On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 2:06 PM, Jack Johnson <knapj...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 5:57 AM, Stuart Morrow > <morrow.stu...@googlemail.com> wrote: >> However, there is one "smart" feature that for me would be useful enough that >> carrying a big chunky thing that lives for a quarter of a day on battery >> might >> actually be worth it, and the feature is so damn trivial to do with Plan 9 - >> setting/unsetting the ring tone to/from silent in a cron job. > > I would like my ringtone volume to adjust periodically to the ambient > noise, which also seems fairly trivial. > > What did you folks with bitsies and iPAQs find useful? Any of you > still packing one? > > -Jack
I have fiddled with an iPAQ/bitsy on and off over the last few years. What's really nice about it is that you get access to a "real computer"; I booted wirelessly off my CPU server, which meant I had access to all my files and music, which was nice because the bitsy's sound hardware is supported. As long as you have a wireless connection, it's the best way to use a PDA. If wireless goes away... life sucks. It was nice--the reason I don't use it is because the adapter which gives PCMCIA capability makes the device about 3 inches thick, and the battery is pretty old/weak. By my assessment, the bitsy was just a little too primitive for Plan 9. You need a bulky adapter to get wireless (PCMCIA sleeve + orinoco, basically), the boot process is a bit weird, there's not really much local storage, and of course it's a PDA, not a phone, so you still have to carry around a cell phone too. If we could either port to a modern ARM-based phone or work out some sort of relatively space-efficient combination of the Beagleboard + touchscreen + cell radio + battery, I think life would be nice. The OpenMoko platform is quite cheap, but I don't know that there's much future there; I can't find the reference now, but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere on the site that they do not plan to design any more hardware. John -- "Object-oriented design is the roman numerals of computing" -- Rob Pike
