in the same program?
For the same reason as it is useful to have the same knives and forks on
the table at dinner as are used in the kitchen to prepare the meal. No
reason, that is.
--
ReindeR
Peter da Silva
ReindeR Rustema <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote:
>But to put them all together in one app which is made for writing
>e-mail? I really don't understand it. Please enlighten me.
I think a certain amount of this has to do with the fact that a lot of the
early non-TCP office LAN technologies layered a lot of unrelated stuff
on top of "email", and this model has festered in the core of all kinds of
applications.
Jeff
"ReindeR Rustema" <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote in message
news:1fio56s.1su6rt0l33beeN%rei...@rustema.nl...
>
> > Because no-one has come up with a better and more user-friendly
> > integrated email/contacts/tasks/calendar?
>
> Just yesterday an Outlook user used this also as an example to convince
> me that Outlook is better than Eudora. But why on earth would I want to
> have those functions integrated in one program? What's the benifit?
Let's say you want to invite your co workers to a meeting. With your setup,
you:
1) Open your separate programs.
2) Go to your contact prog, and copy your co-workers email addresses,
one-by-one, into the new email.
3) Send email
4) Your co-workers receive the email, cut the text of the invite out of it.
5) They go to their separate calendar prog, create a new entry and paste the
info in. They must manually match the meeting time to the time you typed in
the email. They must manually add attendees if they so choose.
With Outlook:
1) Open outlook.
2) Open an new email, and click the names of the people you want to invite.
3) send email.
4) Co workers receive, click "accept" and the meeting (with all relevant
info) is on their calendar.
Which do YOU think is easier???
jeff
Of course Outlook has problems, but you just can't argue that the
integration was a bad idea. If you don't like it, you're free to use
separate products, but most people prefer the integration.
Peter da Silva
>Let's say you want to invite your co workers to a meeting. With your setup,
>you:
Your example assumes that the only alternatives are Outlook or a raft of
personal calendar programs that have no relation to each other. The logical
alternative is an intranet based calendar:
1) Open my browser to the intranet home page.
2) Click on "calendar".
3) Select the date and time.
4) Select the co-workers names from a pull-down list.
5) Click "OK"
Each of them gets an email that informs them they're pencilled in on the
calendar program, with hotlinks for "OK" or "Can't make it".
> If you don't like it, you're free to use
>separate products, but most people prefer the integration.
There's no reason separate products can't be integrated.
Arthur Hagen
> Your example assumes that the only alternatives are Outlook or a raft of
> personal calendar programs that have no relation to each other. The
logical
> alternative is an intranet based calendar:
>
> 1) Open my browser to the intranet home page.
> 2) Click on "calendar".
> 3) Select the date and time.
> 4) Select the co-workers names from a pull-down list.
> 5) Click "OK"
>
> Each of them gets an email that informs them they're pencilled in on the
> calendar program, with hotlinks for "OK" or "Can't make it".
This approach has several advantages, but it also introduces multiple
SPOFs -- the web server and the network, to name two. You don't really want
everyone in the company to miss all their appointments because of a problem.
Appointments are better stored locally, but I agree that there's no reason
for having one elephantine program that does everything -- that's another
SPOF.
Using open protocols to communicate between different programs, combined
with local mirroring of redundantly stored network data would be my
preference. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of apps supporting this.
Regards,
--
*Art
ReindeR Rustema
> In article <3d8792b3$1...@nntp2.nac.net>, Jeff <wei...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> >Let's say you want to invite your co workers to a meeting. With your setup,
> >you:
>
> Your example assumes that the only alternatives are Outlook or a raft of
> personal calendar programs that have no relation to each other. The logical
> alternative is an intranet based calendar:
>
> 1) Open my browser to the intranet home page.
> 2) Click on "calendar".
> 3) Select the date and time.
> 4) Select the co-workers names from a pull-down list.
> 5) Click "OK"
And indeed, this is exactly what I do with Meetingmaker. All my
colleagues use it and a window pops up when I invite them. No e-mail to
check or whatever, no mailbox populution. E-mail remains for written
communication, a dialogue, the calender is for time-management.
> > If you don't like it, you're free to use
> >separate products, but most people prefer the integration.
>
> There's no reason separate products can't be integrated.
There is even some integration in Meetingmaker. I can choose for an
e-mail and/or SMS notification for new meeting proposals, upcoming
events etc. But I am not writing e-mail with it.
And it synchronises with Palm and works on *all* platforms.
--
ReindeR
Peter da Silva
Ben Combee <com...@techwood.org> wrote:
>> I don't think this will be really practical without background networking,
>> though. You *don't* want to be setting up and tearing down CIFS connections
>> continually.
>There is one hint I've heard about... Palm OS 5 has a sound mixer that
>lets you setup 16 channels of digital audio, and the system can mix all
>of these together at runtime. These channels are services by callbacks,
>and apparently actually run as PACE threads in the new kernel.
Thanks for the pointer. I took a look, it doesn't seem to be related to the
mechanism I was thinking of (in particular, it wouldn't require the new
kernel). It may be usable for this kind of thing, but I was hoping for
something more general.
dr.emailposter
everyone's else calendar if via Exchange) with someone you know (pulled from
contacts and invitation sent to the attendees using address from the
contacts in a VCAL format) and add a task with a date limit and owner (sent
to the owner from the contacts)?
It makes sense for me... And I use this all the time (from my home pop
account and from my corporate IMAP via Exchange account)
I am not worried to say I used MS software for everything but a few: OS
(2000 Pro), browser (IE 6 SP1), e-mail, scheduling, word processing,
presentation, spreadsheet, html creation (all from MS Office Developer
Edition), Security (Symantec's NIS Pro edition)...
But, this is not a OS war, is it?
"ReindeR Rustema" <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote in message
news:1fio56s.1su6rt0l33beeN%rei...@rustema.nl...
Peter da Silva
Arthur Hagen <a...@broomstick.com> wrote:
>"Peter da Silva" <pe...@taronga.com> wrote in message
>news:am87dv$vln$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com...
>> Your example assumes that the only alternatives are Outlook or a raft of
>> personal calendar programs that have no relation to each other. The logical
>> alternative is an intranet based calendar:
>> 1) Open my browser to the intranet home page.
>> 2) Click on "calendar".
>> 3) Select the date and time.
>> 4) Select the co-workers names from a pull-down list.
>> 5) Click "OK"
>> Each of them gets an email that informs them they're pencilled in on the
>> calendar program, with hotlinks for "OK" or "Can't make it".
>This approach has several advantages, but it also introduces multiple
>SPOFs -- the web server and the network, to name two.
And an Exchange server can't fail?
>Appointments are better stored locally,
If you replace "stored" with "cached", there are a number of mechanisms that
could be used to implement it: I would tend towards having a URL that could
be used by an applet in Palm Desktop or a standalone program, maybe in Java,
to grab one's calendar in XML (I believe there's even an XML DTD for Palm
Contacts already) and feed it to an appropriate local repository.
>Using open protocols to communicate between different programs, combined
>with local mirroring of redundantly stored network data would be my
>preference. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of apps supporting this.
Funny, most of the apps I use do. trn, grep, cat, wget, sed, awk, ...
I really hate how Windows is a huge step back from the tools approach to
the old mainframe/PC/timeshare "you runs your program and it does one thing"
model.
Alan Anderson
<dr.emai...@freedom.invalid> wrote:
> What about setting up a meeting (automatic in your calendar and checking
> everyone's else calendar if via Exchange) with someone you know (pulled from
> contacts and invitation sent to the attendees using address from the
> contacts in a VCAL format) and add a task with a date limit and owner (sent
> to the owner from the contacts)?
Say what? I can't even understand what you're trying to describe, much
less the process you're apparently suggesting for it. Let me strip out
the parentheses:
"What about setting up a meeting with someone you know and add a task sith
a date limit and owner?"
Setting up a meeting I can handle, but what's a "task with a date limit
and owner"? Is that another name for a "to do"?
> It makes sense for me... And I use this all the time (from my home pop
> account and from my corporate IMAP via Exchange account)
I guess it'll have to make sense for me too, eventually. We're switching
at work from Lotus Notes to Outlook and Exchange. (But I'm already
hearing horror stories from areas which have already made the switch,
things like how the calendar features are so easy to use that people are
having their schedules set months in advance by others who don't even know
them. :-P)
Tim - PalmZone
than PocketPC, including Word, Excel, Powerpoint. They also come
with software to sync to Outlook plus photoviewing software, etc.
Browsers are aplenty for Palm as well, some free, offering more
choice than PocketPC.
I'm not saying there aren't other advantages (and disadvantages)
to PPC, but software isn't currently one of them.
---
T...@PalmZone.net
http://www.palmzone.net
Hello, "The Spectre" !
You wrote:
<<< SNIP >>>
Finally, When you get
> a Palm you usually don't get much software with it where as a
Pocket PC
> comes out of the box with WORD, EXCEL and a BROWSER to mention
a few so tag
> those to the price of a palm next time you compare the two
platforms.
>
<<< SNIP >>>
Peter da Silva
dr.emailposter <dr.emai...@freedom.invalid> wrote:
>Security [...]
This has become one of my favorite quotes lately:
"I'm not proud. We really haven't done everything we could to protect
our customers. Our products just aren't engineered for security."
- Brian Valentine, senior vice-president in charge of MS's
Windows development.
ReindeR Rustema
> It makes sense for me... And I use this all the time (from my home pop
> account and from my corporate IMAP via Exchange account)
The problem with sending invitations to others through e-mail is that
they expect e-mail when they check their e-mail. When they think it is
time to do their time management, they switch to the calendar and do
that.
When I use my e-mail app I expect a dialogue with others, not
time-management. For many people the time-management is much more
important than e-mail. So they use Meetingmaker all the time and Eudora
during little 'breaks' in their planning. Makes perfect sense to me.
Integrating time-management and e-mail in one app just gives stress.
Yes, it is all possible, but it takes away the feeling for the end user
to be in control of what they are doing. But that is what the whole
Microsoft success is founded upon I have the impression. You need to be
critical and a bit of software engineer yourself to see what's wrong
with this Outlook approach.
I can understand the sensation of Outlook Express users who first find
all this beautiful new options in their software. It is so practical. It
takes a critical stance to realise that in theory the idea is great, but
that it is better to seperate it in different applications.
From MS' point of view it does not make sense businesswise because you
want to make the users dependent on your products. And users who don't
want to be in control or are not used to it the MS 'solutions' are
comforting.
> But, this is not a OS war, is it?
No, Meetingmaker runs on all operating systems, so does Eudora. Outlook
Express, not surprisingly only on Windows.
--
ReindeR
Richard Lawrence
> In article <b1b8a8d6.02091...@posting.google.com>,
> Richard Lawrence <ralaw...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >pe...@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) wrote in message
> >news:<am4fll$239k$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com>...
> >> >I agree with this. PPC prices have been dropped and each maker is
> >> >activily pushing to get better, lighter hardware, sexier designs,
> >> >longer battery life and faster machines - which can only be a good
> >> >thing. There doesn't seem to be the same sort of push in the Palm
> >> >camp.
>
> >> You REALLY haven't been paying attention. Palm is heading for under-$100
> >> and Sony just came out with a $150 320x320 device.
>
> >Just because Palm's prices are going down, doesn't mean the PPC ones
> >aren't.
>
> You know, that's a really weird response.
To be honest, I thought it was you giving the wierd response to my
original point!
I say that PPC prices have come down and you counter that with a point
that basically says "well, so has Palm prices dropped" and I couldn't
really understand why that had any bearing on the dropping of PPC
prices.
> So don't tell me the Palm camp has been standing still, and expect
> me to believe you have the vaguest idea what you're talking about.
I'd never say that Palm has stood still, because that would be
blatently untrue.
Feel free to correct me (I'm sure you will) but *most* of those
advances in the Palm camp seem to have happened in the latter ends of
the three years. Would you not say that Palm has tended to move rather
slowly because there hasn't really been any credible alternatives? Not
that I blame them, if I had the market sown up I'd probably rest on my
laurels a little.
Now, I'm not saying that PPC is a creditable alternative at the
moment, but Microsoft does have a habit of throwning money (and lots
of it) at something until it works and they are making inroads -
albeit at a much higher level because, as you rightly said, they need
a major drop in the cost of manufacturing to get their prices much
lower (organic LED's maybe? not really sure)
> >Because no-one has come up with a better and more user-friendly
> >integrated email/contacts/tasks/calendar?
>
> What's magic about that specific set of functions?
With the exception of email, they were all present in filofaxes.
Microsoft didn't pick those functions, paper-bound organisors did
that.
> Notes does a whole lot more,
> or you can assemble the same functionality peicemeal from individual
> packages and they still work well together.
My major beef with Notes is that it's a pig to use and has the most
un-intuiative and horrible user interface known to mankind.
But we're digressing here ...
Rich
Richard Lawrence
> Just yesterday an Outlook user used this also as an example to convince
> me that Outlook is better than Eudora. But why on earth would I want to
> have those functions integrated in one program? What's the benifit?
Personal preference. I like the way that certain things are tied
together, I can add a contact, set their birthday and an entry is
added into my diary. I can organise a meeting with a couple of clicks,
I can send an email to one of my contacts without having to have a
seperate address book for both.
Sure, you can probably all come up with better programs for each of
these, but I (and others) like the way stuff is tied in together. Yes,
it has its disadvantages too (like anything) but I find myself more
productive.
> But to put them all together in one app which is made for writing
> e-mail? I really don't understand it. Please enlighten me.
Since you sound like a technical person, try asking a few
non-technical people. I like the idea of one thing with nicely tied in
actions. I can't explain why I like it (hence my suggestion about
asking others) but it's what I like.
> I use Mac OS X 10.2 with Eudora 5.1 for e-mail, Palm Desktop for
> addresses and Meetingmaker at work for my calendar. The Memo and Todo
> functionality I also use a lot, but nearly always from the Treo. So,
> what am I missing?
Nothing, you're doing it in a way that is comfortable for you. You're
happy with seperate programs for each and others are happy for one
program that it in one.
I would hope that even Peter would agree that there is no globally
"right" solution. Some people prefer seperates, some people prefer the
all-in-one solution. I find myself more productive with the latter
(well, for email/calendar/tasks/notes anyway - but not everything) and
some the former.
Rich
ReindeR Rustema
> they need
> a major drop in the cost of manufacturing to get their prices much
> lower (organic LED's maybe? not really sure)
Cool. Trained bacteria in different colors running around between two
layers of glass :-)
--
ReindeR
Arthur Hagen
"Richard Lawrence" <ralaw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:b1b8a8d6.02091...@posting.google.com...
> Feel free to correct me (I'm sure you will) but *most* of those
> advances in the Palm camp seem to have happened in the latter ends of
> the three years. Would you not say that Palm has tended to move rather
> slowly because there hasn't really been any credible alternatives?
I'd think that a couple of the main reasons are:
- Compatibility between devices has always been a strong selling point for
Palm. Not so with the PocketPC, which has very little compatibility between
devices and (OS versions). Thus the reliance on Motorola 68k CPU's (up to
now, that is -- it will change with PalmOS 5), and no fundamentally big
changes creating incompatibility.
- They have had to wait for the technology to catch up. High colour
screens that doesn't eat up the battery instantaneously, for example.
- Price. Adding the newest and hottest reflective display the minute it
was ready for production made the iPaq H36 series a leader of the pack in
some ways, but at $500+, the big market couldn't really afford it.
Regards,
--
*Art
Arthur Hagen
> In article <GiOh9.14$hj....@news.ntplx.net>,
> Arthur Hagen <a...@broomstick.com> wrote:
>
> >This approach has several advantages, but it also introduces multiple
> >SPOFs -- the web server and the network, to name two.
>
> And an Exchange server can't fail?
It not only can, it will fail. But at least Outlook syncs to local storage,
so when the Exchange server is down, you still have your appointments and
email, and can still create new appointments.
> >Appointments are better stored locally,
>
> If you replace "stored" with "cached", there are a number of mechanisms
that
> could be used to implement it: I would tend towards having a URL that
could
> be used by an applet in Palm Desktop or a standalone program, maybe in
Java,
> to grab one's calendar in XML (I believe there's even an XML DTD for Palm
> Contacts already) and feed it to an appropriate local repository.
Unless it's two-way with enough functionality on the client side to let you
enter/change data for future synchronization, you're still putting all your
eggs in one basket.
> >Using open protocols to communicate between different programs, combined
> >with local mirroring of redundantly stored network data would be my
> >preference. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of apps supporting this.
>
> Funny, most of the apps I use do. trn, grep, cat, wget, sed, awk, ...
Me too :-) But I can't really convince The Corporation to have everyone
switch operating systems and lay off everyone who can't handle the tools
approach.
> I really hate how Windows is a huge step back from the tools approach to
> the old mainframe/PC/timeshare "you runs your program and it does one
thing"
> model.
In some ways it does, while in others it doesn't. I hate that it abstracts
the data from the user, who is _expected_ to be ignorant. Any knowledge or
understanding of what really goes on is only going to frustrate a user of
Windows.
Regards,
--
*Art
Arthur Hagen
"Richard Lawrence" <ralaw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:b1b8a8d6.02091...@posting.google.com...
news:<1fio56s.1su6rt0l33beeN%rei...@rustema.nl>...
> > Just yesterday an Outlook user used this also as an example to convince
> > me that Outlook is better than Eudora. But why on earth would I want to
> > have those functions integrated in one program? What's the benifit?
>
> Personal preference. I like the way that certain things are tied
> together, I can add a contact, set their birthday and an entry is
> added into my diary.
I really hate that feature, for several reasons. It doesn't give me any
options to avoid it, it doesn't assign categories, and it doesn't handle
birth dates before 1970 well. Not to mention that I don't WANT to be
reminded of everyone's birthday.
And you don't really need One Big Program to do that -- if programs are
using STANDARDS, you can have your calendar program import birthdates from
your contacts program automatically. And vice versa -- add a birthday
reminder, and you can have your contacts program import the date (something
that Outlook can't do).
> I can organise a meeting with a couple of clicks,
> I can send an email to one of my contacts without having to have a
> seperate address book for both.
Didn't you know that Outlook uses multiple address books? There's the
Address Book and there's the Contacts.
And with Outlook, you can't distinguish between private and company email,
or have more than 3 email addresses, or even show the email address in full.
Not to mention that it doesn't handle correct email addresses that use (),
<> and "" the way the standards specify. Nor does it SHOW the email
address - it replaces it with the name, so you don't know where you send
something, and can't even choose the protocol or delivery method.
Regards,
--
*Art
Richard Lawrence
> In article <am8f4b$rr1$1...@si05.rsvl.unisys.com>, "dr.emailposter"
> <dr.emai...@freedom.invalid> wrote:
>
> > What about setting up a meeting (automatic in your calendar and checking
> > everyone's else calendar if via Exchange) with someone you know (pulled from
> > contacts and invitation sent to the attendees using address from the
> > contacts in a VCAL format) and add a task with a date limit and owner (sent
> > to the owner from the contacts)?
<snip>
> Setting up a meeting I can handle, but what's a "task with a date limit
> and owner"? Is that another name for a "to do"?
Yep. You can create a "to do", put in a list of the people who should
be doing it and then it'll get send out to them for them to
agree/disagree. It can be quite useful for a Project Manager if they
go away with a bunch of actions for others. The nice thing is that as
the task progresses, the PM can get feedback automatically via email.
No, it's not perfect and there are always going to be custom software
out there that does this better (before anyone starts pointing this
out). It isn't that often used in our office (it's a tad impersonal
and assumes that people are unable to look after actions they've been
given) but it does work and can, in certain circumstances, be useful.
> I guess it'll have to make sense for me too, eventually. We're switching
> at work from Lotus Notes to Outlook and Exchange. (But I'm already
> hearing horror stories from areas which have already made the switch,
> things like how the calendar features are so easy to use that people are
> having their schedules set months in advance by others who don't even know
> them. :-P)
:o)
All meeting requests go in as tentative into your calendar until you
accept/reject them. It would be nice if Datebook showed them as that
(rather than being an actual appointment) as I often have a number of
pending meeting requests. However thats a fairly minor gripe
considering I should actually accept or reject them :o)
Rich
ps. If Chapura make a Datebook replacement a la KeyContacts which
supports this and a number of other options (decent weekview and other
stuff that DateBk has) then I would be first in line with the credit
card. Whether you like the Outlook style of doing contacts or not,
their KeyContacts product is truely superb.
Peter da Silva
>together, I can add a contact, set their birthday and an entry is
>added into my diary. I can organise a meeting with a couple of clicks,
None of which involve sending or receiving email.
>I can send an email to one of my contacts without having to have a
>seperate address book for both.
And so can I, because there's this magical capability in modern computers
that seems to have passed Microsoft by, wherein a program can CALL ANOTHER
PROGRAM to perform a function. I use this capability all the time on Windows,
every time I open a document from Windows Explorer it CALLS ANOTHER PROGRAM
to open it. In fact, Microsoft has developed a standardised tool for separate
programs on the same computer to communicate with each other about email,
that virtually every mail software on the computer uses... so when I send an
email from my Palm, using my Palm address book which is completely synced
with my desktop address book, it goes out using the mail program I specified
in my MAPI preferences.
IN FACT, I can set things up so that my Palm and my Pocket PC are both synced
to Outlook's address book, but my Palm using my MAPI prefs sends mail via
Lotus Notes.
Unfortunately, my Pocket PC always uses Outlook. It really bothers me that
Microsoft developed this framework whereby separate third-party programs
can interoperate and make email act like a basic part of the computer system
that "just works", and then don't use it themselves. EVERY OTHER PROGRAM ON
MY LAPTOP SENDS AND RECEIVES MAIL USING MY EMAIL PREFERENCES, EXCEPT FOR
MY POCKET PC. Every bloody one.
>Since you sound like a technical person, try asking a few
>non-technical people. I like the idea of one thing with nicely tied in
>actions.
You seem to be confusing design with implementation. I have a nicely
integrated system based around Microsoft's own API, that happens to be
implemented as separate cooperating programs that work together... and
configuring it is simply a matter of checking "use this program as the
default mail application" in one of them.
>I would hope that even Peter would agree that there is no globally
>"right" solution.
Which is another very good reason to despise Outlook: it forces you to do
a bunch of unrelated tasks the same way everyone else does, because Microsoft
ignores their own carefully designed API that everyone else in the world is
already using to *let* everyone pick and choose their tools.
Jeffrey S. Russell
arbitrary name, a pop-up window allows you to select the appropriate address
choice. And if you have set your preferences to IMAP or POP3, what other
protocol worries do you have? Second, Outlook does separate Corporate from
Personal addresses, and if you pay careful attention, you will see that the
default Contact List in Outlook synchronizes with the Windows Address Book.
I have been using Outlook since its inception and have found it very useful.
I myself am a technical person, having been a network engineer for 8 years.
I have enough worries with complex systems and processes, that for me, makes
Outlook a refreshing and simple program to use. But remember, there is no
one program that fits all people. different people have different
expectations and needs in programs. My solution is not necessarily the
right one for you or Richard, or any of the other posters out there. My way
is not the definitive "right way" and neither is yours.
Regards,
Jeff
"Arthur Hagen" <a...@broomstick.com> wrote in message
news:8WZh9.18$hj....@news.ntplx.net...
Peter da Silva
Richard Lawrence <ralaw...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>I say that PPC prices have come down and you counter that with a point
>that basically says "well, so has Palm prices dropped" and I couldn't
>really understand why that had any bearing on the dropping of PPC
>prices.
Well, you know, there's this thing called competition. There's this thing
called Moore's Law. Prices for computers are dropping and wil continue to
drop for quite a while, and the drop in PPC prices is part of that same
rising tide. It's not because of any special unique effort on the part of
PPC manufacturers that isn't being matched by Palm licensees.
>Feel free to correct me (I'm sure you will) but *most* of those
>advances in the Palm camp seem to have happened in the latter ends of
>the three years.
Um, no. TRG came out with an internal 8M memory expansion in 1999. Standard
memory max increased from 4M to 8M at the end of 1999 with the release
of the Visor Deluxe. External expansion slots showed up at the same time
with the Visor, standard expansion slots a month or so later with the TRGPro
and the first Sony Clie with memory stick slots showed up near the end of
2000 (I saw my first Clie, ironically, at the Microsoft Pocket PC conference
in 2000). The Handera 330 followed with a QVGA display in mid-2001, and
Sony came out with the 320x320 screen about the same time. Every few months
another new device has come out with new capabilities.
On the Microsoft front, there was a big jump in CPU performance in, IIRC, 2Q
2000 with the release of the Pocket PC (primarily the iPaq). There wasn't
much new until 3Q 2001 with PPC 2002 and the dual expansion slot Toshiba.
Since then there's been a flurry of new iPaqs and Toshibas, and the PPC Phone
Edition devices. It's the Microsoft world that's been moving slowly and only
recently seen a surge in effort.
>Would you not say that Palm has tended to move rather
>slowly because there hasn't really been any credible alternatives?
No, I wouldn't say that Palm has been moving slowly at all. I'd say it's been
moving a lot more *steadily* than Microsoft, but I can't say that it's been
slow.
>Now, I'm not saying that PPC is a creditable alternative at the
>moment, but Microsoft does have a habit of throwning money (and lots
>of it) at something until it works and they are making inroads -
>albeit at a much higher level because, as you rightly said, they need
>a major drop in the cost of manufacturing to get their prices much
>lower (organic LED's maybe? not really sure)
Microsoft has been throwing a lot of money at this market since before Palm
existed. They started around 1991, demoed Pen Windows in 1993, and their
first WinCE handheld trails Palm by less than a year.
Throwing a lot of money at a market is not a guarantee of success. I'm more
impressed by the increasing amount of interoperability (yes, even with Palm)
in the Pocket PC itself, but concerned about what's going to happen with
WinCE .NET.
>> >Because no-one has come up with a better and more user-friendly
>> >integrated email/contacts/tasks/calendar?
>> What's magic about that specific set of functions?
>With the exception of email, they were all present in filofaxes.
>Microsoft didn't pick those functions, paper-bound organisors did
>that.
Ironically, email... the exception... is precisely the issue.
>> Notes does a whole lot more,
>> or you can assemble the same functionality peicemeal from individual
>> packages and they still work well together.
>My major beef with Notes is that it's a pig to use and has the most
>un-intuiative and horrible user interface known to mankind.
I used to think so, then I started using Solomon IV. It makes Notes look
*wonderful* by comparison.
But I wouldn't point to Outlook for an intuitive user interface. It violates
a heck of a lot of Microsoft's design guidelines, and frequently uses
non-standard controls for no reason I can see other than "style".
Peter da Silva
Arthur Hagen <a...@broomstick.com> wrote:
>Unless it's two-way with enough functionality on the client side to let you
>enter/change data for future synchronization, you're still putting all your
>eggs in one basket.
That's a good point. I would have thought that it was obvious that the
handheld's data would have to be fed back to the server as well. That's
got to happen whether or not you're concerned about the server's
reliability.
>> >Using open protocols to communicate between different programs, combined
>> >with local mirroring of redundantly stored network data would be my
>> >preference. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of apps supporting this.
>> Funny, most of the apps I use do. trn, grep, cat, wget, sed, awk, ...
>Me too :-) But I can't really convince The Corporation to have everyone
>switch operating systems and lay off everyone who can't handle the tools
>approach.
I've had secretaries writing shell scripts and professional programmers
claiming that editing a text file on UNIX was too hard for them. I don't
believe in this hypothetical userbase that's incpable of learning. I do
believe that people will (for whatever reason) PRETEND to be incompetant,
though I can't understand it.
And in any case, that's largely irrelevant... there's lots of point-n-click
applications and environments for *NIX.
Richard Lawrence
> In article <am8f4b$rr1$1...@si05.rsvl.unisys.com>,
> dr.emailposter <dr.emai...@freedom.invalid> wrote:
> >I am not worried to say I used MS software for everything but a few [...]
> >Security [...]
>
> This has become one of my favorite quotes lately:
>
> "I'm not proud. We really haven't done everything we could to protect
> our customers. Our products just aren't engineered for security."
It is nice to see that they finally admit what everyone else has known
all along. Although having said that, it's fairly easy to reduce the
chances of something nasty happening to you with a little bit of
effort.
Although, whether or not you consider that effort to be worthwhile or
not, is solely a personal choice.
Rich
ReindeR Rustema
> And with Outlook, you can't distinguish between private and company email,
> or have more than 3 email addresses, or even show the email address in full.
> Not to mention that it doesn't handle correct email addresses that use (),
> <> and "" the way the standards specify. Nor does it SHOW the email
> address - it replaces it with the name, so you don't know where you send
> something, and can't even choose the protocol or delivery method.
Are you serious?! I have only seen Outlook from a 1,5 meter distance
briefly so I don't have hands on experience with Outlook. But this
sounds really bad. People don't protest against it? Are there bugfixes,
shareware add-ons or hidden preferences panes that fix this you might
have missed? I find it difficult to believe your accusations.
--
ReindeR
Richard Lawrence
> dr.emailposter <dr.emai...@freedom.invalid> wrote:
>
> > It makes sense for me... And I use this all the time (from my home pop
> > account and from my corporate IMAP via Exchange account)
>
> The problem with sending invitations to others through e-mail is that
> they expect e-mail when they check their e-mail. When they think it is
> time to do their time management, they switch to the calendar and do
> that.
Actually, you're the first person I've heard that has an issue with
that. I suppose it makes sense in a way, but see my point later on.
> When I use my e-mail app I expect a dialogue with others, not
> time-management. For many people the time-management is much more
> important than e-mail. So they use Meetingmaker all the time and Eudora
> during little 'breaks' in their planning. Makes perfect sense to me.
In all the organisations I've worked in, you normally send an email to
start to arrange a meeting. Therefore, for me, it makes sense to
integrate the email and diary rather than start another program and
use it seperately.
For many people, email is one of the major tools of communication,
therefore you could easily argue that it would make sense to utilise
that rather than spawn off another form. Especially when arranging a
meeting could involve a large number of emails before something is
arranged. In that case you'd be using two programs side by side which,
whilst seem logical for you, seems like a little too much like hard
work to me.
> Integrating time-management and e-mail in one app just gives stress.
> Yes, it is all possible, but it takes away the feeling for the end user
> to be in control of what they are doing. But that is what the whole
> Microsoft success is founded upon I have the impression. You need to be
> critical and a bit of software engineer yourself to see what's wrong
> with this Outlook approach.
The problem with being a software engineer is that you tend to look at
it from only one angle. For you, the way Outlook does it seems silly
and contrived, for others it makes sense.
I understand why you think it shouldn't be combined but at the same
time I understand why people think it should. However, from your
comments it looks like you're not understanding the other point of
view.
It might give *you* stress, but that doesn't mean it will anyone else.
I personally, suffer no stress with having 30 emails and a couple of
meeting requests sitting in my inbox (I consider a meeting request to
be pretty much an email saying "please come to this meeting at <blah>
about <foo>" - so to me, it's a fairly logical place for it to be).
> I can understand the sensation of Outlook Express users who first find
> all this beautiful new options in their software. It is so practical.
We're talking Outlook not Outlook Express. You have actually used
Outlook to schedule meetings and the such haven't you?
> It
> takes a critical stance to realise that in theory the idea is great, but
> that it is better to seperate it in different applications.
No it doesn't take a critical stance. It takes someone who isn't
prepared to listen to both sides of the argument. You don't like it as
an all-in-one application, you think it would be better as seperate
applications. Which is fine. But that does not mean you are right and
having a critical stance doesn't make you any more right than anyone
else.
In fact, if I were to play devils advocate I'd say that if the whole
all-in-one view was so fundimentally wrong, that people wouldn't
purchase Outlook (after all, it doesn't come cheap and you don't have
to use it in an organisation) and use something else (like
meetingmaker and eudora).
Remember, Microsoft may have used anti-competitive tactics on the
desktop and the browser - but that doesn't extend to Outlook. No
company is forced to use Outlook because others do and no company has
to cough up the high amount of money for it, because cheaper solutions
exist. Outlook is purchased purely on merit.
For some organisations (like Peter's) they wouldn't touch it with a
barge-pole but for others - they use it because they want to. Not
because they are forced to. There are plenty of other solutions.
> From MS' point of view it does not make sense businesswise because you
> want to make the users dependent on your products. And users who don't
> want to be in control or are not used to it the MS 'solutions' are
> comforting.
What makes you think that having an all-in-one application means that
I am not in control? You're right about Microsoft wanting people to be
dependent on their products (although every company does if you think
about it) but the only reason that people will be dependent on Outlook
is because it does everything they need easily, things are intermixed
to make life easier and their major requirements are in one place and
in one program.
And if you're not comfortable with the way Outlook is done, then don't
use it - but that still doesn't mean that you are right with your
thinking.
For example, I don't like all-in-one MP3 players and encoders. I
prefer seperates - but that doesn't mean that using an all-in-one
product is any less wrong.
> No, Meetingmaker runs on all operating systems, so does Eudora. Outlook
> Express, not surprisingly only on Windows.
Again, we're talking about Outlook, not Outlook Express.
The fact that Outlook only runs on Windows is immaterial if your
company is soley a Microsoft shop on the desktop.
If you run other operating systems, then yes, it would be advantagious
to use something else. If that was the case, then I'd certainly
consider Meetingmaker.
Rich
Peter da Silva
<EskW...@panix.SPAMBLOCK.com> wrote:
>In comp.sys.palmtops Peter da Silva <pe...@taronga.com> wrote:
>> Throwing a lot of money at a market is not a guarantee of success. I'm more
>> impressed by the increasing amount of interoperability (yes, even with Palm)
>> in the Pocket PC itself, but concerned about what's going to happen with
>> WinCE .NET.
>After I saw MS kill Netscape in the Browser Wars, I decided (perhaps
>incorrectly) that they were a capable company when they decided to go
>after a market in a serious manner.
No kidding, if Microsoft gave Pocket PCs away for free they'd kill Palm in a
month.
>Their server penetration is perhaps another, lesser example.
And misleading: if you replace a UNIX server with half a dozen NT servers,
or vice versa, you get a lot of change in market share... but it would be
more meaningful to count that as "6 nt-servers worth of UNIX".
And, yes, 6:1 isn't even vaguely unreasonable. I've run into 500:1 situations.
For example, to replace one of our Alphaservers here I'd need:
1 PDC
1 BDC
2 IIS servers (minimum)
1 Apache on NT server
2 file servers
1 Oracle server (maybe 2)
1 backup & print server (could be on the BDC, but that's not
recommended)
Plus upgrading about 30 users to more powerful workstations because they
wouldn't be able to run compiles on the server any more.
>If they decide that handheld devices are an extremely imortant market
>segment, I'd not doubt that they will advance quickly into dominance.
They think Internet webservers are pretty important. They've been running
with 20% of the market there for a long time, and only recently got up to
30% by convincing a couple of big virtual hosting sites to switch to IIS...
and there's only a limited number of Verisigns out there.
>If that were to happen, would you be surprised?
I'd be surprised to see them turn around and decide it was that significant
a market.
Peter da Silva
>whilst seem logical for you, seems like a little too much like hard
>work to me.
Given that I typically get people sending me 20 lines of plain text wrapped
up in an MS-Word attachment attached to an HTML message with a company logo
and 30 line disclaimer, because they used the "Send To" menu from Word to
get it to me, I don't see why it's so hard to do the same thing from a
calendar program.
You don't need to start the process in Outlook to pass information around in
email, and if you have a web interface to the calendar program you can
easily have it put a hyperlink in the original announcement that will be
faithfully copied in the responses.
That would also allow you to put the announcement into the local discussion
board, a link on your home page, or anywhere else it makes sense in the
intranet.
But, of course,Microsoft sees intranets as subversive, which is why they're
trying to subvert them.
Arthur Hagen
news:amac32$llk$1...@reader1.panix.com...
>
> After I saw MS kill Netscape in the Browser Wars, I decided (perhaps
> incorrectly) that they were a capable company when they decided to go
> another, lesser example.
Is losing market share to Linux and Apache something to brag about?
> If they decide that handheld devices are an extremely imortant market
> segment, I'd not doubt that they will advance quickly into dominance.
>
> If that were to happen, would you be surprised?
Microsoft already tried. And failed. Don't you remember the massive ad
campaigns in 2000, or how they invited a bunch of "influential" Palm people
(Peter and myself included) and gave them several PocketPC's, and tried hard
to convert the masses to PocketPC? It more or less flopped. Sure,
PocketPCs sold more, but nowhere near the market share of PalmOS devices.
Regards,
--
*Art
Craig Bowers
Like little sweaters or something?
Monochrome might be even easier. They could just switch from shirts or
skins on command.
Jeffrey S. Russell
------------------
I disagree with you on two points. First, if you right-click on the
arbitrary name, a pop-up window allows you to select the appropriate address
choice. And if you have set your preferences to IMAP or POP3, what other
protocol worries do you have? Second, Outlook does separate Corporate from
Personal addresses, and if you pay careful attention, you will see that the
default Contact List in Outlook synchronizes with the Windows Address Book.
I have been using Outlook since its inception and have found it very useful.
I myself am a technical person, having been a network engineer for 8 years.
I have enough worries with complex systems and processes, that for me, makes
Outlook a refreshing and simple program to use. But remember, there is no
one program that fits all people. different people have different
expectations and needs in programs. My solution is not necessarily the
right one for you or Richard, or any of the other posters out there. My way
is not the definitive "right way" and neither is yours.
Additionally, when you compose a message in Outlook, when you are ready to
send, if you take notice you will see an arrow pointing down next to the
word "Send." Click the arrow, and if you have multiple email accounts
accessed through Outlook, it will allow you to choose which account you send
it through.
Regards,
Jeff
"ReindeR Rustema" <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote in message
news:1fipuw7.1q98og41obov56N%rei...@rustema.nl...
dr.emailposter
others, this shows a organisation problem, not a software problem. What
could it do. Pop up a box with "Do you know this person and have real
reasons to book her time?" <YES> <NO> <CANCEL> :-)
Anyway, What I was describing was the integration from the organisation
point of view. A list of participants (contacts) will be notified (email
and/or vcal files) of a meeting (calendar, time slots availability check).
The outcome can be some tasks (to-do yes!) assigned to people (contacts)
with timelines (calendar alarms).
For an individual this is not really a big deal, but the company will
benefit of not expecting one to send e-mails with one tools, marking the
calendar in another, check the room booking in a diary, setting up tasks in
a outliner...
You'll like the Exchange/Outlook integration. And you can always access via
OWA (Outlook Web Access), if your admin allows it :-0
"Alan Anderson" <aran...@netusa1.net> wrote in message
news:aranders-170...@10.0.1.3...
dr.emailposter
I wasn't clear :-(
You put your points well, and they're valid observations!
"ReindeR Rustema" <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote in message
news:1fipb2z.ujfmwm1p8wsjpN%rei...@rustema.nl...
Arthur Hagen
"Peter da Silva" <pe...@taronga.com> wrote in message
news:amafav$255e$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com...
> In article <amac32$llk$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
> <EskW...@panix.SPAMBLOCK.com> wrote:
>
> >After I saw MS kill Netscape in the Browser Wars, I decided (perhaps
> >incorrectly) that they were a capable company when they decided to go
> >after a market in a serious manner.
>
> No kidding, if Microsoft gave Pocket PCs away for free they'd kill Palm in
a
> month.
Really? Remember how many of us who were given PocketPC's for free by
Microsoft, and how many either stuck to or reverted to PalmOS devices?
After the initial infatuation period with the PocketPCs, I believe that
almost ALL were back to primarily using PalmOS devices.
When you can't even convince people by giving it away for free, there's got
to be some fundamental problems...
Regards,
--
*Art
Arthur Hagen
"Jeffrey S. Russell" <jeffr...@person.net> wrote in message
news:Dx_h9.115374$AR1.4...@bin2.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com...
> I disagree with you on two points. First, if you right-click on the
> arbitrary name, a pop-up window allows you to select the appropriate
address
> choice.
It doesn't work that way for entries that exist in a corporate address book.
Enter f...@bar.baz in the email field, and it gets replaced with "Foobar
Xyzzy" if Outlook decides that f...@bar.baz is the email address that Foobar
Xyzzy uses. And also, when sending an email, how can you tell it to use an
SMTP address and not the Exchange address if both exist?
The "resolve email" utility for PocketMirror was made just because the lack
of options here, where people would suddenly see addresses like "o=company,
ou=division, dn=loginid" in the email fields. Because you CAN NOT CHOOSE
when using a corporate address book.
> And if you have set your preferences to IMAP or POP3, what other
> protocol worries do you have?
Exchange mail and X.400, for example.
> Second, Outlook does separate Corporate from
> Personal addresses,
Indeed it does. And neither can do correct email addresses. What's
atrocious is that they do it differently.
> Outlook a refreshing and simple program to use. But remember, there is no
> one program that fits all people.
Except, perhaps, "cat". :-p
> different people have different
> expectations and needs in programs. My solution is not necessarily the
> right one for you or Richard, or any of the other posters out there. My
way
> is not the definitive "right way" and neither is yours.
The problem is that the choice is usually made FOR people.
Regards,
--
*Art
dr.emailposter
Outlook.
You can direct e-mails from profiles into different repositories (.pst
files) or all to the same, and use rules to distribute e-mails into
different folders...
"ReindeR Rustema" <rei...@rustema.nl> wrote in message
news:1fipuw7.1q98og41obov56N%rei...@rustema.nl...
Peter da Silva
Arthur Hagen <a...@broomstick.com> wrote:
>"Peter da Silva" <pe...@taronga.com> wrote in message
>news:amafav$255e$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com...
>> In article <amac32$llk$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>> <EskW...@panix.SPAMBLOCK.com> wrote:
>> >After I saw MS kill Netscape in the Browser Wars, I decided (perhaps
>> >incorrectly) that they were a capable company when they decided to go
>> >after a market in a serious manner.
>> No kidding, if Microsoft gave Pocket PCs away for free they'd kill Palm in
>a
>> month.
>Really? Remember how many of us who were given PocketPC's for free by
>Microsoft, and how many either stuck to or reverted to PalmOS devices?
Hey, if you went into Office Depot or Staples and there was a box of
Pocket PCs by the door for anyone to take for free, and you could get one
from pocketpc.com for $2.95 S&H, how long do you think Palm would stay
in business?
You're talking maybe a couple of hundred eval units. I'm talking about
something like what they did to Netscape, since EskWIRED was so enthusiastic
about that tactic.
Alan Anderson
<dr.emai...@freedom.invalid> wrote:
> Well, if the Calendar features are so easy to use that people are booking
> others, this shows a organisation problem, not a software problem. What
> could it do. Pop up a box with "Do you know this person and have real
> reasons to book her time?" <YES> <NO> <CANCEL> :-)
Smiley or not, that's no good either. The real problem is that it's
trivially easy to put things on someone else's calendar, but unreasonably
difficult to prevent others from putting things on yours. If that's how
the software is designed, it's *definitely* a software problem.
I do not want everyone else to have control of my calendar. I might want
to permit specific people to touch it, but not *everyone*.
> Anyway, What I was describing was the integration from the organisation
> point of view. A list of participants (contacts) will be notified (email
> and/or vcal files) of a meeting (calendar, time slots availability check).
> The outcome can be some tasks (to-do yes!) assigned to people (contacts)
> with timelines (calendar alarms).
My problem with Outlook is that it does such things *monolithically*.
It's theoretically no big deal to integrate other tools using de facto
standards like vcal and vcard formats...but Outlook wants everything to go
through an Exchange server.
> For an individual this is not really a big deal, but the company will
> benefit of not expecting one to send e-mails with one tools, marking the
> calendar in another, check the room booking in a diary, setting up tasks in
> a outliner...
That's a bizarre argument. Why stop there? Why not include word
processing and number crunching and presentation graphics and database
access and interactive collaboration tools and telephone and motor pool
and cafeteria menus and and and...?
*I* believe that the company benefits most when data formats are
standardized and tool choice is made on the basis of each function's
requirements.
> You'll like the Exchange/Outlook integration. And you can always access via
> OWA (Outlook Web Access), if your admin allows it :-0
We're going to have access to, and be encouraged to use, OWA -- but
reports from the first users are that it's slow enough that we won't want
to do it as a normal activity. I doubt very much that I'm going to
appreciate being expected to use the Outlook-enforced organizational
tools. I've already got my life well organized using my Palm PDA, and
I've personally seen enough disasters that I absolutely do *not* want to
try to keep it synchronized with Outlook.
A lot of my problem is likely that I detest Windows in the first place.
Except for Excel and the tools that I have written myself, I keep getting
the sense that it's actively working *against* me.
Craig Bowers
> You can create accounts in Outlook Express, and you can create profiles in
> Outlook.
Unless Outlook is in IMO mode.
Jeffrey S. Russell
properties of an email address, it brought up f...@bar.baz (to use your
metaphor) as the address it was sending to. I believe that this is
dependant on how the network administrator chooses to setup the Exchange
Server. Granted, either way, the user has no control over how it comes out
as you said. But for what purpose does the user care if it uses the
Exchange address or the SMTP if the user is one and the same and it gets to
its intended destination? I would like to add that as an IMAP or POP3 user,
with the absence of an Exchange Server, this isn't even an issue.
On the protocol end, let me clarify my point. If you can set your
preferences for your mail service protocol, be it IMAP, POP3, Exchange or
x.400, where is the problem? Most users that I am aware of don't choose to
use one protocol for one message and another for the next. That seems to me
to be your point, that you want to change your mail protocol on the fly. In
every mail program that is used in a corporate network, you set up your
protocol as part of your account, and to change protocol, you have to change
your account information. Am I missing some aspect of your point? Not
trying to be smart, but really trying to understand your response.
Now, why do you say that neither Corporate or personal address books can do
correct email addresses?
Finally, you say that the choice is usually made for people. If you mean in
the Corporate world, well that is a matter of MIS policy. In the personal
world, you do have a choice. Use another program.
Overall, I feel that these issues are little more than nuisances that just
require a little more work on the part of the user. I struggle with some of
Outlooks inadequacies, just like I do with many other applications.
However, I realize that these programs were not made for me or any one
person, but made with a common ordinary user in mind.
Regards,
Jeff
"Arthur Hagen" <a...@broomstick.com> wrote in message
news:7p6i9.25$hj....@news.ntplx.net...
Christopher Browne
> In article <6p6i9.24$hj....@news.ntplx.net>,
> Arthur Hagen <a...@broomstick.com> wrote:
>>"Peter da Silva" <pe...@taronga.com> wrote in message
>>news:amafav$255e$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com...
>>> In article <amac32$llk$1...@reader1.panix.com>,
>>> <EskW...@panix.SPAMBLOCK.com> wrote:
>>> >After I saw MS kill Netscape in the Browser Wars, I decided (perhaps
>>> >incorrectly) that they were a capable company when they decided to go
>>> >after a market in a serious manner.
>
>>> No kidding, if Microsoft gave Pocket PCs away for free they'd kill Palm in
>>a
>>> month.
>
>>Really? Remember how many of us who were given PocketPC's for free by
>>Microsoft, and how many either stuck to or reverted to PalmOS devices?
>
> Hey, if you went into Office Depot or Staples and there was a box of
> Pocket PCs by the door for anyone to take for free, and you could get one
> from pocketpc.com for $2.95 S&H, how long do you think Palm would stay
> in business?
>
> You're talking maybe a couple of hundred eval units. I'm talking about
> something like what they did to Netscape, since EskWIRED was so enthusiastic
> about that tactic.
Since hardware costs money, and Microsoft would have to pay some
markup to the manufacturers, this would Not Be Cheap.
For Microsoft to give away 10 million units would doubtless cost them
a few billion dollars. That's real dollars, not "opportunity cost."
They then have to find some way of making money back after that.
And they'd have to fight off trebled damages when anticompetition
suits got raised.
This could easily cost them $10B, VASTLY outweighing the expected
returns that they could get out of "PocketPC winning the day."
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "ac.notelrac.teneerf@" "454aa"))
http://cbbrowne.com/info/linuxdistributions.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #207. "Employees will have conjugal visit
trailers which they may use provided they call in a replacement and
sign out on the timesheet. Given this, anyone caught making out in a
closet while leaving their station unmonitored will be shot."
<http://www.eviloverlord.com/>
Richard Lawrence
> In article <amaphp$2pi9$1...@si05.rsvl.unisys.com>, "dr.emailposter"
> <dr.emai...@freedom.invalid> wrote:
>
> > Well, if the Calendar features are so easy to use that people are booking
> > others, this shows a organisation problem, not a software problem. What
> > could it do. Pop up a box with "Do you know this person and have real
> > reasons to book her time?" <YES> <NO> <CANCEL> :-)
>
> Smiley or not, that's no good either. The real problem is that it's
> trivially easy to put things on someone else's calendar, but unreasonably
> difficult to prevent others from putting things on yours. If that's how
> the software is designed, it's *definitely* a software problem.
I've lost you. It's not "trivially easy" to put something on someones
calendar. It is trivially easy to send someone a meeting request, but
they still have to:
1. Open it
2. Click on the button marked "accept"
If you don't accept the meeting, then it appears as tentative. If you
click on "reject", it gives you an option to send it as it is or add a
message if you want.
Only my secretary finds it "trivially easy" to put something in my
calendar, and that is because i've specifically set up my security
options to allow her to do that. Everyone else has to make requests -
of which I am fully able to reject.
> I do not want everyone else to have control of my calendar. I might want
> to permit specific people to touch it, but not *everyone*.
Right click calendar, properties, permissions.
Rich
Richard Lawrence
> In article <b1b8a8d6.02091...@posting.google.com>,
> Richard Lawrence <ralaw...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >Personal preference. I like the way that certain things are tied
> >together, I can add a contact, set their birthday and an entry is
> >added into my diary. I can organise a meeting with a couple of clicks,
>
> None of which involve sending or receiving email.
I just listed a few examples. We've already gone over the whole
setting up a meeting scenario which uses email.
> >I can send an email to one of my contacts without having to have a
> >seperate address book for both.
>
> And so can I, because there's this magical capability in modern computers
> that seems to have passed Microsoft by, wherein a program can CALL ANOTHER
> PROGRAM to perform a function.
<snip ranting>
Again, just another example.
> Unfortunately, my Pocket PC always uses Outlook.
Can't help you there, I have a Vx. Plus I never see the point of
taking my work emails with me out of work.
> >I would hope that even Peter would agree that there is no globally
> >"right" solution.
>
> Which is another very good reason to despise Outlook: it forces you to do
> a bunch of unrelated tasks
Tasks, Calendar = time management tools
Email = the communication medium used to organise the above
Notes = useful.
So granted, you don't really need email to be the communication
medium, but why bother reinventing the wheel when email does the job
perfectly?
I would agree that Notes is probably unrelated.
> the same way everyone else does, because Microsoft
> ignores their own carefully designed API that everyone else in the world is
> already using to *let* everyone pick and choose their tools.
You can, you just don't install Outlook.
Rich
Richard Lawrence
> Really? Remember how many of us who were given PocketPC's for free by
> Microsoft, and how many either stuck to or reverted to PalmOS devices?
> After the initial infatuation period with the PocketPCs, I believe that
> almost ALL were back to primarily using PalmOS devices.
> When you can't even convince people by giving it away for free, there's got
> to be some fundamental problems...
I'm assuming you're referring to the time you all went to Microsoft
and got to play with the PPC's and give them your feedback?
If so, please don't take offense to this, but you're not exactly the
"standard" PDA user. This is shown by the fact that you activily post
to a Palm newsgroup and you obviously heavily use your PDA.
In fact, I would go as far to say that you (and Peter) are extremely
pro-Palm, way more than a large number of people would be. This is why
Microsoft picked you and not just any old casual Joe off the street.
They wanted to see what hard-core Palm fans thought about their
PocketPC.
What I'm trying to say is that although you went back to Palms, I
don't think you should consider your actions as a representation of
every user.
All you have proved really, is that - as of yet - Microsoft are unable
to woo the biggest Palm fans. I would hazard a guess that a good
proportional of the people who use PDAs's would be substantially
easier to convert ...
Rich
Richard Lawrence
> Microsoft already tried. And failed. Don't you remember the massive ad
> campaigns in 2000, or how they invited a bunch of "influential" Palm people
> (Peter and myself included) and gave them several PocketPC's, and tried hard
> to convert the masses to PocketPC? It more or less flopped. Sure,
> PocketPCs sold more, but nowhere near the market share of PalmOS devices.
See my other comment in this thread about you not exactly being a
standard Palm user :o)
To be honest, all this exercise proved was that they couldn't convert
the _hardcore_ Palm fans. Other people would probably be a lot easier.
Just out of interest:
1. What suggestions did you give them?
2. Did they actually do what you suggested?
3. Who decided not to go back to Palm and do you know why?
Rich
Peter da Silva
Jeffrey S. Russell <jeffr...@person.net> wrote:
>But for what purpose does the user care if it uses the
>Exchange address or the SMTP if the user is one and the same and it gets to
>its intended destination?
How does Exchange know they're the same destination?
Peter da Silva
Richard Lawrence <ralaw...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>pe...@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) wrote in message
>news:<am9qek$1qab$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com>...
>> In article <b1b8a8d6.02091...@posting.google.com>,
>> Richard Lawrence <ralaw...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> >Personal preference. I like the way that certain things are tied
>> >together, I can add a contact, set their birthday and an entry is
>> >added into my diary. I can organise a meeting with a couple of clicks,
>> None of which involve sending or receiving email.
>I just listed a few examples. We've already gone over the whole
>setting up a meeting scenario which uses email.
The thing about email is that it can be copied and routed to other
applications automatically, and that it can contain documents and links
to webpages. Therefore you don't need to have a single program that does
all these things to integrate email into their operation.
><snip ranting>
Nice ad-hominem. Now would you mind going back and actually responding to
the content?
>Again, just another example.
The point which you just blew past is that *every* example can be handled
this way, and in fact there are hundreds of other examples that are casually
and routinely handled by having separate programs that interoperate, and
that Microsoft has spent a lot of time making it easy to do so... but seem
remarkably resistent to actually using themselves.
>> Unfortunately, my Pocket PC always uses Outlook.
>Can't help you there, I have a Vx. Plus I never see the point of
>taking my work emails with me out of work.
How about when you're at a meeting?
>> >I would hope that even Peter would agree that there is no globally
>> >"right" solution.
>> Which is another very good reason to despise Outlook: it forces you to do
>> a bunch of unrelated tasks
>Tasks, Calendar = time management tools
>Email = the communication medium used to organise the above
>Notes = useful.
>So granted, you don't really need email to be the communication
>medium, but why bother reinventing the wheel when email does the job
>perfectly?
Powerpoint = presentation tools
Word, Excel = documentation tools
Email = the communication medium used to organise the above
How would you feel if you had to use Outlook for spreadsheets or technical
documentation if that's the mail program you chose to use? It's not
"reinventing the wheel", it's exercising that choice you're talking about
when you say "there's no globally right solution".
For that matter, and getting back to the core of the main problem with
Outlook, what happens if you want to use Netscape as your web browser and
Outlook as your mail application? When someone sends you an HTML email,
how do you get Outlook to display it in Netscape and not the horribly
dangerous Microsoft HTML Control?
>> the same way everyone else does, because Microsoft
>> ignores their own carefully designed API that everyone else in the world is
>> already using to *let* everyone pick and choose their tools.
>You can, you just don't install Outlook.
Unfortunately I still have to put up with 20 or so copies of Klez and Magistr
and other viruses arriving in my mailbox *every day* from people who use
Outlook.
Peter da Silva
Well, of course it wouldn't. I didn't say it'd be cheap, just that it'd be
effective.
>This could easily cost them $10B, VASTLY outweighing the expected
>returns that they could get out of "PocketPC winning the day."
Hey, it wasn't my idea. ESKwired was impressed with the way Microsoft killed
Netscape. I'm just taking that idea and running with it.
Jeffrey S. Russell
maintains a record of the user's Exchange address, SMTP address, and the
addresses of any other conduits that you may set up in Exchange. Exchange
does this to ensure the connectivity between Email Server systems. For
instance, if you have Exchange connected to a Lotus implementation, Exchange
can be set up with a Lotus conduit to manage the connection between the two
and provide the Lotus form of the email address to ensure proper delivery.
The same applies to the Exchange connection to the outside world with SMTP.
Regards,
Jeff
"Peter da Silva" <pe...@taronga.com> wrote in message
news:amcgca$54o$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com...
Jeffrey S. Russell
controls. Unfortunately, most MIS offices do not have enough resources to
properly combat Viruses, and personal users don't always have the know-how
to do it themselves. The ideal scenario is where each user has Personal AV
software, the incoming/outgoing points of the network have a security
appliance that does virus scanning, and the mail server has a scanning
application to detect viruses.
The reason we have more trouble with Outlook and viruses overall is because
of all the great functions it can do and how easy it is to write virus code
to take advantage of that. Other mail programs could be targeted in the
same manner, MS just inadvertently made it 10 times easier with Outlook.
However, with the appropriate AV implementation, all of this could be
adverted.
Regards,
Jeff
"Peter da Silva" <pe...@taronga.com> wrote in message
news:amch8c$5go$1...@citadel.in.taronga.com...
Arthur Hagen
"Richard Lawrence" <ralaw...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:b1b8a8d6.02091...@posting.google.com...
> Just out of interest:
>
> 1. What suggestions did you give them?
Quite a few suggestions were made. I believe my main problem with the
PocketPC OS was how unresponsive it was, and how it was designed to
frequently have the user wait on the device instead of the other way around.
This can be seen in both "tap-and-hold" (which emulates a right mouse
button, something a PDA doesn't have and thus shouldn't be emulated either),
waiting for Transcriber to recognize a word, waiting for scrolling or big
menus.
Speaking of menus, the start menu was another disliked "feature". Some
programs would have their startup shortcuts on the start menu, while others
in a Programs folder. You would have to remember where things were, which
defeated the whole purpose of a start menu. When the device screen isn't
big enough for a meaningful start menu, it isn't really useful.
Many of us also disliked how the bundled apps were subsets of the desktop
apps, with a fixed subset that couldn't be changed, and where any editing on
the handheld would often ruin the desktop data that the handheld couldn't
handle. This was most prominent is Money and Contacts, although Word and
Excel also had issues.
A lack of full synchronization, with a "backup" process that took WAY too
long to be useful was also a concern. (Never mind that you frequently
couldn't even restore that backup, if you by chance had a new copy).
I also suggested adding remote TCP/IP hotsync (it's VERY useful to be able
to sync up with my home box while out on the road) and the ability to sync
with an unlimited number of machines instead of just two.
Battery life was a concern, and so was the size/weight. Microsoft doesn't
have too much control over that, though, except that they've put down specs
for a high end device that is difficult to make without being clumpy and
power hungry...
I18N being partially implemented and as a global choice instead of being
ubiquitous was also a concern for one user who's bilingual (me) and requires
easy access to the full ISO8859-1 character set as well as multiple
currencies. I don't care whether the menus and alerts are in english,
german or retro-romani or whether I see "11:00 PM" or "23:00" when I can't
grafitti in a name like Bjørn or do a transfer between my NOK, EUR and USD
accounts. That Transcriber only understands US style handwriting is also a
factor. I am certain that many Europeans have been similarly disappointed
by how the device is so US-centric, and where the developers have thought
that I18N language/locale translation is more needed than the basic
functionality.
To sum it up, most of the suggestions were on the line of "stop trying to
emulate desktop Windows on a device ill suited to do so".
> 2. Did they actually do what you suggested?
Not really. They improved grafitti and improved the desktop apps (although
they're still destructive in nature). The start menu jumps around between
each version of WinCE, as if the problem is cosmetic and not a fundamental
flaw with having a start menu in the first place. Moore's law has helped
somewhat on the excruciatingly slow scrolling and menus, but PPC2002 is
still rather unresponsive compared to PalmOS/Symbian devices. The devices
are still quite US-centric -- much more so than their desktop counterparts.
The networking has been improved (except for in PocketIE, which has been
dumbed down), but is still a small nightmare to set up, and you can't do
stuff like remote syncs from anywhere.
Some PPC devices have become smaller/lighter, and the price for the entry
level models have gone down. Which was to be expected, and not really
anything for which Microsoft can be praised. Battery life still seem to
suck, though, with no PPC devices capable of being used daily for a week or
two, or constantly for a work day without recharging. Cell phones have
managed to increase their battery life, and most (unfortunately not all)
PalmOS devices have better battery life, so it's doable for the PPC too, I'm
sure. Again, that's not really something Microsoft can fix. Provide an
underclocker, perhaps? :-)
> 3. Who decided not to go back to Palm and do you know why?
I'm not about to mention any names :-)
I frankly don't know of anyone who *primarily* uses the PocketPC these days.
Many of us continued to use one of them as a secondary device, as they do
have some nifty features. The 128MB flash card we got was a winner, as it
let us store lots of ebooks or audio books, and use the device as a portable
reader. Personally, I've also used the device from time to time as a
portable map with PocketStreets. It's slow, but it's searchable unlike a
paper map, and better than what the Palm has had to offer so far. (On the
other hand, I use a GPS on my Palm, as the Palm is MUCH quicker for map
updates and doesn't run out of batteries before I get to my destination...)
Some of us have also used the devices as clumsy MP3 players -- after all,
the devices were free, and could be used for that purpose. I've also used
the HP as a simple Dictaphone when my real Dictaphone wasn't nearby.
As a PIM? No, I don't know of anyone who in the long run preferred the PPC
over PalmOS there. Excel and Word, to some degree -- mostly for people who
were "compatible" with Transcriber and used the PPC and not the desktop
device as the primary device.
Oh, and I used one of the devices -- after it broke -- as a gift to someone
who needed Office 2000. The device came with Outlook, which let the
receiver legally buy an upgrade version of Office instead of a full version.
:-)
I liked the PPCs, but they simply weren't as USEFUL in everyday life as my
Palm Vx. They seem better suited to run big CPU-hungry apps, of which there
are very few that would be useful to have on a handheld instead of on a
bigger computer. PocketStreets is one such app, and about the only thing I
still dig out the Jornada for. Otherwise, when I need to emulate a desktop
environment, I prefer to use a laptop. Clumsier, true, but not MUCH
clumsier than hooking up a cradle for charging, expansion sleeve, keyboard
and everything else you need for a PPC to be a half-good alternative.
Regards,
--
*Art
Peter da Silva
Among others:
Improve the job management ability (bringing back the "close" button from
the previous version of the UI, adding a menu to jump to a currently
running program).
Improve the handwriting recognition, particularly the graffiti emulation.
Get rid of the "OK in the corner" hack, which was presumably an attempt to
save screen space so apps wouldn't need to have a separate "OK" button. The
problem is there's no "Cancel" button in the corner, so apps are putting "OK"
and "Cancel" buttons on the screen anyway.
Document ActiveSync so that non-Windows operating systems could use it.
Add a MAPI conduit, so that mail could be synced to non-Outlook mail programs.
Work on the user-interface metaphor, which is a mess... some apps follow a
notepad model, others like Windows Media Player and Microsoft Reader take over
the screen.
Integrate the "open file" dialog with the file manager, like in desktop
Windows, so you can access files that aren't under the "My Documents"
directory without having to switch to File Manager and move them.
Make the UI more "button-navigable", so you don't need to pull out the
stylus all the time. They actually brought that up themselves as an advantage
of the "Stinger" smartphone software over the Pocket PC. Why not both?
> 2. Did they actually do what you suggested?
They added a "hide" button that had the visual appearance of a "close" button,
but didn't terminate the app, and claimed that the next version of the OS
would have better job control so you wouldn't need to close apps. Um.
They significantly improved the graffiti emulation.
They said that allowing non-Windows OSes to use it wasn't in their strategic
interest.
They added IMAP support over the ActiveSync conduit, which allows some of the
functionality that you can get from MAPI, but you still need third party apps
to sync email to non-IMAP-based mail systems, and it sometimes produces odd
error messages when I'm trying to use IMAP from another program while the
device is in the cradle.
They still need to do a lot of work on the UI.
Arthur Hagen
> Funny, when I managed networks using MS Exchange, when I checked the
> properties of an email address, it brought up f...@bar.baz (to use your
> metaphor) as the address it was sending to. I believe that this is
> dependant on how the network administrator chooses to setup the Exchange
> Server. Granted, either way, the user has no control over how it comes
out
> as you said. But for what purpose does the user care if it uses the
> Exchange address or the SMTP if the user is one and the same and it gets
to
> its intended destination?
Two examples:
- An Exchange email relay is down. No problem, cause I can set the
transport to be SMTP instead, right? Right? Er... DAMN OUTLOOK!
- I've synced up my contacts to my Palm, and I'm on the road and need to
send an email to someone in the company. The email can't be sent, because
my SMTP server doesn't like "o=company, ou=division, dn=PTROHRA2, cn=Peter
OHara" as a recepient. It gets very upset with that. And it happens even
if I entered pet...@bar.baz as the email address, cause Outlook will
override that with what's stored in the global address book whenever it
finds a match!
> Now, why do you say that neither Corporate or personal address books can
do
> correct email addresses?
Consider shared email addresses. I want to send mail to both "John Doe" and
"Jane Roe", both of which share the email address sup...@bar.baz. But
Outlook, Gods bless it, will replace the name with the first one found, and
remove my text description from the To: field. There's no darn way to enter
a legal email address like:
"John Doe" <sup...@bar.baz>
"Jane Roe" <sup...@bar.baz>
<sup...@bar.baz> (John Doe)
<sup...@bar.baz> (Jane Roe)
It gets even worse if Outlook finds one of the above in the global address
book -- then it will even substitute one name for the other based on the
STMP part of the email address.
Not to mention email addresses with bang paths or IP literals. Yes, they're
still in use, and I have at least one contact that has an address like:
<host!user@[123.45.67.89]>
The user is behind a firewall, and only one of the public SMTP servers can
route email to the machine that the user is on. So I need to specify
exactly which machine to deliver to, and how to route it from there. The
alternative would be to set up special delivery instructions on each and
every MX server to ensure that it's routed to the one server that can
deliver it, and then a separate rule on that machine. It's much easier to
bang it through.
> Finally, you say that the choice is usually made for people. If you mean
in
> the Corporate world, well that is a matter of MIS policy. In the personal
> world, you do have a choice. Use another program.
With personal and corporate lives being more and more mixed, that becomes
increasingly hard. What's wrong with having standards for the DATA and
PROTOCOLS instead of relying on ONE particular program? That way, a company
can easily support at least TWO choices, or do partial/incremental rollouts
of new products. As it is, companies have major headaches with rollouts
because they rely on proprietary systems that often have to be switched out
in one big operation, or Things Will Break.
> Overall, I feel that these issues are little more than nuisances that just
> require a little more work on the part of the user.
When a program overrides what the user tells it to do, that's more than a
nuisance, and no fault of the user. A little more work? Like clubbing the
IT manager over the head with a 3 iron, and changing the corporate policy to
only use standards-adhering programs?
Regards,
--
*Art