new features and improvements wanted!

[Audrey Cucci]

018:   I need more memory!  I am in week 11 (out of 40) and have used 45% of my memory.  I run a paperless classroom, so all documents, notes, assignments, are stored on my students handhelds.  We do not have the student edition software to store and view them via their computers.  In order for this to run a paperless classroom the size of the memory would have to be doubled...

 

Audrey Cucci

 

 

[Nelson Sousa]

Wow, you're building a lot of huge documents!!!!
So far I've created around 30 somewhat complex documents (some more
complex than others) and the entire collection takes up around 1 Mb.
And I keep two copies of every document (like Noah's arc), one in
Portuguese and another in English.

Now more seriously, a significant part of the occupied RAM remains
constant, it's not taken by documents, but the OS itself. My Nspire
has 1Mb of documents and it also says 49% occupied. It doesn't mean
that when the documents double it'll take 98%.

Try the following: give or take, add the space taken by all documents.
Now extrapolate to the amount of documents you'll need and see if it
fits the available memory. A standard document shouldn't take more
than 15 or 20 kb, whereas more complex ones can take 40 kb (more than
that and it's too painful to load them. So, around 10 Mb gives you
room to store around 250 to 500 documents.

Cheers,
Nelson

[acucci]

Ok thanks, I will look into it. I am figuring I will give about
200-250 documents this year. Test and Quiz will be deleted so that
should save some space. My plan is to have them move their documents
to the link software once it becomes an issue. But from what you are
saying, I should be ok for the school year! (If my kids are not home
creating crazy documents and storing them!)

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[Joe]

If it becomes a problem, you can always move to netbook computers with
TI nspire software on them. That would allow you to use a good word
processor for documents and the computers would likely wareout, be
lost, or stolen, or permanently crash long before running out of
memory would ever be a problem.

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[acucci]

That sounds great, however I already had to sell my soul to get my
district to purchase calculators! So I don't think they will be
getting netbooks any time soon. I purchased my own netbook for this
very reasom, however the processing speed seems to be rather slow for
the Nspire Software and very slow with connect to class. I don't know
if it is a software issue or a computer issue.

[Joe]

Audrey, if you look at the posts under the heading "Processing Speed"
you will find some bench mark speeds for the voyage200 handheld vs.
the nspire handheld vs. nspire cas software on a netbook. If you have
the nspire "cas" software on your netbook, you could quickly run these
two problems (the integral and the factoring problem) to see if you
have a computer problem but I rather doubt that to be the case. I
guess the question is what you are comparing when you say the netbook
seems to be rather slow? Are you comparing the netbook preformance to
an more expensive laptop that has a faster processor, or comparing the
netbooks math performance to the handheld in which case the netbook
should be significantly faster (about 20 or 30 times faster) than the
hand held?

[acucci]

What I am refering to is the speed in which I can open the software on
my netbook. It takes about 3 minutes to open connect to class, and I
have been having problems with the software shutting down un-
expectedly. I need to call ti-cares (but have not had time). I would
assume it is an issue with the net book. I also can not open my
students files through connect to class, which is supposed to be an
option, however I can do this on my pc. Just some bugs I am working
out. It does seem much faster on my work computer. A little
disapointed in the net book, but it is better than nothing!

[Joe]

Audrey, I just read your posting on the buttons sticking under the
face plate and I know you are dealing with a number of issues so don't
give up, but do keep things in prespective.

Most things in life are relative and some isues are a natural result
of change (such as getting used to something new), and some issues can
be remedied while others are the discovery of product limitations and
have to be accepted. For example, I was discouraged to learn from a
recent post that the TI cas falsely reports a trig identity as false
when it is true. On the other hand, I have known for years that the
TI cas is very weak in the area of trig identities so I was not
surprized by the finding. I simply don't use the TI cas for trig
identities. I have other options of course because I have several
math programs on my new netbook computer which I consider to be a true
next generation calculator. I might add that teachers are not proding
TI into improving their cas trig identity capability so I doubt that
this issue will ever be improved. What I getting at here is that
taking a few minutes to open connect to class might not be desirable,
but it is certainly better than it not working at all and perhaps you
can get used to that and compensate by getting a cup of coffee while
waiting. On the other hand, new software shutting down un-expectedly
can be a software bug so do make that call to TI.

Now I'd like to share with you a problem that I had when I first
started using my netbook. I was used to a manual mouse and found that
I my index finger was hovering in the area of the touch pad that moves
the on screen pointer, and I was doing this out of habbit and it was
having the same effect as tapping on the touch pad and that caused my
software to do strange things. So I changed my habbits and now keep
my fingers away from that touch pad when not using it and the strange
things no longer happen. Perhaps you are having a similiar problem?

Let me now turn to your disappointment in the speed of your netbook.
When I bought mine, I knew that I was getting a computer with a slower
processor so I didn't expect it to be as fast as my desk top computer
and it wasn't. For example when I rotate 3d graphs in Maple, there is
some jerkyness with the netbook display that I don't get with my
desktop computer but I can certainly live with that. On the other
hand, the netbook is incredibly fast compared to a handheld calculator
when solving math problems, and I get rechargable batteries, a built
in battery charger, a color screen, plug in memory stick capability,
multiple math programs, an excellent word processor for recording
notes and a standard qwerty keyboard, faster boot up time, and other
goodies to numerous to mention so all in all I couldn't be happier
with what I consider to be my next generation calculator and I think
you will be also be happy when you start viewing yours from that
perspective. So hang in there and enjoy the low cost and excellent
portability that you have in your new netbook. Put nspire cas
software for windows on it, and perhaps another math program or two,
and enjoy the speed compared to a traditional handheld calculator.

I hope I have been helpful.