Portably Awesome?

[Kings]

http://www.pidgin.im/ pidgin can handle msn protocol and right now it's taking 20mb ram when I'm using it. btw, my firefox 2 is taking 60mb ram so it should be possible to run these two simultanoeus. (assuming that linux versions don't take much more ram)

Funny you should mention Pidgin and Firefox 2 running at once. Currently I have both running(WinXP) and Pidgin is taking 60MB while Firefox 2 is around 96MB. On my laptop(Ubuntu 7.10) with a Pentium III 600Mhz and 256MB RAM I can barely run both. Hopefully a retooled Firefox 3 and a light messaging client will be optimized for use on the Pandora.[

 

[Chip]

http://www.pidgin.im/ pidgin can handle msn protocol and right now it's taking 20mb ram when I'm using it. btw, my firefox 2 is taking 60mb ram so it should be possible to run these two simultanoeus. (assuming that linux versions don't take much more ram)

Funny you should mention Pidgin and Firefox 2 running at once. Currently I have both running(WinXP) and Pidgin is taking 60MB while Firefox 2 is around 96MB. On my laptop(Ubuntu 7.10) with a Pentium III 600Mhz and 256MB RAM I can barely run both. Hopefully a retooled Firefox 3 and a light messaging client will be optimized for use on the Pandora.

I've had Firefox 2 open for about 45 min. and it's already up to just over 100MB. I can actually watch it go up by about 20K every 10 sec. or so, even while I'm not doing anything. Luckily, everything I've heard about Firefox 3 says that they've fixed the memory (and several other) problems.

 

[Tobriand]

I'll have to revive my Psion Series 3a typing skills. I managed to get an almost decent "four finger" speed, which was barely enough to take abbreviated meeting notes (provided other participants didn't mind the occasional "What was that you said there?"), but touch typing was most certainly out of the question.

Last time I used a Psion 3c, I managed one-handed touch-typing, which worked about as well as on a desktop (i.e. for me, not too badly). Was fast enough to keep notes of lectures, although they were *horribly* inaccurate spelling/grammar-wise, I recall. So if you sacrifice accuracy, then you can probably get wpm remarkably high (probably maxing at around 50-60).

That said, I'm kinda hoping for someone to write a "Lecture notes" program that has the microphone turned on and recording as you make notes - and here's the clever bit - remembers what was being said at the time any given text is entered. This would effectively mean your notes would be a lecture "map" rather than a lecture transcription, and consequently could be significantly more brief .

 

[grahf]

Ive had Tmobile Sidekicks for years, and was able to thumb type of them amazingly fast. It just took practice to be able to type without lookign at the buttons.
It really all comes down to how this keyboard works, and how easy the punctuation marks are to get to. The Sidekick, for all its faults, had an amazing keyboard.

 

[javaJake]

Am I the only one who is planning to write with my thumbs when I'm using pandora? :unsure:
I don't think that I could do that with eee pc so I wouldn't comapre them.

:lol:

Is that a sarcastic reference to the rather over-the-top "PSP/DS/EeePC/etc and Pandora are different: don't compare" comments I was hearing a while back?

That said, I'm kinda hoping for someone to write a "Lecture notes" program that has the microphone turned on and recording as you make notes - and here's the clever bit - remembers what was being said at the time any given text is entered. This would effectively mean your notes would be a lecture "map" rather than a lecture transcription, and consequently could be significantly more brief .

Nice! I will be looking forward to that!

I've had Firefox 2 open for about 45 min. and it's already up to just over 100MB. I can actually watch it go up by about 20K every 10 sec. or so, even while I'm not doing anything. Luckily, everything I've heard about Firefox 3 says that they've fixed the memory (and several other) problems.

Drat. I hope Firefox 3 is better. Maybe I'll give it a run and see how much memory it uses under my normal use.

How do I measure accurately in Linux? I used top or ps once and I guess I used the wrong numbers.

 

[Game_over]

Good point........................................I feel stupid..............................................

-Spadoof :gp2x

Don't feel stupid; multitasking is far more convenient and less time consuming than the process described by Prophet. It's a feature that, while not expected of the Pandora, we can certainly hope for, though it may be less a question of software features than hardware capabilities. Certainly, it wouldn't be possible to run two processor hungry programs at once without bogging down the system. If the AIM client doesn't take up too many resources, then it should be possible to multitask between it and the emulator.

To your point (warning: bringing up the N-Gage again) I used to check the IRC, listen to Internet radio and play THPS on my QD, all software running in the background of each other. I miss my QD .

The Pandora is more prone to do multitasking that exceeds what a basic S60 smartphone can.

 

[Karel Jansens]

That said, I'm kinda hoping for someone to write a "Lecture notes" program that has the microphone turned on and recording as you make notes - and here's the clever bit - remembers what was being said at the time any given text is entered. This would effectively mean your notes would be a lecture "map" rather than a lecture transcription, and consequently could be significantly more brief .

Isn't there one of them "smart pens" that already does that? I forget the name...

 

[Tobriand]

That said, I'm kinda hoping for someone to write a "Lecture notes" program that has the microphone turned on and recording as you make notes - and here's the clever bit - remembers what was being said at the time any given text is entered. This would effectively mean your notes would be a lecture "map" rather than a lecture transcription, and consequently could be significantly more brief .

Isn't there one of them "smart pens" that already does that? I forget the name...

Probably. But then the point is not that it's not been done before, but that it should be done on Pandora, and would mitigate some of the typing speed issues if done properly .

 

[craigix]

I've no idea why a message client would take up 20meg! It's very simple stuff and should take up a few hundred K at most, there is almost certainly a better client out there.

If there isn't I'll write one, 20meg. What the hell is it doing with all that? It's nothing more than a fancy IRC interface.

 

[Shiny]

I take it that these applications were developed for PCs so they don't take care to conserve RAM. With newer desktops commonly having 2GB+ of RAM it's not much of an issue for their target platform, so why bother? It all stems from the concept of "if it's there, use it!". This logic usually comes with the flaw of unoptimized and bloated software because people care more about getting things done than getting them done right.*

* The programmer may not necessarily be to blame for all occurrences of bloat because outside forces like deadlines may result in a caffeine-induced programming 'frenzy' where the programmer may unwillingly let rushed or poorly written code slip into the final product.

In short, the definitive answer to the entire matter is laziness.

 

[EvanB]

I thought Pandora would have Flash 7 and I know that there are lots of Flash 7 based IM sites so wouldn't that just be fine?

EvanB

 

[icurafu]

I think Flash uses magic fairy dust ram, so it wouldn't use any ram at all really.

 

[BaDToaD]

Now this would be a nice keyboard solution.

Folding Keyboard Review

 

[Spadoof]

Nice! Were can I purchase it from? The index page of the web site is in russian!


-Spadoof :gp2x

 

[jhoff80]

How about this instead? Looks a little larger so you couldn't fit it in a pocket (10"x5") but it even has a full number pad and is supposedly full-sized instead of laptop sized keys.


http://matias.ca/foldingkeyboard/

 

[AireTamStorm]

Good point........................................I feel stupid..............................................

-Spadoof :gp2x

Don't feel stupid; multitasking is far more convenient and less time consuming than the process described by Prophet. It's a feature that, while not expected of the Pandora, we can certainly hope for, though it may be less a question of software features than hardware capabilities. Certainly, it wouldn't be possible to run two processor hungry programs at once without bogging down the system. If the AIM client doesn't take up too many resources, then it should be possible to multitask between it and the emulator.

Not to mention the OS we're working with (Linux) is designed with multitasking in mind.

If we're in an X environment you're definitely in the green in terms of multitasking. As long as the RAM holds out, you'll have Firefox, a little notes program, IM and music with relative ease.

 

[Pleng]

Good point........................................I feel stupid..............................................

-Spadoof :gp2x

Don't feel stupid; multitasking is far more convenient and less time consuming than the process described by Prophet. It's a feature that, while not expected of the Pandora, we can certainly hope for, though it may be less a question of software features than hardware capabilities. Certainly, it wouldn't be possible to run two processor hungry programs at once without bogging down the system. If the AIM client doesn't take up too many resources, then it should be possible to multitask between it and the emulator.

Not to mention the OS we're working with (Linux) is designed with multitasking in mind.

If we're in an X environment you're definitely in the green in terms of multitasking. As long as the RAM holds out, you'll have Firefox, a little notes program, IM and music with relative ease.

Will you be able to assign a swap file to one of the SD cards?

 

[crazedover]

Will you be able to assign a swap file to one of the SD cards?

It can be done, but I don't think you'd want to. A swap file on a flash card would shorten the card's life considerably.

 

[Pleng]

Will you be able to assign a swap file to one of the SD cards?

It can be done, but I don't think you'd want to. A swap file on a flash card would shorten the card's life considerably.

True, but considering you can pick up 1Gb cards for next to nothing these days it could be considered a consumable. I mean, how long are we talking about reducing it's life to? 1 year? 6 months? 1 month? a week?

I personally wouldn't mind paying a fiver every 6 months if it significantly extended the usefulness of my Pandora.

 

[Chip]

All SD cards have built in wear leveling, and the swap space won't be used that often (only when a program needs more than 128MB RAM), so the impact on card longevity will be negligible. Since there will be some programs that won't run without extra virtual memory, the VM system might as well be built into the OS.