Utah Open Source Planet

Talk about a frustrating experience!

A couple weeks ago, I had to go to a customer's office to do some network troubleshooting work. On my way, I received two text messages, in quick succession, on my phone (Palm Treo 700p w/ Sprint). I began to go to the text messages to see what they were and the phone "rebooted."

Now, this isn't a regular thing, but it's not unheard of for a Treo to reset. But this was no regular reset. My phone went into a nasty reboot loop-- never quite coming back up to normal operation. It would get to a certain point in the boot-up process and then reset again.

I tried just about everything I could think of (short of doing a hard reset that wipes all your data from memory) and nothing helped. I ended up taking my phone to the Sprint repair facility later that day. I went back in an hour or so and got the phone back to find they had done what I didn't do: a hard reset. All my data was gone. I had it backed up, but it's still a pain to restore everything.

It wasn't long before I realized the Sprint repair center didn't just do a hard reset on my phone. They also upgraded the firmware and the new firmware is abundant with annoying bugs that drive me nuts!

Several basic functions that had no issues before now have glaring issues. Here are some of the things I am having to deal with:

• Favorites button Quick Key in Phone application does not work. This is, essentially, a speed-dial function that lets you assign a keyboard key to a favorite contact from your address book. By holding down the assigned key, that person's number is dialed. Worked fine before. Doesn't do anything now. This sucks.
• Call list population is very undependable. I might get an alert that I missed 2 calls, but when I go to my call list to see who those two calls were front, they aren't on the list. If I make a call using a favorites button, the outgoing call isn't recorded in the call list.
• Ring tone and alert sounds "fade in." This seems like a "volume escalation" feature, but I've double and triple checked (and then some) that the escalate volume checkbox in the Sound preferences is not checked.
• The On Demand application freezes the Treo. I used to use the On Demand application frequently to check weather reports and read News Of The Weird news articles. Now the only thing On Demand is good for is freezing up the device. The only way to remedy the problem is to do a soft reset or remove the battery.
• Deactivating the keyguard to delete or view messages is difficult. The Treo will act like the keyguard is active, but the normal "Keyguard: Press Center button to unlock" message does not display on the screen. Very frustrating.

Has anyone else seen these problems with their Treo device?

Should I take my phone back to the repair center or will they just do another hard reset and tell me that's all they can do?

So the hipmod is too small for you? You want to use the regular-size hipster? But by golly your printer refuses to play nicely with index cards?

Here's a solution. Use Multivalent to 4-up index cards onto regular paper, and cut them with a guillotine. You can use cardstock for the full effect.

The trick is in printing the cards at the original size, and optimizing for trimming. Something like this:

./multivalent impose -nup 4 -sep 1 -paper 6x10in core.pdf

This gives you a 6x10-inch PDF (core-up.pdf). Now you need to print it without scaling it to letter size. That should be straightforward to figure out in your environment. Then take it to the guillotine and make your 6 cuts and pat yourself on the back. If you're really clever and your printer has <= ⅛-inch margins you can get it down to 4 cuts.

If you want to make a lot of one card, you can do something like this:

./multivalent impose -nup 4 -page 46,46,46,46 -sep 1 -paper 6x10in core.pdf

You can even get clever and take advantage of duplex printing if your printer supports it. Sky's the limit!

When I was in grade school, I used to bring my homework from and to school folded up in my back pocket. Life was simpler then. I always knew exactly what I had on my plate at any moment by checking my back pocket.

Fast-forward to the era of planners, PDAs, and productivity software. I've gone through all the phases. None of them fit, but I took something away from each. These days I know what I want, and none of the traditional solutions come close.

I want something analog, very simple, compact, and easy to put together. When I came across the Hipster PDA I thought I had found it, but I soon found that even the hipster wasn't easy enough. I didn't like even the smallest binder clips or paperclips because they had to be removed to actually use it. Rings didn't suit my fancy either. Loose index cards are of course a disaster. The supply of index cards got almost as unwieldy as the hipster itself. To top it all off, blank index cards alone wasn't quite enough structure. So it fell into disuse.

Then I found the D*I*Y Planner, most notably their Hipster PDA edition. This added some structure and beauty, so I gave it a try. I soon decided that printing onto index cards is completely infeasible without special equipment. So that was out, alas.

The other day, I came across PocketMod. Here was something not entirely unlike the homework in my back pocket. It had some structure, it was easy and simple and cheap. It was perfect, except… I don't want to visit a website and run a flash app every time I want to print one. What if the website disappears? And what if I want to add custom pages? (There's a Windows app for that but I don't use Windows.) Also, the printouts generated by the flash app aren't quite right—the fold points aren't on the center and so the end result is a little sloppy-looking. I wish the US used A4 paper, but that's beyond my control at the moment (though I might consider ordering some online…). So the pocketmod flash applet had to be replaced.

So I decided to combine the D*I*Y Hipster and some scripting magic, and the result is hipmod. Thanks to the magic of Multivalent (I was going to use pdftk but it's segfaulting on my laptop for some reason) I can now create hipmods including whatever PDF of interest I find lying around. See the README for more information. Here's a screenshot:

I'm doing a weekend roundup early this week because this weekend is my wedding anniversary, and I intend to spend my time with my wife and not on the computer. ^_^ So, here are the things on my mind before the start of the weekend:

Airship Progress
The airship concept has hit a major snag that is beyond my control: There is apparently a national Helium shortage, making personal retail helium canisters scarce. Not to be daunted, I tried using my paper mache shell as a hot-air airship, and it didn't have enough lift for the shell, let alone the chafing fuel.

The engine will be worked on this next week. I am going to use tin snips to cut the propeller and the turbine buckets from a soda can. They will be sharp, but also lightweight. As long as no one tries to grab it, we should be fine. ^_^ I hope to have a working steam turbine motor by the end of the week.

Rumored Apple PDA
Apple Insider has published a story of a larger screen version of the iPhone and iPod Touch that Apple is currently working on and will release some time early 2008. Referred to as a resurrected "Newton", the new PDA it touted to have the same multi-touch interface and design as the current iPod Touch and iPhone, and use the same version of OS X.

Now, I have wanted an Apple PDA for generations as something that would sync easily with my Mac and even perhaps take the place of my Powerbook. If this PDA is going to do that, there are a few things that it needs to have going for it:

1. A full version of iCal: I don't want to have something watered down, as exists with the iPhone and iPod Touch. It has to have all the same features as iCal does now. Also, I need an iCal that can connect in some way to Exchange (for work). Of course, if I can bypass that through an iCal Server, then I can live without that feature. ^_^

2. A full (if spartan) version of Mail: I don't care if the mail templates are not included, but I do want a version of Mail that will work with Exchange (or at least IMAP).

3: 802.1x WiFi Support: Right now the University has 802.1x security set up for it's UConnect WiFi network. Using this network would be paramount for any device I get as a PDA. If Apple expects this device to get off the ground, this feature needs to be available. Why? Because most businesses (that are security minded, and tech savvy) have 802.1x for their open networks. To get into the Corporate Market, this tool would be necessary.

4: Specific Apps: I don't think third party apps will an issue once Apple gets the SDK out for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but it all comes down to what is available. I want a Terminal (It's UNIX, after all!), and I want chat tools like an iChat to work with Jabber connections. Also, I want to see some video conferencing built in: Put a iSight camera facing the user! It's that simple. Everything else would be there. I would also like VoIP available for the device. After all, this will be the mobile office I carry with me on trips. I want to be able to talk to my family. There are some others, but I think I will leave that for an app wish list. ^_^

5: Battery Life: It needs to have a killer battery life, and be easily replaceable (to be green). 10 hours would be phenomenal, but I would be happy with 5 to 8 hours of continual use. You also need to be able to use it while it is charging. That way you can plug it into the wall and still go.

6: Storage Space: Storage is a big issue. If this is going to be a PDA, it's going to work as a del facto replacement for a PC at some point. That means lots of writing to the drive, storage, etc. So if Flash memory isn't going to cut it, and Apple plans to make it bigger than the iPod Touch anyway, they should use the same drives they have in their iPod Classic. If it's a little thicker for it, that's fine. I wouldn't mind 160 GB of storage space on my PDA. ^_^

7: Easy Video Share: I would love to view content from my Mac at home and share content from this new PDA. Enable iTunes Sharing, and it will be brilliant!

8: Bluetooth Human Input Devices: If you don't have a physical way to hook these up, enable Bluetooth input devices. It would be sweet to be able to use a bluetooth keyboard with the device to make computing that much easier. It would also make it possible to have Pages, Keynote, and Numbers installed on the machine. That would be huge! ^_^

9: Price: Price is going to be a big issue. If it's cheaper to get a Mac Mini, I'll get a Mac Mini. Just because it's Apple doesn't mean people will pay what you tell them to pay. *cough* Newton! *cough* Apple, I hope you are listening, because while some people will pay through the nose, others would rather just hack your existing (and less expensive) multi-touch devices than pay more than $500.00 for a device that does basically the same thing. Look at your competition, look at what you are offering, and make the price reasonable. $500.00 is great if it has the same storage capacity as the iPod Classic, and can easily replace the most basic functions of a MacBook.

For the couple of you who have followed my blog since last December, you may recall that many of these requests are the same as my post back then. Differences? I know it will sync with the Mac (but could do with a sync option for Linux, hint hint!), and I know it will "Just work", since it works for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Connectivity is all down to how they enable the WiFi/Bluetooth, not whether or not it will be included. But other concerns have not yet been addressed, and some new ones have come up since the platform has been "test driven" with the iPhone and iPod Touch.

So, basically, I am looking for a watered-down version of a notebook that can handle my office needs without worrying about the personal/creative needs. If I want to use the rest of iLife, I can use a regular computer for that. But iWork would be ideal for a device like this.

This guy's personal unit tests idea is pretty funny, but it does give one pause. I think he might be onto something there—it's probably much more productive to take stock of how you've done in the past day/week than to write/ponder todo lists for the coming day/week,at least as far as these sort of "maintenance" tasks go. Being aware is half the battle, or more, and I like the focus on "how did I do, where do I sit" versus "I'm going to totally do all these things today, yeah! Oh, right after I finish slashdot..."

I have told you about the Hipster PDA before. Today I found a wonderful medium for those of us looking for something a little nicer than index cards and paperclips. It's like the Moleskine Pocket Notebook but even smaller (so that it actually fits in your pocket) and with a faux leather cover instead of the rather boring Moleskine cardboard. This thing feels like Napa leather. I bought it for logging my swimming workouts, but I don't know if I can bring myself to get it all wet—it feels so nice in my hands.

Did I mention it's cheaper than Moleskine? See if you can't find Miquelrius products at a bookstore near you. You're looking for the Flexible Notebook line. They have full- and half-size notebooks too.