Comments for An alien's viewpoint

Comment on A Palm T|X Replacement by mitsosmuses

mitsosmuses — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:30:31 +0000

Jan, hope dies last as they say … although mine is petering out rapidly. As I say above, I have not used a mouse since the day I got the Wacom Graphire 2 – I always use the pen whenever editing photos, and often when editing documents electronically.

I am a medical editor. I still edit by hand, in real ink on real paper. I don’t make spelling mistakes with a pen, or corrupt the paper. Bearing in mind the fact I use my T3 sylus with the T3 every day whilst working, for completing evaluation forms in smartlist, looking up meds and stuff, making comments in forms, etc., I have very much experience with the handwriting recognition feature of T3 stylus and stylus use on Palm.
I want to go from editing paper docs by hand to editing pdfs ‘by hand’ (ie ink writing or text recognition, NOT typing). It would save on paper so much. And in conjunction, I’d like to do everything else that I now do on my Palm.

I decided to go see the Galaxy Note 10.1 for myself and have a play with the much lauded S-pen. I so much wanted to love this thing. However, it seems technology is actually going backwards. I wanted to cry – the pen (and the system really) seems to lag so much. I did just use it for writing in S Note (nothing much else it worked on in the basic setup). But the lag as compared with what I get when using T3 was very very noticeable. Even the response to simply touching the various app icons entailed a lag – I don’t get a lag with my ancient T3! And my T3 is 64 Mb all in! And fully loaded with programs.

So I think there is no hope after all for those of us who want a productive tool rather than a gadget which is jack of all trades, but not really much good at most.

I can see me having to go the way of a full blown tablet PC or very close to it. Wacom and Palm have spoilt me rotten for the past decade and my expectations are too high for today’s consumeristic approach to product development.

Let’s hope the new year will prove me wrong.

Happy New Year to all!

Comment on A Palm T|X Replacement by Jan Gundtofte-Bruun

Jan Gundtofte-Bruun — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 20:36:17 +0000

@mitsosmuses, I’ve tried the Graffiti app for Android –it’s even made by Access!– but alas, it’s no good. It’s pretty much Graffiti v1. As an ex-diehard TealScript user (and as such used to a transparent full-screen input window, as well as user-creatable gestures), it’s more of a pain to use than just tapping on a virtual keyboard. Remember, you have to use your fat finger and not a nice stylus.
And yeah, I too wish there was less focus on glitz and Facebook, and more focus on actual usefulness! One can hope…

Comment on A Palm T|X Replacement by mitsosmuses

mitsosmuses — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 18:14:52 +0000

Strange how the screens seem to have varied so much. I have only ever used Graffiti, I mean the whole time, using write anywhere screen. I reset the screen with PowerDigi at intervals, usually after a forced proper reset when it usually goes a bit doolally. The middle of the screen is a bit off but I still manage OK. I did see there is an Android app which allows you to write like with Graffiti (LOL, are we really so hooked on Palm?!). I find using a stylus pen so natural compared to absolutely anything else – I will find it hard to move away from that and go over to keyboard; handwriting recognition errors/handwriting errors are much fewer with a pen than my keyboard. I had a heated discussion with a guy on a photography forum about using a stylus/Wacom pen (I have not used a mouse since I bought a Wacom graphire waaaay back). He believed using a mouse was much easier/natural (???? Like cave man picking up lump of charcoal to do cave paintings? Oh well horses for courses).

I’ll keep going with my T3 for as long as I can… am thinking about testing out a Note 10.1 … but we’ll see. Trouble is there doesn’t seem to be a SmartListToGo database app as good as. I’d go for a new T3 battery, but knowing my luck, the screen would finally die the day after!

My friend did give me his old, less used T3 but the screen died on that shortly after. I am not sure how the battery is on it … must look into it. Still haven’t found a Nokia yet.

Living in hope something will come along. Seems there is enough of a customer base for someone to come along with something that isnt all singing all dancing, but more of a workhorse for lab techs, students etc. But I am not sure anyone is really listening (waaaaaaaaaaaah).

Comment on A Palm T|X Replacement by Nigel Jennings

Nigel Jennings — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 20:19:38 +0000

Further to my reply at #14 above, I have just noticed rm42′s posting entitled “A heaven for former Palm users” of May 2010. I can’t imagine I had ever discovered that post on the Garnet VM app because it might have driven me there and then to go out and buy a Nokia N900. In the event, in early 2012 I went out and bought an iPhone 4s and pretty much have been a convert to the Dark Side ever since.

If people think it useful, I would be happy to write a short piece on my experiences with the iPhone compared to the Palm platform. I have also coped the essence of this reply to the TX posting. Let me know.

Comment on A heaven for former Palm users by Nigel Jennings

Nigel Jennings — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 20:15:05 +0000

When I responded to the post “A TX Replacement” in November 2011 (reply #14) I can’t imagine I had ever discovered this post on the Garnet VM app which might have driven me there and then to go out and buy a Nokia N900. Shortly afterwards, in early 2012, I went out and bought an iPhone 4s and pretty much have been a convert to the Dark Side ever since.

If people think it useful, I would be happy to write a short piece on my experiences with the iPhone compared to the Palm platform. I will also copy the essence of this reply to the TX posting.

Comment on A Palm T|X Replacement by rm42

rm42 — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:07:59 +0000

Amazing, truly amazing. Are you a heavy graffiti user? I know I was (and still am when using the garnet virtual machine). I love graffiti and wish it was available on my standard phone OS. But, I suspect that is why my both of my last TX screens didn’t last long. The screen on my N900 is much more solidly built.

Comment on A Palm T|X Replacement by John D

John D — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 14:23:13 +0000

I’ve been a Palm user for a long time (from the old Palm III) and am still using a Palm TX – my old TX died earlier this year and I replaced it with another TX bought on ebay. One day I guess I’ll have to move on, but I’m happy with it for now!

Comment on A Palm T|X Replacement by rm42

rm42 — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 19:18:27 +0000

Amazing that your Palm is still alive! But, if the digitizer is misfiring, it will probably not last much longer. I am not familiar with Android of iPhone enough to recommend any of them. I too like to work offline and the N900 gives me all that I need. If I were you, I would search for a used N900/N950/N9 and try to ride out the present lack of compelling devices. There are some interesting prospects for the future (early next year). Especially from a new company called Jolla:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjwrg_UToRc&w=560&h=315%5D

Comment on A Palm T|X Replacement by mitsosmuses

mitsosmuses — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:45:19 +0000

My Palm is still going … just! The battery barely lasts and the digitizer keeps doing it’s own thing. I hunted about for a Nokia but no luck. Now I see Samsung have some interesting gear. The only thing is I must be able to use smartlist, or something very similar. I haven’t got up to speed on the whole Android and cloud thing yet, the only thing I do know is that I want very little to do with the cloud stuff – my work involves editing confidential docs and none of the data should be available to anyone else basically. Any made the transfer from Palm to new Samsungs?

Comment on LibreOffice 3.4.1 Table Borders Problem by rm42

rm42 — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:15:06 +0000

LibreOffice 3.5.6.1 resolves several problems with table borders. However, there is still a little work to do to fix the way it displays the joints of tables with a mix of border types.

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=53298