Re: Request for assistance: Need a wiki page for buying and selling GTA01
On Feb 15, 2008, at 3:16 PM, Michael Shiloh wrote: Perhaps we call this the OpenMoko flea market. I'd be tempted to sell my Neo if I felt like there was some security to the transaction, because right now I'm not finding time to focus on hacking it, so the wait for the next model isn't a hard one for me. But the transaction security issue is a tough one - how do I know that the person to whom I ship my Neo is actually going to pay for it, and how do they know that they're actually getting a working Neo? ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Re[2]: Videos and pictures of Neo FreeRunner at CES: (was: Re: community update, Thursday, January 10, 2008)
On Jan 12, 2008, at 9:34 AM, Michael 'Mickey' Lauer wrote: Well I guess you just can't please everyone :/ Sure you can - put a switch in the phone's advanced preferences! :') Anyway, I have always felt that with a little dress-up, the verbose startup could become reassuring rather than alarming. The reason it's alarming is mostly that it just sits there saying nothing intelligible to the end-user. If it said things like "probing for Atheros ethernet device... found." or "configuring network..." then the end user might be less alarmed. If you don't know any better though I think it looks too much like a Windows crash, to which old- timers are too painfully accustomed. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Re[2]: Videos and pictures of Neo FreeRunner at CES: (was: Re: community update, Thursday, January 10, 2008)
On Jan 12, 2008, at 9:55 AM, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote: And we want the matrix screensaver too. :-) And it can't run down the batteries... :') ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Videos and pictures of Neo FreeRunner at CES: (was: Re: community update, Thursday, January 10, 2008)
On Jan 11, 2008, at 3:20 PM, Lon Lentz wrote: I read the "not so happy" comments following the Gizmodo article. A lot of those comments have been made here on this list. Like the repeated ones about the boot scroll being visible. I thought that was weird. The boot scroll is one of my favorite parts! ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: root
On Jan 11, 2008, at 9:16 AM, Schmidt András wrote: I assume that sudo prevents the harware to be bricked accidentally by the user or by a userspace program. What I wanted to mean is that protecting the user's data is more important than protecting the device itself. Sudo takes away security - it doesn't add security. If you fail to protect the device, then by extension you have also failed to protect the user's data. So you need to do both. Bitfrost works by separating privileges at a finer granularity than per-user. Instead, it's per-app. So typically an app that can make arbitrary network connections doesn't have access to user data, and vice versa. All apps run in sandboxes, and communicate via d-bus. The notion is that security compromises generally come through applications that are suborned. So if you know in advance what the application should normally be able to do, and only let it do that, then when it's suborned by an attacker, the attacker doesn't gain anything, because they've only gained access to the sandbox, not the whole machine. The security model is very well-thought out, and would work well on a phone - it's intended to protect a non-computer-literate child from malicious attack, and so the level of security-awareness of the user is similar to what you'd expect from the average mobile phone user. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: root
On Jan 11, 2008, at 5:56 AM, Schmidt András wrote: In my opinion there is nothing that the root account can protect on a single user handheld device. Phones are normally used single user. When an application gets the rights for that user then it can access all personal information and all network resources (Wifi, GSM network). What else remains? What resource would you protect with the root account? If this is a sincere question, I'd really encourage you to give the OLPC bitfrost spec a read: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Bitfrost Unfortunately, the conclusion you've drawn is completely wrong. I'm very interested in the OLPC Bitfrost work - I think it has application in the wider sphere of Linux implementations, and the OpenMoko environment is a classic case. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Subject prefix for e-mails
On Dec 27, 2007, at 11:24 AM, Colan Schwartz wrote: Would it be possible to add a descriptive prefix to each e-mail sent to this list? I don't mind getting a lot of e-mail, but if it's from a list, I'd like to know where it's coming from. Suggestion: hack your tool to sort on the List-Id: header. Redundant sorting info in the subject line is unnecessary, and also makes it harder yo see the entire subject line. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Michael Shiloh interview on The Linux Link Tech Show
On Nov 29, 2007, at 1:24 PM, Ben Burdette wrote: I was relieved to hear that 850 mhz seems to be a sure thing - according to the interview there will be two versions of the phone, one for the US (or other 850mhz countries) and one for the rest of the world. I assume the US version will be delayed compared to the 900mhz version, but still great its news. Oof. Personally, even though I live in the U.S. I'd probably rather have a 900MHz phone than an 850MHz phone because I can get pretty good coverage here even without 850MHz, whereas in Europe it's going to be difficult for me to know in advance whether or not a particular SIM card I might buy at the airport will work well for me without 900MHz coverage. I guess it's probably impossible for the GTA02, but quad band really is a key feature. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Use Neo w/out removing from pocket (was: Neo1973/OpenMoko as a laptop replacement)
On Mon, 2007-11-19 at 10:35 -0800, Michael Shiloh wrote: > What sort of applications make sense > this way? What sort of new applications does this allow? I think the two big killer apps are laptop replacement and watching video. But that's going to require hardware acceleration. Long term, you can imagine using something like this as a HUD, but I don't know if that's actually going to see any use - we won't know until someone tries to sell one and we see if people are actually willing to look that silly. I think running something like this without wires is way in the future, but I'm certainly willing to be proven wrong. The trouble with wireless is power consumption for a high-bandwidth video signal. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Neo1973/OpenMoko as a laptop replacement
On Sat, 2007-11-17 at 11:19 -0800, Michael Shiloh wrote: > I'd like to explore adding a head mounted display to the Neo, like the > i-glasses PC/SVGA Head Mounted Display at about $700. Would require > an > off-board SVGA controller, which could be prototyped with a USB SVGA > controller, assuming Linux drivers can be found. I think when you add all the pieces together, this isn't going to be a cost-effective solution, and it's not going to perform well either. Head mounted displays need to get higher resolution before they're worth the money. What's the point of having a six-foot-tall screen in your visual field if it's only 640x480? And having direct access to the frame buffer makes a big difference in performance. I like the way you're thinking, though - if it were possible to get WUXGA glasses, that would completely solve the portable display problem. And I don't think it's out of the question - it's just too soon. The parts you'd need to make one are only just becoming available. But it's with this in mind that I mention the DVI output - you really don't want to plug VGA into a display like that. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Neo1973/OpenMoko as a laptop replacement
On Sat, 2007-11-17 at 09:29 +, Andy Powell wrote: > If I can manage to push aside the feeling that people should just buy > something like the Asus EEE PC rather than going this route... No bluetooth. No DVI out. Doesn't fit in your pocket, unless you have a really big pocket. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Neo1973/OpenMoko as a laptop replacement
On Sat, 2007-11-17 at 10:11 +0100, "Andraž 'ruskie' Levstik" wrote: > Why not a laptop chassis The laptop form factor forces poor ergonomics. I always bring a keyboard with me when I travel so that I can have the screen up high and the keyboard down low. So for me the built-in keyboard is just wasted space. And when you take that and the CPU out, all you're really left with is the TFT. The really great thing about the TFT is that because it doesn't have the crown jewels on it (your data!), you can put it in luggage and check it, and the worst that happens on the other end is that you have to get a replacement if someone stole it. Checking a laptop isn't such a fortunate plan. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Harald "LaF0rge" Welte: Leaving OpenMoko...
On Fri, 2007-11-16 at 09:22 -0500, Kyle Bassett wrote: > as the shit starts to hit the fan... Oh, stop it. Harald has been saying he's been having difficulty for a while. Maybe this is systemic, and maybe it's not, but there's no reason to side with chaos. Why not hope for the best, and give what support you can so that "the best" is the actual outcome? Harald, so long and thanks for all the fish. It's been good having you here. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Neo1973/OpenMoko as a laptop replacement
On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 23:11 +0100, Erland Lewin wrote: > I imagine a kit the size of a regular book for the Neo containing a > fresnel lens with a frame for attaching to the phone, a foldable > keyboard, a small mouse, and a battery pack loadable with, say, 2 > regular 'C' size batteries. The keyboard needs to be an old manual typewriterkeyboard, and the UI should be white on black for maximum compatibility with Brazil. Seriously, though, I think this is a cool idea, but once you have a proper focusing system it's probably not going to be lighter than a laptop, so what's the point. What I'd like to see is someone (FIC?) making a computer *like* the Neo that's a real laptop replacement. 1Ghz ARM, DVI out, 640x480 screen just like what we have in the Neo, runs slow when it's on batteries, fast when it's plugged in, a couple gigabytes of flash, an external hard drive for when you're near power, and Bob's your uncle. You can pack a monitor in your luggage when you travel, and have a nice setup wherever you land. It would fit in your pocket when you're flying, but be powerful enough to actually use when you arrive. It could be a bit bigger than the Neo, and if it had a GSM modem and GPS in it, it'd double as a phone. Neo's big brother, you might say. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: developing C/C++ applications for OpenMoko -- where do we stand?
On Mon, 2007-11-12 at 14:39 -0600, William Voorhees wrote: > I hope they do it soon, I just downloaded the Android (google) SDK, > and I must say I'm rather impressed. The demos are great. But it looks like it's heavily java-focused, which is a bummer, and there's no platform to run the applications on. It's certainly hugely better than what you get for developing for existing phones, as far as I can tell, but it's not the same thing as what OpenMoko and TrollTech are doing. It'll be interesting to see how it looks once there's a platform on which to run it. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Gphone and 850, perspectives
On Thu, 2007-11-08 at 23:46 +0100, AVee wrote: > I think it whould help an awfull lot, it would allow you to switch > firmware > before leaving to an 850 or 900 area. In a lot af cases that will > involve a > air travel and a somewhat longer stay in the 'other frequency' area. > If it > could be just a build option I also can imagine a bit of software > which makes > the switch trivial. I wish it were so, but what I mean by a "build option" is that they put a different part on the board if you want 850 vs. 900. Which I think is what was proposed. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Gphone and 850, perspectives
On Thu, 2007-11-08 at 03:44 +0800, Michael Shiloh wrote: > (Same problem with Global Locate regarding the GPS driver) It might be nice to just send out the old module, even if it theoretically isn't useful, because somebody might be willing to hack it to make it work. Right now we have nothing. On the topic of 850 MHz, it is a problem that it's not supported. It's early days, so I don't care about it for the current phone - I can get by without it. But I'd like to hear if there are serious plans to add this band to a future revision of the phone, or whether this is simply not possible. Even if you have a build option for 850 vs. 900, that's not a good solution - I want a phone that works everywhere, not a phone that works everywhere close to me. So I hope that this is something that can happen with a future revision of the phone, even if it's not the very next revision. I'm not expecting a quick answer on this - just wanted to state my personal concerns on this, which I think are mirrored by a few other Western Hemispheroids on the list. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: community@lists.openmoko.org
On Oct 23, 2007, at 4:25 PM, Richard Reichenbacher wrote: It's so reasonable to expect everybody to dig through the entire site to find it, amid the multitude of places that still say OCTOBER... Considering that the alternative is for someone *else* to dig through the site and report the same answer to you, yes, actually, it does sound pretty reasonable for you to dig through the site yourself! :') ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: NetBSD/evbarm Neo1973 kernel
dmesg from real hardware is appreciated Hm, in the spirit of adventure, I just flashed your NetBSD kernel on my Neo, like this: uma% ./dfu-util -a kernel -R -D ~/Desktop/netbsd.boot dfu-util - (C) 2007 by OpenMoko Inc. Then I tried booting it from the serial console. I can't tell whether it went catatonic, or whether it simply is outputting to a console device I don't have attached, but the last output I got was this, which came from the boot loader, not the kernel (this is on the usbmodem console): GTA01Bv4 # boot NAND read: device 0 offset 0x44000, size 0x20 2097152 bytes read: OK ## Booting image at 3200 ... Image Name: Kernel Image Created: 2007-10-09 22:49:50 UTC Image Type: ARM NetBSD Kernel Image (uncompressed) Data Size:2088749 Bytes = 2 MB Load Address: 30008000 Entry Point: 30008110 Verifying Checksum ... OK So basically it just fell flat on its face. I'd be happy to test more kernels, but I don't have any particular suggestions as to what may have gone wrong. One worry I'd have is that in the transition from the boot prom to the kernel, the USB serial device might go away, at which point seeing the console would be problematic. Are you expecting that the console will be visible via the debug board? I have one at home, but I won't have access to it until ~Wednesday. Anything I can do to help, please let me know. I'd love to see NetBSD running on my Neo. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qtopia coming for Neo1973
On Sep 25, 2007, at 11:14 AM, Carlo E. Prelz wrote: N. I just say that Qt has no C api. And this makes it unusable. For me. No mention of it being bad. The personal reason you've given for why you prefer Gtk to Qt is valid, for you. However, most of what you said had nothing to do with that - it was conjecture about the relative merits of GTK+X versus Qtopia. And it was factually incorrect, which implies that you didn't know it to be true. This is why I say that if you don't know something to be true, you shouldn't say it: you might be unknowingly repeating a falsehood. It's perfectly fine for you to express your personal experience about C++, but you have to understand that your experience isn't predictive. Just because it was that way for you doesn't mean it will be that way for me. When you interject your personal experience into a discussion about the pros and cons of something, and you can't say why that thing didn't work for you, you are creating ignorance in the mind of any reader who doesn't already have knowledge of the topic on which you are speaking. Which is why I'm trying to encourage you not to do so. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qtopia coming for Neo1973
On Sep 25, 2007, at 6:26 AM, Carlo E. Prelz wrote: As far as I can perceive, making a c wrapper of a c++ library (and I do not mean c-looking code that compiles under c++ - I mean a library that makes heavy use of those ungodly quirks that c++ is burdened with) is a task that no sane individual might desire to embark into... But if/when such a wrapper becomes available, I will make sure to carve out half a day to gain some experience with it. I don't trust this statement. You say that C++ is burdened with ungodly quirks. I hated C++ for a long time. I believed the received wisdom that it was quirky and evil. I avoided it like the plague. C++ was what Windows people programmed in, not Free Software people. But at some point about two years back I really needed a decent cross-platform toolkit that actually looked good on all three platforms, and Qt was the only option. So I was forced to learn C++. It turns out that after I got over the learning curve, it was actually pretty cool. Just because some people who use it abuse it doesn't mean that it's not useful. I don't have a preference for C++ at this point, but I can use it if I need it, and have used it on a number of occasions where it made sense. Personally I prefer LISP. So when you say Qt is bad because there's no C API, I am able to look at your assertion from a position of knowledge. And that's why I say it's pathetic. It's not that you're a bad person. It's that you're a blind person trying to tell sighted people why they should only walk close to the wall if they don't want to get lost. You just shouldn't do that - if you don't know anything about something, don't speak as if you are an authority. There'd be a lot less flaming on virtually every mailing list if people would just not speak when they don't know anything useful about what they are saying. I still prefer the look of Gnome to that of KDE, but this is purely an aesthetical judgment. I expect that with some effort I would be able to use Gnome themes on KDE. Again, this is a valid criticism, although I will say that I pretty much despise KDE, despite being quite fond of Qt. OTOH, I despise gnome too. Neither one works very well. I agree that gnome looks better, but since my criterion for something being good is that it must work, the fact that gnome looks better doesn't help me. When it starts working better, the fact that it looks better will be more compelling. Hrmpf. How many X applications can you find in sourceforge? Who cares? You're writing a new application, you said. So what you care about is how quickly you can get from a design to an implementation. This has *nothing* to do with whether you are using X or a raw framebuffer. It has to do with how usable the toolkit is. This is why your statement is nonsense. True, if you want to get xterm working on Qtopia, that will be more work than getting it working on gnome, because it shares the same underlying windowing system, X. But that's got nothing to do with developing. If you want to develop something new, starting from the xterm source code would be suicidal. There's already a KDE terminal emulator - if you decide to use Qt, you can start from that. So which windowing system is underneath the many layers of the GUI toolkit really isn't relevant. Have you actually tried to develop an app for Openmoko yet? No, since I do not have an openmoko. In other words, you are talking out your hat. PS In your mail, you wrote 1) that I use pathetic excuses, 2) that I have complete lack of knowledge on topics that I write my prose about, 3) that I say things that I don't know to be true, 4) that I make multiple stunningly ignorant statements. Can you please keep these personal observations out of the conversation? Just for the sake of peace and harmony... I'd like us to reach peace and harmony by not repeating prejudices. I like the look of openmoko better than the look of qtopia - I'm totally rooting for openmoko to get to a place where it's usable. But I find Qt to be very useable. You've made a bunch of assertions about why it isn't useable, despite having no experience using it, and despite having no experience developing for openmoko. I am criticizing your arguments, not you. If you go off and spend a week learning enough C++ to use Qt, and then writing a real app in Qt, and then you come back and say "I like Gtk better, and here's why" then I'm interested in hearing what you have to say. Until that time, you shouldn't go around telling people that Qt isn't a good choice, or that Gtk is better. Because you don't know. Sorry to be such a windbag. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qtopia coming for Neo1973
On Sep 24, 2007, at 11:58 PM, Carlo E. Prelz wrote: QT is bound to C++. With GTK you can choose to program in C, or, if you really want to, in C++. With QT there is no way you can write your code in C. This is an utterly pathetic excuse not to try something. You don't have to become a C++ expert to try Qt. Just take some existing Qt sample code, read it over, spend a half day reading a C++ book to figure out the stuff that doesn't make sense to you, and then code something up and see how it works. If it really sucks, you'll know. Without doing this, you simply aren't qualified to say anything about Qt. So it's kind of mind-boggling that you were able to come up with so much prose to document your complete lack of knowledge on the topic. Also, Qtopia, by having no X server running in the background, makes it much more difficult for the average developer to bring his/her own window to the screen of the phone. Case in point. This simply isn't true. You're saying things that you don't know to be true. Why would you do that? I see OpenMoko as a developer-oriented phone/system. I haven't even been able to get a build working. It only builds on one platform - the build is so brittle that if you don't have that platform, you can't get it to go. It's early days, so I don't count that against the development team, but this is another stunningly ignorant statement. Have you actually tried to develop an app for Openmoko yet? I've spent far more time trying to figure out the OpenMoko build system than I ever spent learning C++ so that I could write Qt code - I had my own Qt app, mostly written in C running under Qt in a matter of about a day and a half. GTK may be better than Qt for some reason, but it's not because Qt is hard to use. (I also do like much more the graphical look of the OM proposed interface, but this is purely a matter of tastes) Taste matters. The OpenMoko UI in some places really does look better than the Qtopia UI. There's no need to be bashful about preferring one design to the other because of the way it looks. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Help Request for our Webshop
On Sep 24, 2007, at 6:19 AM, Jon Radel wrote: Maybe he realized that no matter what he said, the community would have to get their initial wave of second-guessing everything out of the way first Hee hee! Yeah, that's probably it. It keeps us entertained, doesn't it? :') I've done enough work in django (python) recently that the idea of going back to PHP sounds like some kind of really brutal punishment. The code is really much easier to read, because the code and presentation are kept in separate files. The original idea with PHP of embedding code in HTML was cool in theory, but in practice I think templates are a lot easier to maintain. Django isn't perfect, but I can see why people are edging towards it and away from PHP. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Help Request for our Webshop
On Sep 23, 2007, at 10:09 PM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller wrote: Why haven't you said that initially? It would have saved me to even mention oscommerce and you the discussion about it. 'cuz he's a big meany! No, wait, that can't be it! Maybe he figured anyone who was qualified would already know what a steaming heap oscommerce is (zencart is a futile attempt to make oscommerce cleaner and more featureful). More likely, though, he just didn't think of it! :') ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Help Request for our Webshop
On Sep 22, 2007, at 1:22 PM, Ian Stirling wrote: Paypal means that you never see the CC info at all. This is called throwing the baby out with the bathwater... ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Help Request for our Webshop
On Sep 22, 2007, at 10:11 AM, Joshua Layne wrote: a brief googling * turned up 'substruct' - open source, based on ruby on rails - meets a subset of your requirements, but may be extensible enough that you don't have to reinvent the entire wheel, only the shiny new spin-rims. The carts I've played with generally have no concept of credit card security. I did a project with zencart a while back, and had to retrofit my own credit card security model into the system because it just stored credit card information in the database, where an SQL injection attack would reveal everything. I haven't looked closely at substruct - maybe they do something smarter. My personal model for credit card security is to never store the credit card information on a customer-facing machine, and indeed only keep that information as long as it's needed, even on a back office machine. This way, even if you screw up the security on your customer-facing machine, the worst risk is that some info will be exposed until you detect the security compromise - there's no risk that everybody who ever ordered anything from you will have to get a new credit card. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qtopia coming for Neo1973
X provides an OpenGL API. So if you want to do fancy stuff like Compiz, you do it with OpenGL. The main advantage to X over a direct-to-framebuffer system is that you can connect over the network. X also has a well-though-out virtualization of the framebuffer, which is a wheel you'd have to reinvent for your fb system (although I guess OpenGL would do). Personally I'm pretty agnostic about it - back in the day, X was a huge boon, but nowadays the ability to have a network-extensible windowing system isn't that important. So the infrastructure X provides is valuable, but its raison-d'être is mostly a historical curiosity, as well as a security hole. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qtopia coming for Neo1973
On Sep 18, 2007, at 1:48 PM, Lorn Potter wrote: Try ftp.trolltech.com/qtopia/tech-preview/ Sweet, thanks! ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qtopia coming for Neo1973
On Sep 18, 2007, at 9:28 AM, Scott Rushforth wrote: Phone calling works, for both incoming and outgoing calls, the only hitch was that I had to manually set the alsa levels using gsmhandset.state. That's a helpful hint. It appears to be the case that audio doesn't work for other apps as well - e.g., the alarm clock doesn't make any noise. I've also noticed that when I try to use bluetooth from Qtopia, my bluetooth daemon on my Mac hangs hard - it takes a reboot to get it back. Obviously a Mac bug, but it makes using the software a little painful, since I need my Mac to make it work. :'} Having played around with Qtopia now, I have a couple of observations. The UI is tight - it looks good, and generally does what you expect it to do. It's a lot more complete than the OpenMoko UI, so even people who love gtk might want to take a look at it for ideas. The dev kit appears to be linux-686 only for now, but it would be easy to build a set of gnu cross tools on OS X, so this would be an easy platform to target for people who are running OSX. The libraries in the current dev kit should work with the cross-compiler no matter what host is used. Someone said that they have invested a lot of work in GTK and wouldn't want to switch. I'd just like to point out that in general it's bad practice to deeply marry your back end and UI code, precisely because it leads you to this kind of thinking. You should try to keep them as separate as possible. It's a little extra work up front, but it pays off in a big way on the back end. Someone who wants to ultimately target OpenMoko/GTK, but wants a working phone now, might want to consider using Qtopia for now and then swapping out the Qtopia front-end for a GTK front-end later. Particularly if you're already familiar with GTK programming, this shouldn't be difficult. I think that the GTK front end for the Neo has a lot of potential that the Qtopia front end may miss, so a strategy that borrows from both systems would be good for us early adopters. Er, the dev kit appears to be missing openssl, which could be a problem. Also, announcements aside, I don't see a link to the source code on the Qtopia/Neo page, so not all promises have yet been kept. Trolltech has been really good about releasing source code in the past, so I'm not worried about this, but without source, developing will be more painful. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Qtopia coming for Neo1973
On Sep 18, 2007, at 9:48 AM, Tilman Baumann wrote: But thats how it is. Opensource is just about freedom to choose. The more choices the better... My big question about Qtopia for Neo is whether or not Trolltech will be willing to take back changes. I've had some challenges in the past getting them to believe bug reports that I sent in, although they were extremely professional about it - I probably just needed to be more persistent. So I think that having the two projects competing is probably good in terms of keeping people honest. However, if I can cross-develop for Qtopia from my Mac, that's going to make a huge difference for me. :'} ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Video decoding in GTA-02
On Sep 8, 2007, at 11:22 AM, Ian Stirling wrote: It's not _quite_ that bad. You get >> 1 hour, even playing h.263 very loudly while on a phone call. That's cool for demo purposes. Unfortunately H.263 is really only of interest to people with patience - the average end-user will consider H.263 support to be equivalent to no video support, since there's no media available in that format, and e.g. Handbrake doesn't support it. H.263 requires a bit less CPU for playback than H.264, but unfortunately requires more bits for the same quality, which I think is why it's been almost completely replaced by H.264. I don't mean to make this out to be a crisis, but in order to sell in quantity to non-geeks, the phone will have to support H.264, or else we'll need something like Handbrake that supports H.263. If it had H.264 support in hardware with that screen, it would be *really* sweet! ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Video decoding in GTA-02
On Sep 8, 2007, at 7:00 AM, Mikko Rauhala wrote: Software playing will probably take a bit more power, sure, but that aside, the Neo's youtube capabilities already partially exceed (*sigh* at the obligatory comparison) the iPhone's. A lot more power, not a little. Flash is even worse - that's why Apple refused to support it. Figure you might get an hour of battery life if you decode H.264 in hardware, if your CPU can even keep up. Because that's how long the battery lasts with no power management on the Neo right now. The Neo's CPU is roughly equivalent to the Nokia 770, which can't play H.264 video in real time. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Video decoding in GTA-02
On Sep 8, 2007, at 3:28 AM, Florent THIERY wrote: But who really wants to check out youtube videos in the subway ? Marketing, marketing... My wife uses the video feature on her iPod quite a bit when we're traveling. And video podcasts are a great idea for the subway - just as good as reading a magazine, only the pictures move! So don't be too attached to the idea that this is just marketing fluff. The lack of H.264 support is a definite weakness. What about encoding features of the smedia chips ? The day there will be a camera on the neo... Unless you're encoding a long run of video, I don't think this is a major issue. If you are, yeah, hardware encoding for H.264 sounds like a great idea. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Apple is going to beat all competitors
On Sep 7, 2007, at 1:19 PM, Raphael Jacquot wrote: - At least several hours of H.264 playback. possibly doable but I don't believe the current hardware can handle it The point here is that for the GTA02, if the video hardware supports hardware playback of H.264, we need a driver that allows us to take advantage of that. You're right that it's a nonstarted on the GTA01, but that's okay. - A good music app, ideally tied in to the Amazon/Universal store. with the amount of DRM shit those morons are going to require, forget it leave people put their own stuff on there. no silly iTunes crap Actually Universal is dissing Apple by releasing non-DRM'd tunes through Amazon and not the iTMS, so there's actually some good non- DRM'd stuff that'll be available that way. If it could be downloaded over the WiFi, that would be really neat, and something that no other phone is likely to offer. - Leverage the GPS to do things the iPhone doesn't do. that should be somehow tied with openstreetmap There are a lot of wicked cool things you can do without OSM working, so I think focusing on OSM is just going to delay the things that are easy to do. If it's done and available and easy, great, but it needn't be a gating factor in doing cool stuff with the GPS. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Apple is going to beat all competitors
On Sep 7, 2007, at 11:27 AM, Andreas Utterberg wrote: What the v2 neo needs is a nice oi, the best would be if its possible to add compiz fusion, beryl effects to it. That would really boost the interest to the mass, just look at the development speed to the berylproject had, and the very big community around it in a very short amount of time. I like cool effects as much as the next guy. But what the phone needs is a really good UI. To sell against the iPhone it needs to be as good a value proposition as the iPhone. Doesn't necessarily have to be better, but has to be as good, and it also has to be different. For me, right now, it's already better, because the iPhone isn't open. But for an average person, what's going to make the value proposition work is that it does the things they want their phone to do nicely, transparently. Frankly, we are many person- years of coding away from that right now. At a minimum, we need: - It's got to actually work as a mobile phone. - At least several hours of H.264 playback. - A good music app, ideally tied in to the Amazon/Universal store. - Smart connectivity - connecting up bluetooth devices has to be easy, and sensing and connecting to known WiFi networks has to be seamless and automatic. - Mobile Safari-like web browsing - that is, you get to see the whole web page, and you can expand and contract the image. - Leverage the GPS to do things the iPhone doesn't do. Most of this is self-explanatory, but just a couple of notes. Remember that a touch screen is not the same as a mouse - you have a lot of built-in positional cues when using a touchscreen that a mouse UI has to *show* you. One example of this in the Neo UI that's already been adopted is kinetic scrolling. Another thing that the iPhone UI has that we don't is shrink and grow. Since we don't have multitouch, we can't do shrink and grow the way that the iPhone does. The way I would do it is to designate an area of the screen to be the size zone. Maybe the bottom. When you hold and drag in the size zone, it shrinks or grows the view. So hold and drag to the left, and the view zooms out. Hold and drag to the right, and the view zooms in. The new GPU ought to make this possible. I think this is more important than any of the stuff i've seen demoed in compiz/beryl. I don't understand why the compiz/ beryl people spend so much effort on window dressing. But maybe I'm missing the point - I've never actually run the stuff, just seen the online demos, none of which have ever impressed me. Sigh. As far as leveraging the GPS, something like a remotely-updateable locational todo list would be smart. Say you go out to pick up groceries. At home, your sweetie remembers that you need more tp. No problem - she updates the todo list for the supermarket you're going to. When you get there, the phone bleeps with your complete shopping list - the stuff that was already on it, and the tp that was just added. You're making coffee, and you notice that you're almost out. You select the local coffee roaster and put in a note that you need more. The next day, you're at the Indian restaurant a mile away, which is relatively close in your milieu, and it bleeps to tell you to stop at the coffee shop on the way home. Or, if you're a New Yorker, it bleeps when you wander by the store. Proximity depends on your milieu. Extra credit for locational milieu sensing. Another app - you have a list of friends, and your phone and theirs share information at a common site somewhere. You can update your drop-in-ability - when you've got dropins available, your friends' phones will all tell them if they are near you. If you're trying to meet your friend who has a Neo, you both tell your neos to be on the lookout for the other, or to give you a running positional commentary, and using that, you plot a course toward each other and meet. These are things the iPhone doesn't do, so they create a new value proposition that makes the Neo competitive. Another thing that would really change the Neo value proposition for me is that I'm afraid to put it in my pocket because of the touchscreen, and the carry bag we got with our Neos is (a) completely artificial and stinky and (b) has too much padding, so it's too big to use. The Neo needs a protective case. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: How "snappy" can the Openmoko GUI get using GTK?
On Sep 2, 2007, at 8:24 AM, Giles Jones wrote: VGA is 4x times the data, not two times. That will have a noticable effect. The only VGA device I have owned was a Toshiba E800 PDA, this had an ATI chip and it was still a little sluggish. Hm. The best example of slow draw times that I can find in the Moko UI is the terminal keyboard. The reason this draws slowly is because it's being drawn line by line. If it were just blitted in, it would be quite a bit faster. It's certainly true that you will see slowness as a consequence both of the slow CPU and the lack of a GPU, I would guess particularly when surfing the web. However, this is not why the UI feels slow right now. The UI feels slow right now because when you click on a control, sometimes you get no response at all. Right now, the UI is mainly operating in the realm of "you click on something, I do something." This works well when the something happens quickly, but when it doesn't, you want "you click on something, I do something to show that your click registered, I do something." The elapsed time will be slightly longer in the second case, but the perceived UI lag will be less because you aren't wondering whether or not your tap registered. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: How "snappy" can the Openmoko GUI get using GTK?
On Sep 2, 2007, at 7:17 AM, Giles Jones wrote: Launch speed is something that can be fixed, I'm not sure if the build system is using pre-linking? if not it will be something to use as this is the cure to application launch speed delays on Unix like systems. This is probably true. The interface is VGA and so there's a lot more to draw and this makes the GUI less responsive than QVGA. The acceleration in the next gen hardware will solve this. This is definitely not true. I mean, it's true that the QVGA is going to take less time to paint, but paint times aren't the problem - if they were, kinetic scrolling wouldn't look so nice. No, there's something else going on that's making the UI so unresponsive. Possibly something is timing out, or something's running in lock-step that should be asynchronous. The Palm PDAs were using task switching, it wasn't a full multitasking OS, so you have to realise that a Linux based PDA will always lag behind a very simple OS. Again, true, but not likely to produce the results we're seeing. E.g., when an app is running, and a tap on the UI takes seconds to produce a response, this is not something you can attribute to the fact that Linux is a protected-mode multitasking kernel. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Message duplicates (was: Changes between GTA1 and GTA2?)
On Aug 27, 2007, at 5:56 AM, Richard Bennett wrote: A crude solution to make spamassassin restart if it crashes could be to start it with a script, wrap the start command in a loop that can never finish. When spamassassin dies, the command will re-run... Then you can find the reason it crashes later on when you have time. (probably never ;o) If you add a sleep 30 to the script after spamassassin crashes, this will have the additional virtue of not soaking up all available CPU time if spamassassin can't run. :') ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software
On Aug 24, 2007, at 12:57 PM, Carlo E. Prelz wrote: WxWidgets never crossed my path. Qt is out of the question since I don't do C++. I tried a handful of times to get familiar with it, and was fiercely rejected every time. That's strange - I have tried a variety of widget libraries, including Gtk, and the one that I found easiest to work with, by a wide margine, was Qt 4. I never tried programming Qt 3, and from what I've seen of it it looks a lot less straightforward. So if that's the one you tried, and you're curious, you might give Qt 4 a shot. The best way to learn is to start with someone else's working code and modify it, so that you get a feel for the system, rather than trying to start from scratch. Personally, I think that the 2007.2 UI looks *fantastic*, despite the color scheme, and I love the flick-scrolling. But I am depressed at how easily the applications crash. This is the problem with coding UIs in C or C++. Anyway, if you like Qtopia, please don't sit on the sidelines and kibbitz - try to get it running. There's absolutely no harm in people investing effort in trying other stuff. If you look at how many people bought one of these phones, and how many people are actively hacking, you can see that there's a lot of thrashing going on. Which is perfectly find - if you thrash enough, sometimes you get butter. So go try Qtopia! ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Neo1973 Phase 1 sales / order process / misconception
On Aug 11, 2007, at 1:25 PM, Jeff Andros wrote: to all of the people working at FIC and Openmoko, thank you for all of your hard work, and I look forward to working with you in the future Word. Having this thing in my hands is amazing. I've been wanting something like this for years. Sean and FIC and the other folks at OpenMoko have done something truly revolutionary. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Sean interviewed at LinuxWorld
On Aug 11, 2007, at 12:45 PM, Joe Pfeiffer wrote: It'd be nice if Gartner stated the obvious Who cares what Gartner says? What did they say about the iPhone? If you want to know why Gartner keeps predicting the status quo, and why the iPhone changed it, read this article, and listen to the audio: http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2007/08/09/stuck-on-the- enterprise The vision for the enterprise that Sean expresses is plausible as well, because OpenMoko does actually address the needs of the enterprise better than what's out there now. But the way to get real market penetration is to create something that people will love. With all due respect to Sean, that's our job. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Neo 1973 is sold out...
On Aug 6, 2007, at 11:07 AM, Andrew L. Clunis wrote: I placed my order on the 13th of July (#3255) and except for the YES_I_DO process I haven't heard anything since. Nor has anyone else near my number, according to the P1_Owners wiki page. The question is, am I one of the deferred orders? It's a damned good question. We have gotten some feedback about this, but nothing unequivocal. There's been talk of a second batch that will ship mid-August. On the other hand, that could be the second batch of 100 that they're processing now. If my phone won't arrive until September, I might as well just wait until GTA02 a month later. However, I have no information to base such a decision on. Well, considering how the schedule slipped on GTA01, I don't think you should really count on October as the ship date for GTA02. If you want a development phone, it might well be worth getting a GTA01, even in September. However, if it's not crucial to you to get a phone at a specific time, there's a good argument to be made for waiting. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Anyone, not billed yet?
On Tue, 2007-07-31 at 14:12 +0530, Sudharshan S wrote: > I just couldn't resist the urge to ask if there are anyone here who > had ordered the development release but *not been billed* yet. > Especially anxious since there has not been any word of the second > batch, AFAIK (ordered it on 11 July, around 0500 hours GMT). Sorry > folks, but when all the others are getting to play, hack and cuddle > with the neo, I feel jealous and left alone =(. I asked for a creamsicle-colored Neo, and I haven't gotten any kind of billing or shipping notification yet. I presume that they haven't yet shipped the second batch. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: another linux platform platform
On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 08:23 -0700, Tim Newsom wrote: > They claim to have many of the features we have talked about on the > list... however, I am wondering about the "pending patent" related to > placing security in the bootloader for signature checking of a boot > image. Does anyone know if this is available GPL or if they have > somehow managed to get around all of that? They shouldn't get that patent, because there's plenty of prior art. This is an example of what gplv3 is intended to prevent. Essentially, what they're doing is locking their phone so that you *can't* boot openmoko on it, even though they're observing the letter of the gplv2 license. They can safely give you source code, and you can't use it. Tivo's been doing this for years. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OK, the forum is coming..
On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 12:33 -0500, Hans L wrote: > Are you saying that if you don't want your email > address harvested by spammers, then you should not participate in > discussions about openmoko at all? Keeping your email address private > IS a valid reason for the use of forums. No, I'm saying that building your email security using obscurity doesn't work. There is no way to keep your email address private, any more than there's a way to keep your home address private. You might succeed for a matter of months, or even a year or so if you're really diligent, or even longer if you never actually send any email, but eventually someone who has you in their address book is going to get a virus, and then all your efforts are for naught. So whether you use a forum or a mailing list shouldn't be predicated on your desire to implement security through obscurity. It should be predicated on some other reasoning. That's all I'm saying. I think we need both, and as I said in my email message, I look forward to all of the chatter being siphoned off into the forum. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OK, the forum is coming..
On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 19:19 +0200, Andreas Kostyrka wrote: > No, it's just habits. And it's not about Engineers, it's about long > time email users. What, that they never actually read what anyone writes, but just skim it looking for something that they can flame about? Come on guys, read for comprehension, not for opportunities to flame. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OK, the forum is coming..
> Quite frankly I am completely, totally, > overwhelmingly baffled at the resistance to the forums. Quite a few > people have expressed their dislikes of mailing lists and how they were > *very* reluctant (like myself) to join. Worrying about your email address being exposed is pretty silly. That's like worrying that the ice on a pond will break when it melts in the spring and your house will fall in. Don't build your house on ice. As for forums, they are very nice for casual use. They are terrible for staying in touch, unless you visit them obsessively. The nice thing about a mailing list is that the mail keeps arriving in your inbox, you see it go by, and you can pay attention or not as you choose. And if you miss something, it's easy to go back and find it. Forums aren't bad - they're just different. I think it would be great if the casual traffic migrated to a forum. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: No response since YES_I_DO?
On Mon, 2007-07-23 at 23:28 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Has anyone else NOT received any response at all yet since YES_I_DO? I'm in the 1900's, and I haven't heard anything. They've assured us that they aren't fulfilling orders in order of the RT ticket number, so I guess there's no need to be alarmed. :') ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Marketing...
On Jul 20, 2007, at 5:10 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Maybe I stated the obvious, but I would like this phone to be a success and thats how i see it happening.. start with the basics... Like the iPhone, you mean? :') Of course it would be great to be able to sync with Microsoft Exchange, and if someone takes that on it'll be great, but you can't legislate volunteer effort. Something like that is a royal pain in the neck, so it probably won't happen if it's not funded. If you care about it, you might want to take it on. But even if you don't, we have the example of the iPhone - you can sell at least a half million units without Exchange support! ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Marketing...
On Jul 20, 2007, at 4:25 PM, Torfinn Ingolfsen wrote: It speaks to exactly the problem that we will have marketing OpenMoko: how to get Joe and Jane Average to think of the Open in OpenMoko as something they care about. Don't do rthat then. As in "don't limit the marketing to only focus on the Open part". The Open part will only get to the people who are really, interested anyway. I guess reading the article before commenting on it would be too much to ask? ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Marketing...
On Jul 20, 2007, at 11:48 AM, Rodolphe Ortalo wrote: I suspect we should only ask the average people to follow us [1], not to understand the full software stack. That may even be beneficial in the end. This is precisely why I suggest reading the article. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Marketing...
People who are interested in marketing OpenMoko might want to read this article: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/ just_because_it_saves_the_world.php It speaks to exactly the problem that we will have marketing OpenMoko: how to get Joe and Jane Average to think of the Open in OpenMoko as something they care about. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Not "the free phone" (was: Re: Again: Advertising thoughts
On Jul 20, 2007, at 2:31 AM, Santiago Crespo wrote: I like the spanish term: "libre" (like in ubuntu cd-box). It's not a bad word, but unfortunately when I hear it I get an image of a guy wearing army fatigues and carrying an automatic weapon. To some extent I think choosing a branding that will work in every country is a hopeless task. I mean, Coke and McDonald's seem to have done it, but I don't know of a lot of others... ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Shipping, Billing, etc
On Jul 19, 2007, at 12:29 PM, Andy Powell wrote: What they should have done is not opened the shop for 2 weeks and then got everything in place rather than taken the orders and then sit around waiting because no one thought about the merchant account. Those bastards! How dare they? Man, remember back in the day when you used to mail order things by sending a check in an envelope through the postal service? And then four to six weeks later the box would come, or maybe not? And that's what people did for over a century, between the time that mail order was invented and the time that the Internet and package tracking over the Internet became a possibility. Sure, this could have been handled better. If they'd asked me, I could have set up a Zencart site for them. So could probably a dozen or more people on this mailing list. But they had a lot of work to do getting the phone out, and they were overconfident about how easy this part would be. We can be angry at them if we want, for this oversight, but it's not going to make any difference in how soon our phones get shipped. On the other hand, if you get strident enough, it might make them regret ever trying to ship an open source phone. If that's not your goal, you might want to consider different tactics. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Shipping update
On Jul 18, 2007, at 9:35 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Probably would be best to ask this of the shipping company. You might also be able to change the delivery address to your hotel at the conference. They are generally reluctant to do this, both because it makes it easy to steal a package enroute, and also because it's likely to result in misdelivery. If you can change the routing at the source, it's much more likely to work. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Free OpenMoko...
Has anyone seen this? http://www.freeopenmoko.com/ Weird, huh? ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Shipping update
Sean, probably a dumb question, but I'm leaving for IETF on Saturday, so I'm really hoping that my two-day delivery will get the phone here by Friday. I don't desperately need it before IETF - I just don't want it sitting on my front stoop for a week (well, for that part of a week before it's stolen!). Is there any chance that we'll get some kind of notification/tracking information when the phones ship? Sorry to hassle you - I know things must be really busy. Congrats on getting the first batch through customs! ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: this phone, with WiFi
Another option: http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/08/ how_to_build_a_4_x_aa_usb_batt.html or: http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/05/ mintyboost_small_batterypowere.html You can buy this second one as a kit for about $20. You'd have to rewire it a bit to provide bus power, I suspect, but you don't have to figure anything else out, which is nice. The nice thing about this is that chargers for AA NiMH batteries are easy to get at Radio Shack or Batteries Plus. My inclination would be to pull the shroud off your USB WiFi dongle and make a single unit containing both the rechargeable batteries and the WiFi adapter, with a single USB connector coming out of it for the Neo. Let us know if you build one of these - I will do the same. :') ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Not "the free phone" (was: Re: Again: Advertising thoughts
On Jul 17, 2007, at 12:59 AM, ramsesoriginal wrote: "Teh ub3rz h4ck70r7 Ph0n3!!11oneeleven" Perfect. :') Honestly, I don't think this is something that one needs to worry about. What's going to happen if OpenMoko really becomes usable is that various vendors will adopt it in markets that will take it, because it's cheaper and (assuming we do our job right) nicer than the alternatives. And then you will see the Motorola OpenRAZR, the Samsung tFree, and like that, and hopefully FIC will find itself a real player in the high-end phone category as well. So take delivery of your phone, and do something cool with it. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: keyboard, please!
On Jan 23, 2007, at 9:37 AM, quixote wrote: How do other people feel about this? I think it'd be a nice variant, but I'm glad it's not in the base model. Bear in mind that there are some bitchen' bluetooth keyboards out there, like the ThinkOutside stowaway sierra. Depending on your application this may or may not work - it's not so handy for just pulling the phone out of your pocket and IMing someone. But for any serious typing, it's going to be a lot nicer, and a lot less likely to give you RSI injuries to your thumbs. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: built-in scripting languages
On Jan 22, 2007, at 3:28 PM, Joe Pfeiffer wrote: So when you put your first python application on, ipkg will conclude you need python. When you put your second on, it will conclude you've alrady got python. Sure. So in that case it does make sense to talk about standard versions of each interpreter, and to not talk about a standard interpreter. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: built-in scripting languages
On Jan 22, 2007, at 2:49 PM, Andraž 'ruskie' Levstik wrote: Personaly by default there should be none. And let the user decide what he wants. For example I prefer ruby over perl, lua or python and I like using bash scripts for a lot of stuff. So having lua on my system would be more or less pointless as I don't use it myself. I want to agree with this, but I'd like to point out one small problem with it: if you have an app written in one of these languages, you have to install the whole interpreter anyway. And god forbid you should have two apps, both of which are written with the same interpreter, both of which install their own (possibly conflicting) version of it. So in order to agree with this, we nevertheless have to talk about the problem: how do we ensure that if an end-user wants to run an app written in python, and another written in ruby, and a third written in python, that they get exactly two interpreters installed on their Neo, and not three? There are a couple of ways to solve this problem, but the point is that if you just leave it open and let nobody solve it, you may wind up with an unpalatable result for the end-user. And the result for the end-user is important - if the Neo is only useful to geeks, it can't accomplish its stated goals. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Free Your Phone
On Jan 21, 2007, at 6:28 PM, Sean Moss-Pultz wrote: Hehe...waterproof phones would be really cool. It's just so expensive. Sort of on that same note, though, once the design becomes a little more solid, building some additional durability into the phone would be a nice thing. So many phones we get nowadays are expensive and break quickly. It would be nice if the phone could be disassembled using torx drivers, and if you could replace the more breakable parts. I don't think this is a practical suggestion for the developer phone, but sturdiness and maintainability really would be a good (and surprising) quality in a phone. If this phone becomes something that people buy and keep, then spending a little extra to make it last longer might be worthwhile. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Wiki + Mailing List
I've used mediawiki a bit on controversial topics; unfortunately it's no better than a mailing list because it does nothing to quell change wars. Also, it's isolating - I think that if the discussion here can be tolerated, it's better because it's cross-pollinating. Wiki discussions tend not to cross-pollinate as much. Generally speaking, what helps on mailing lists is actually two- fold. First, we need to exercise restraint. I've replied a couple of times in the past day or so when I didn't need to, and so contributed noise rather than signal (and perhaps this is another instance - if so, I apologize). And then too, if someone from OpenMoko can step in and say "we hear you, here's what we're going to do, please stop talking about it now," then that can quell debate - part of what perpetuates debate is people feeling that the issue is still open. Sometimes a certain degree of firmness is required to make it stick that the issue is closed, of course. Unfortunately, this is time-consuming, and the time it consumes is the most valuable time - that of the people who are actually doing the work right now to make this happen. So maybe we just have to endure for a while. I suspect this will settle out a bit once people have hardware in their hands - real hardware is very grounding in comparison to imagined hardware, as the iPhone has shown us. :') ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Featured on Slashdot
On Jan 20, 2007, at 11:29 AM, Jon Levell wrote: Just a quick note to say that the announcement this morning (with the schedule) is currently on the front page of slashdot.org W00t! That'll be a nice post-IETF present! :') ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: OpenMoko devices and Mac OS X
On Jan 20, 2007, at 5:04 AM, Koen Kooi wrote: With iTunes you can sync thumbnails to your ipod, so I suspect mister I-don't-have-a-real-name wants vga thumbnails synced to his phone. Hee hee. He's not the only one. Rest assured, if this isn't in the base product (and why would it be?) someone (if necessary me) will hack it together in short order! It's one of the things that plagues me about new cool phones - how do I sync it to my Mac? This time we can *do* something about it! :') And yes, dotmac's email does use IMAP, so if the phone can do IMAP, Bob's your uncle. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Visual Voicemail
On Jan 19, 2007, at 9:20 PM, Austin Taylor wrote: Think like a hacker. Why couldn't we scrape it? Think like a developer: how can we make it work? Think like an entrepreneur: is there a solution here that we can offer? Can we transform GSM-as-usual into a transport? If GSM is just the tube you use to get to the mobile device, and the number that you call isn't the GSM number, then you can intercede if the call isn't answered and capture the voicemail, perhaps in an Asterix PBX. Once you have the voicemail, the phone can download it next time it has IP connectivity. Voila: visual voicemail, no scraping needed. The question is, is this a service anyone would go to the trouble to use? In some ways it would suck - no way to notify the phone that the voicemail is present if you're off the IP network. I think it's a ripe place to do some research, but whether it is actually useful, we'd have to see. Personally, nothing against Cingular, but if I have to switch to them to get this feature, it's not worth it to me - I quite like t-mobile as a carrier in general. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Neither iPhone or OpenMoko are revolutionary
On Jan 17, 2007, at 7:37 PM, David Schlesinger wrote: The NEO's not _cheap_, exactly: there was a recent survey of 1,800 recent purchasers of cell phones, and 21--not 21 _percent_, mind you, 21, period--paid over $400. Not many more paid as much as $350. To me what differentiates the NEO from a typical $400 phone is that when you've plunked down your money for a typical phone, you're locked into your provider (this is how it is in the U.S. - I know it's different in at least parts of Europe). On top of that, if there's anything you don't like about your phone, that's too bad, because when they fix the problem in the next release, the only way you're going to get it is to buy the new phone. Compared to the OpenMoko situation where even if you aren't a geek yourself, at least when some annoying UI glitch gets fixed, you can update your software. Also, since you're paying for the phone, not your provider, you are the customer, not your provider. I currently have a Samsung t809, which is a D820 flashed with t-mobile's firmware. The phone is supposed to be really nice - it has an MP3 player, for example, and bluetooth, and supports EDGE as well as GPRS. But none of the features that I wanted actually work. I can't use a stereo bluetooth headset on it, because the version of the firmware t-mobile ships doesn't support that. So the mp3 player is useless. The apps on the Samsung don't interface with my PIM on my laptop, so I can't update the phone book on the phone - it's a dead end data store. When I lose the phone, I have to re-enter all that data. The calendar isn't interoperable, so same problem. The AIM client uses SMS, so it's $0.10/message, even though I'm paying for unlimited GPRS/EDGE. The PPP implementation doesn't work with my laptop, so I can't even use GPRS/EDGE for anything except from my Nokia 770, which I usually don't carry. So yes, not many people have bought expensive phones. Why? Because, by design, they suck. The customer is the provider, not the user. So whether you're into open source or not, the OpenMoko/NEO phone is a much more attractive value proposition. When a product isn't selling well, it might be because it costs more than the market will bear, but it's also possible that it just sucks, and so nobody wants it. It really will be interesting to see what happens with the NEO. I think we will learn a lot. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Neither iPhone or OpenMoko are revolutionary
On Jan 17, 2007, at 7:00 PM, David Schlesinger wrote: The revolution evidently has a bunch of people who don't see that the value of half (or ninety-five one-hundredths) of a loaf exceeds that of no loaf at all. I wouldn't take this very seriously. Despite the lack of WiFi, which I definitely agree is a minus, I am going to get one of these phones as soon as I can. The thing I'm paranoid about right now is whether or not GPRS works over my t-mobile (US) network. WiFi would be really nice, but it's by no means a deal-breaker. Actually, it probably means an extra sale when the WiFi-capable phone comes out next year. I'm sure I can find someone on whom to pawn off the non- WiFi phone. :') ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
Re: Neither iPhone or OpenMoko are revolutionary
On Jan 17, 2007, at 5:57 PM, Richard Franks wrote: I disagree - VoIP via WiFi is an obvious evolution rather than revolutionary. I don't think it's a 'killer app' either - in the terms of the phone manufacturer who is more likely to benefit from getting 6-12months lead and market share in an unexploited but growing market (Open Source Mobile Phones). Hm. I think that an open source phone is pretty revolutionary too, and I'm looking forward to it. I'd just like to point out that you actually get some bang for your buck on VOIP even with a bluetooth phone. It won't work at Starbucks, which is a shame, but it will work when you're at home, because you can get networking over bluetooth from your computer. So you very much can do VOIP calling on an OpenMoko phone if the software gets written. And when a new phone comes out with WiFi, the software *will* work at Starbucks. Although I suspect it'll burn the battery something fierce, so it might not be all that useful. But yeah, in theory, if it all works reasonably well, this would be really nice. One thing to bear in mind is that at least for me, the ability to have a bluetooth headset is pretty important. So if the WiFi nukes the bluetooth, that makes it pretty much worthless. I do actually tend to think that a hybrid WiFi/GSM phone that isn't locked to a carrier *is* revolutionary, but it doesn't have to be the first product out of the gate, either. ___ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
