New Blog Post!

[Alec]

I need my Adblock+

... uh, because I'm allergic to advertisements.

... I've got a doctor's note.

Arora has Adblock built-in (and enabled by default, I think)

 

[mali]

Has anyone tried Fennec on the Pandora lately?

I tried it on my N800 again, yesterday. It's slow, but should be moderately speedy on Pandora, I guess. Another possibility might be an (illegal) MicroB hack. MicroB is very fast for a Gecko browser and supports ABP from Firefox.

 

[Mithrildor]

I need my Adblock+

... uh, because I'm allergic to advertisements.

... I've got a doctor's note.

Yeah, we really need to block flash stuff.

....to bad the Pandora cant show flash ads cause we have no flash

 

[Sugar_Kane]

For the record, if I say 'the Chinese' I am just referring to the chaps in the factory, and I am most certainly not using it to insult them or the Chinese people.

 

[elinscheid]

Thank you Ed and Michael. I know it is tough to deal with the stress of making a product from scratch and I know that it is tough to deal with all of us on the forum. Thank you for not giving up on finishing the Pandora. Thank you for not throwing in the towel, sending our money back and telling us all to F*ck off. All of the people at the OPT have shown strength and resolve.

I'm not kissing anyone's ass. I simply want the OPT to hear from someone who is honestly positive and has faith in this project.

 

[DixieDawg]

First off, thanks Michael and Ed for such informative posts!

Since new boards are now being populated with the correct resistor, have you considered going ahead and using these boards for the initial Pandora releases? Then you could begin repairs on the defective boards kind of "behind the scenes" without as much pressure to have them done immediately. Yet new boards keep keep streaming in and Pandoras get shipped out. Possibly TI could ship out the rest of the new boards to you in several smaller batches and use them for the initial Pandas. What do you think? Or not

Sorry if this has already been discussed somewhere but I couldn't find it.

 

[urjaman]

are you the first gp32x forum member? your profile is older than ED and craig's...

A few posts and his post count > profile number ... (duh, i'm being useless...)

 

[Nintendo]

THESE ARE THE FIRST MEN/WOMEN!!! B)

 

[Jumpman]

First off, thanks Michael and Ed for such informative posts!

Since new boards are now being populated with the correct resistor, have you considered going ahead and using these boards for the initial Pandora releases? Then you could begin repairs on the defective boards kind of "behind the scenes" without as much pressure to have them done immediately. Yet new boards keep keep streaming in and Pandoras get shipped out. Possibly TI could ship out the rest of the new boards to you in several smaller batches and use them for the initial Pandas. What do you think? Or not

Sorry if this has already been discussed somewhere but I couldn't find it.

Don't worry, Michael is going to repair the first batch while the team waits on the final cases. He should have plenty of time to make the switches before the cases arrive for assembly.


Chris

 

[Monk]

Check for WiFi issues on the iPad...

I don't have an iPad. I ordered a bit of kit from some tech savvy guys who were pouring scorn on GPH and saying how much better they would do it. They would make a better product, without the technical or design flaws, and without taking our money months before delivering the promised kit. I'm dissapointed it'll have a repaired PCB and paint to cover up the quality of the plastic.

My last mobile phone crashes about twice a week until I updated the firmware, my Cable TV receiver did crash when I tried to move the channels around...

You maybe make some bad decisions.

So if you're concerned about stuff like that, you should probably never buy a device that hasn't been out for a few years already.

You have convinced me. I'll tell the wife to cancel our Pandora order the moment she gets home.

Electronics and software is becoming more and more complicated these days, it's impossible NOT doing anything wrong

Well, with that attitude - certainly!

May I ask, please - are all of the first batch going to have this resistor bodge that gets us speed like 500kB/s? How about the second batch? Is this "500kB/s" now considered to be "full speed" for the Pandora? Is there any danger that the speed is seemingly quite low due to another (or the same?) hardware issue?

It won't get lower, it will probably increase as there are software things that can be done now. The signal the module gets is now fully within the specs, so it should be possible squeezing out more of it.

A lot of other mobile devices we tested didn't reach much higher speeds - most of them maxed at about 750KB/s.
Did you ever do a speedtest how fast your mobile phone can go with WiFi?

My mobile phone cannot do WiFi. It's a mobile phone, not a handheld computer. I could maybe do a test on my netbook though, if you really want to see if 500KB/s is a reasonable expactation from a chipset that specifies what, 54 Mb/s? (your web site says it is 802.11b/g, which should be able to go faster, I propose, than 500KB/s).

Well, the whole project still did cost A LOT more than the money we got from your preorders.
Please donate us a few hundred thousand USD to NOT produce some stuff in China, and we're happy.

Please take an unauthorised loan from me for two years. Oh, wait... you did/ After promising that you wouldn't.

Try to find a device where NOTHING is from China these days... neither the board, any resistors, transistors, chips, parts, etc.
Good luck. Might be VERY hard to find some.

Who said nothing good is made in China? That's a very boring bit of misdirection you chaps like to use. However, using the cheapest possible source for everything does not guarantee the highest possible quality result. Take the Chinese plastics factory you are using. How has that worked out for you? Or even the specific chinese PCB vendor you used? Have they worked as well as the USA company that you did the prototyping with? My issue isn't with you getting stuff made in China. My issue is with you sayign that you wouldn't get stuff made CHEAPLY in China, but made to high quality in America, and THEN going and getting stuff made CHEAPLY in China. You get what you pay for.

As you mentioned the PSP above: AFAIK most of the PSP stuff comes from China. At least for the first units.

That would be a straw man argument even if I HAD mentioned the PSP. But I didn't (except in quoting Korlithiel, where the PSPness was irrelevant as far as I am concerned).

Ah, the wife is home now. so I can type here and say to her at the same time - EvilDragon recommends that we get a full refund.

 

[Nintendo]

You have convinced me. I'll tell the wife to cancel our Pandora order the moment she gets home.

Ah, the wife is home now. so I can type here and say to her at the same time - EvilDragon recommends that we get a full refund.

Thanks for bumping me up on/in the pre-order list.

And by the way...don't let the door hit you on the way out, mate. B)

 

[amf66]

^^ Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

I for one would like to thank the team for all of there hard work on the project! You guys have made a great product and have shown that the customer comes first (especially you, ED!). I can't wait for production to start.

Edit: h34r: Make that an up TWO posts.

Edit number 2: I just remembered that I know of several products that are painted, including my cell phone and my mother's laptop. Paint does not mean that the plastic is bad quality. Also, what's wrong with patching the first 700 (or is it 800) boards with an extra resistor? I'm sure Michael will do a good job, and the resistors are so small that it seems impossible for the solder joint to break and for them to fall off. I would go on, but it's useless to argue with people like Monk.

 

[Nintendo]

I for one would like to thank the team for all of there hard work on the project! You guys have made a great product and have shown that the customer comes first (especially you, ED!). I can't wait for production to start!

 

[Monk]

I remember being told that Pandora had AMPLE RAM to do anything you'd want to with it - before the amount of RAM was doubled. Why is FireFox not the default browser? Because it uses too much RAM?????

If it's like the Beagleboard, Firefox is a little sluggish seeing it's doesn't seem optimized to the hardware enough. It works and it's usable. But your better off using one of the leaner browsers.
[/quote]
Used to have Firefox on my dual core laptop, but open a couple of tabs it slows down to a crawl. Just kicked it of my laptop and haven't looked at it further, but it wouldn't surprise me if there's something in it's design making it sluggish. Opera took over long ago!

Don't even want to try it on a Pandora, since my expectations of Firefox are low already.
[/quote]

I barely even care about FireFox - except how it figures into what we're being told. The last I heard about browser OpenPandora were pleased as punch that the Pandora ran FireFox - and so well! The next I notice FireFox has been replaced because it is too RAM hungry (after being told no-one would ever need more than 640KB) and its replacement is being replaced because it was too unstable. There seems to be no stability of vision to a product which is already a year and a half late.

A year and a half ago it would have shipped with FireFox. So... that would have been a bad decision, yes?

[quote name='Sugar_Kane' date='13 April 2010 - 06:39 PM' timestamp='1271183977' post='839400']
For the record, if I say 'the Chinese' I am just referring to the chaps in the factory, and I am most certainly not using it to insult them or the Chinese people.
[/quote]

You're not alone - it's bothersome to have to type "The Chinese factory which has been contracted to make the molds and cases" and "the people at The Chinese Factory that has been contracted to make the molds and plastic cases" and "The Chinese Factory which was contracted to manufacture the PCBs" and so forth. As is very obvious from context, a simple "The Chinese" from most REASONABLE people is BLATANTLY shorthand, as none of us believes that every single person in such a huge country could possibly even be aware of the Pandora, much less have a hand in making them. However, it is convenient for others to misunderstand in order to take cheap shots and misdirect.

[quote name='SONY' date='13 April 2010 - 10:42 PM' timestamp='1271198558' post='839485']
[quote name='Monk' date='14 April 2010 - 09:36 AM' timestamp='1271198203' post='839484']
You have convinced me. I'll tell the wife to cancel our Pandora order the moment she gets home.

Ah, the wife is home now. so I can type here and say to her at the same time - EvilDragon recommends that we get a full refund.
[/quote]

Thanks for bumping me up on/in the pre-order list.

And by the way...don't let the door hit you on the way out, mate. B)
[/quote]

No worries, and you're a long way from the only person to move up the list.

Edited for SONY

 

[Nintendo]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=neNuyzPe1Rw[/youtube]

 

[Monk]

SONY - an excellent clip. I think I prefer the one about the scooters though, myself

 

[Nintendo]

WHEN I SAY, "THE CHINESE", I MEAN THE CHINESE!!! :angry:

 

[WizardStan]

Thanks for bumping me up on/in the pre-order list.

And by the way...don't let the door hit you on the way out, mate. B)

Not cool man. Monk was as dedicated to this as anyone else. Everyone has a breaking point and you shouldn't begrudge someone for reaching theirs. He has a lot of complaints which are perfectly reasonable for him to have and if that's enough for him to leave, so be it.
I hope he sticks around and perhaps contributes a little more, perhaps rejoins when the second batch ships and all these delays have blown over, but I would understand if he didn't.
That being said, Monk, it may be wise to take some time to cool down before posting further. That's what I suggest, anyway.

 

[Monk]

Thanks for bumping me up on/in the pre-order list.

And by the way...don't let the door hit you on the way out, mate. B)

Not cool man. Monk was as dedicated to this as anyone else. Everyone has a breaking point and you shouldn't begrudge someone for reaching theirs. He has a lot of complaints which are perfectly reasonable for him to have and if that's enough for him to leave, so be it.
I hope he sticks around and perhaps contributes a little more, perhaps rejoins when the second batch ships and all these delays have blown over, but I would understand if he didn't.
That being said, Monk, it may be wise to take some time to cool down before posting further. That's what I suggest, anyway.

Sage advise which I plan to take, and thanks for the usual level-headed attitude rather than just jabbing at me with a sharp stick. Having just taken a second brief break from the forums, I really didn't need todays nasty surprises. Sometimes, a break isn't worth the bad news when you return.

Now I've got to go and deal with a wife who's {edit}irked that I've told her rather forcefully to cancel the birthday present she bought me in 2008. Sigh.

 

[paddy]

I nearly went mad with todays readings ... i really had to turn off for a few hours and come back to reread everything ,i also can fully understand Monk or anyone else and Sony should shut up little child like person.