I don’t think it will impact anyone, but I’m moving this site between accounts on Dreamhost. If there is disruption, it should be temporary.
Update: Complete, with some (but not much) disruption. 
Update 2: Forgot .htaccess. Actually, didn’t realize Wordpress used it. Let that be a lesson to you all!
Palm Preparing for Linux Development:
Open jobs listings on Palm’s website indicate the company is preparing for Linux development for a new generation of Palm devices. This is a positive sign that the company is already preparing for developing new mobile devices using Palm OS for Linux.
(Via PalmInfocenter.)
It is a little too soon to assume Palm will move to Linux instead of just cautiously poke at it, but it does look hopeful that Palm’s Palm OS will move past Garnet. I can’t say I’ll miss Garnet, and I can’t say I’m disappointed that Palm passed on Cobalt. Three strategies was three too many. Although maybe they still have two…
< Palm and PalmSource…Together Again?:
“This is just a rumor at this point, but there’s scuttlebutt that smartphone and PDA manufacturer Palm (formerly PalmOne) may acquire PalmSource, the creator of the Palm OS.”
(Via PC World’s Techlog.)
I am very skeptical as to the odds of this occurring. In fact, I think “rumour” might be too strong a word: “speculation” would better. but I would certainly be pleased if it happened.
I finally found all the pieces of the T5 and tried to apply the 1.1 update to make it usable.
Shortcut.9 reveals Mon 09/27/2004 1:47a, so I do indeed need the update. The T5 is about as fresh as it can be — hard reset clean and HotSynced against a new profile. So I start the updater.
Only a few seconds later I’m staring at a “There is not enough memory to complete this operation.” Well, the instructions say it needs 17.9MB. I have 53.5.
I looked through Palm’s site devoted to the update. The alternate instructions are actually what I was trying to do, so they’re of no help. There are no troubleshooting steps that I can see, and no indication that this has ever gone wrong before.
A few google searches have left me wondering: Am I the only person this update has ever failed with? What exactly is wrong with my T5?
Anyway, an hour and several hard resets later the T5 remains un-updated… and as far as I’m concerned, remains a blemish on Palm’s otherwise fine release history.
One thing I missed in my initial review of the T5: Not only is resetting much more difficult than on previous models, it also takes much longer to reset and is much more awkward to hard-reset. The sooner this device is replaced, the better. In the meantime, with so few devices available it is hard to recommend Palm to anyone.
Update, 6:50pm: I eventually worked around the updater’s bug by trying the Mac version instead. Update complete.
Although I pointed this out to Tamsblog, there’s been no correction, so I suppose I should post something quick to this effect:
Tamsblog contributor Alexander Gratz asserts incorrectly that Google Maps requires ActiveX:
If you try to load the page on your palm, you will notice that won’t show the page because it is using ActiveX.
The only problem is that Google Maps doesn’t need ActiveX. Or, rather, it needs ActiveX only as a way to get to Microsoft’s XMLDOM on Internet Explorer for Windows platforms. If a browser is requiring ActiveX, it is misidentifying itself in JavaScript or Google’s JavaScript is flawed.
You can easily prove the lack of dependence on ActiveX by running Google Maps on something that doesn’t provide it, like Safari or Firefox.
Take a look at Hold the Health, Serve That Burger. One quote stood out to me:
“The gap between what [diners] say and what they do is just huge,” said Denny Post, chief concept officer for Burger King. “Therein lies the challenge for business, because there is simply not enough behavior shift to build a business around.”
Yes, it is relevant to software development as well. It’s always worth remembering that while users rarely lie about what they want, they’re frequently wrong. Sometimes you need to fight the point; sometimes you need to just add the feature and be disappointed you couldn’t use the time to develop something they would use, and maybe quietly scale it down later.
I’m in the process of moving. As a epilogue to my Telus rant, I called my local cable provider today and asked them about setting up cable TV and Internet. They’ll be at the new house tomorrow between 2 and 4pm. That’s a lot better than “we’re not sure, maybe months.”
(I could have had them a bit earlier, but this time slot guaranteed I’d be fed, happy and otherwise ready.)
Update: They arrived at about 1:30pm. I wasn’t at the new house yet, but they waited for me to get there.
[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050811-5200.html|More reports] of a Treo running Windows. A video supposedly proves it.
Come on. Am I the only person who realizes how easy it is to make a fake video? I don’t mean faking the screen frame-by-frame. But the Palm is perfectly capable of showing screens that look like Windows.
Palm has just signed a five year term with PalmSource. They’ve just spent $20-30 million to get the Palm trademark back. Everything about this idea fails critical thinking.
I think maybe I’ll provide video “proof” that the next entry in the Tungsten line will run Mac OS X. I don’t have a Treo, so this will just have to do.
Thanks to Ben Combee’s suggestion, I’ve now got CodeWarrior Palm 9 compiling at the command line. I’ve explained the process here.
I finally worked up the courage to try to add scripted building to my project again. I originally wanted to use the command line tools, but that didn’t work. So I decided this time to try the IDE.
To make a long story short, the command line does not work as documented. Although it can be run from the command line directly and work about 75% of the time (without any indication why it is failing the other 20%), this drops to maybe 20% of a time once it is put in a makefile (and I tried both Borland’s make and Cygwin’s make). The failure varies; sometimes it opens the project but won’t build it, sometimes it doesn’t even open the project.
In short, it is useless as a way of scripted builds. So it seems there is no way to do scripted builds with CodeWarrior Palm 9.
I’ve actually been working on this off and on for about a week. What prevented me from posting until now is that it almost works. For instance, I’ll change my makefile to use cmdide instead of ide (even though cmdide is only supposed to be for Windows 95/98/ME) and it will work for a while. Then it will suddenly stop. But if I change it back to ide, it may work again a few times. Then it’s back to cmdide. So I switch makefile runners and it starts to work again… for a while. All with the same parameters.
Something that is not reliable is not useful.
Update, 10:36 AM: After posting this, I came up with a makefile that worked. I tested it about 15 times before deciding it was for real. I checked it in to source control and ran it again. I was so happy I called my wife over and showed her it. She thought all the flashing windows were cool. She left, and I ran it again to bask in the glory of it. It stopped working. This is so very frustrating.