Re: OM Camera - a new angle
Then comes the part which really pisses me off: Panasonic has crippled the camera so that you can't use zoom or focus functions while recording video. Now, I know this is not a camcorder. I don't expect it to record good quality video - just something casual once in a while. However, maybe I'm gullible, but I do not fucking expect Panasonic to maliciously lock me out of basic camera controls when recording. They lock you out because the results would look terrible if they didn't. So I guess it's a marketing reason, but it's a good one. The optics on cheap zoom digicams move in a jerky and noisy fashion. Optics that aren't are significantly larger and/or more expensive. It's a significant marketing bullet point when they do allow you to zoom during video on a digicam. Of the current Canon digicam's, only the S5 IS has smooth optics to provide that capability. Bryan ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OpenMoko != Neo1973 (Was: Openness (was RE: Concern for usability and ergonomics))
Marcin Juszkiewicz wrote: Dnia środa, 13 czerwca 2007, Werner Almesberger napisał: Shawn Rutledge wrote: What is your favorite hardware and software for doing this? We use our own debug board. You need a special flexible cable to connect to JTAG (*), and our board has the corresponding connector. Debug board has also space to solder standard 20 pin ATM JTAG header and after that can be used with other devices then Neo1973. My friend used it to debug his own AT91 based project. Heck, they could probably make money selling the debug board separately. Any embedded software developer probably has a ton of jerry rigged MAX232 level shifter dongles, USB<->232 dongles and USB<->JTAG dongles. This all in one design is sweet. cheers, Bryan ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: built-in scripting languages.
Well, that's "official" enough for me. I'll develop new apps in PyGTK for now. If I need to, I'll port to C later. The announcement today of the Gnome Mobil & Embedded Initiative (http://www.gnome.org/mobile/) also shows Python in its block diagram, right below a picture of a neo1973. Python is the OLPC language of choice. I'd still like to see gtk-server (http://www.gtk-server.org) in the base install, so shell scripts can have GUI's too. cheers, Bryan Michael 'Mickey' Lauer wrote: PyGTK looks like the most likely contender to me -- not just because I wrote a book about it and I'm the author of almost everything Python-related in OE, but also because PyGTK is pretty mature and easy to extend (you probably have seen Zecke's work in wrapping the Moko classes did you?). The thing that worries me is the performance. The Neo1973 has a really slow CPU. I didn't test on a device yet, but I'm afraid running 'import gtk' alone will take roughly 30 seconds, if not more. We will probably have to jump through hoops to make _any_ scripting language to perform reasonably on the Neo1973 (first incarnation). Cheers, ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
call for testers: MokoList, a pilot-db clone.
One of the most useful apps on my Palm Pilot is [http://pilot-db.sourceforge.net/ Pilot-DB]. I figured it would be a good "first app" to get my feet wet programming for OpenMoko. I've got a first pass at it, and am looking for alpha testers: if you have used [http://pilot-db.sourceforge.net/ Pilot-DB] or any similar application, have databases in a format supported by [http://sourceforge.net/projects/palm-db-tools/ palm-db-tools] (i.e. pilot-DB 0.3.x, pilot-DB 0.2.x, MobileDB, List or JFile 3) please contact me. Right now it's just a plain GTK desktop app. At this stage anything else would be silly. So alpha testers would also need a Linux computer or enough patience to recompile a GTK app on whatever desktop they're running... thanks, Bryan ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: built-in scripting languages.
Steven ** wrote: I'm not sure why you need an external MicroSD card, but all Neo's come with a 512 MB MicroSD card. Sean mentioned that in the FOSDEM presentation. Also, see http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_How_much.3F Sure, the developer's kit comes with a microSD card. I expect all developer's to have one. I'm worried about end users. I don't expect all user phones to come with a micro SD card. I also don't expect phones to come with firmware installed on the micro SD cards. I expect users to balk when installing "small" applications that take up precious megabytes of space because a large scripting language is a prerequisite. I expect users to want to "reserve" their microSD cards for large music and video files. Bryan ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
built-in scripting languages.
There was a discussion on the mailing list in January about choosing a built-in scripting language. Many good arguments were expressed, but disappointingly, it appears to have not gone anywhere. Many different scripting languages will be optionally available in the repository. However, developers who choose one of these languages for their applications will not be able to see their applications included in the standard ROM nor available for use by those without an external microSD card. A scripting language should be chosen as the default. Yes, it'll be a hard choice, but there's also no 'wrong choice' (except for "none"). I've put a lot of work into http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Wishlist:BuiltInScriptingLanguage. Please comment here or on the discussion page. Harold, Sean and the rest of the OpenMoko team: please, please make a decision, and make it soon. There are several of us that are delaying development of OpenMoko applications in the hope that a scripting language will be chosen soon. Apologies for quoting so liberally from list e-mails, but I feel it was the right thing to do. thank you, Bryan ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
debug board
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Connecting_Neo1973_with_Debug_Board_v2 http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Debug_Board I really like the design. I was expecting a MAX232 and connector breakouts. For not much more work you have something much more functional. One warning though: Those connectors are rated for 20 insertions. They get sloppy/fiddly real quick. Bryan ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: built-in scripting languages
There are already (I assume) at least two very powerful scripting languages on the OpenMoko. The first is sh in whatever variant they decide to include. I've used sh to write CGI scripts on a couple of deeply embedded web servers; you'd be surprised how much can be done with just boa+busybox. The other is javascript, which I assume will be included with the web browser. Javascript is a very powerful modern scripting language (it has closures and other cool stuff that python is only now getting). Javascript gets lots of bad press because the APIs that browsers provide are often awful and incompatible, but the core Javascript language is very nice. Since a javascript interpreter is going to be provided as part of the stock build, perhaps it would be nice to allow it to be used outside of its browser sandbox? The power of Perl & Python lies not in the language itself; the power is the huge standard libraries as well as external libraries available. On an embedded platform, these cannot be necessarily counted on. Bryan ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: IMHO more a viewer problem and not a display problem one ; ) -> better pdf and webbrower Re: Idea for one of the next Neos: Projecting the display via LEDs
Robert Michel wrote: > Salve Uwe! > > On Sun, 21 Jan 2007, Uwe Koch wrote: >> it's still always the same problem: >> Mobile phones' displays are to small (size or resolution) to view documents, >> ebooks, whatever - but they are small to carry with. >> >> On the other hand PDAs are to large to carry with but are a better >> solution for ebooks or reading texts - but is it large enough? > > Yes it is - I've read complete books on my Palm 160x160. I read a lot of books on my Treo, which has a smaller screen than an old school Palm. However, it's resolution is higher at 320x320. 99% of the books are from the Baen free library (www.baen.com/library) or the Baen webscription service. Here are the advantages: 1) you always have a book on you when you have 10 minutes to kill 2) built in backlight means you don't need a light on or one of those awkward booklights to read. Great for reading in bed without disturbing the wife. 3) comfortable to read with one hand. In a normal book you hold the book with one hand and turn pages with the other. This makes it much more comfortable when reading in bed or when you're reading on the bus and you don't get a seat. The cons are: 1) you have to either plug in or make sure you have a full battery before you start reading 2) hard to read in sunlight The size is not a problem. The limited width of the device is actually an advantage in speed-reading: less eye movement. Eye strain is also not a problem, for me. Properly formatted books are crucial: PDF's suck horribly; even HTML usually doesn't work too well. Mobipocket format works great. Bryan ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Gaming oportunities (OT:nGage)
I wouldn't write off nGage just yet. Nokia can still make it a successful platform. If pretty much every new phone that Nokia introduces from now on is an nGage phone, then it won't take long for the number of nGage's to approach the number of Gameboy's. Sure, most of them may never touch a game, but the market will be large enough that games will start to sell and nGage will become a feature worth looking for, even though currently today it's worth very little. Bryan ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
