From: sabrina downard Date: 19:35 on 05 May 2005 Subject: Perpetually Damaged Appliance. I have a PowerBook. I recently rebuilt it, as things were succumbing to entropy and being eminently hatable. So, copy stuff to an external disk, reinstall, copy things back. Everything worked great. Even HotSyncing my replacement palm -- HotSyncing had broken ages ago; at least six or eight months, but that didn't matter as the Palm was broken too. But I got a replacement, one of the same model that a coworker was no longer interested in. Anyways, rebuilt the laptop, copied over my Documents folder, and Palm Desktop saw all of my PDA "users" for various gadgets I've had over time, I told it this one was the palm, and lo! it synched everything back up just dandy. Until yesterday, when it mysteriously broke. Now, I press the HotSync button, the palm initiates the connection, HotSync Manager pops up the "connecting" dialogue ... and then immediately pops up "Unexpected error [-1]." Oh, it's an *unexpected* error, is it. That clears everything up. (And that -1 means a lot, too. Very helpful. Appreciate that.) Grrrr. So what do I do, but start poking around, looking for things that might have changed. Okay. Mutter mutter fucking Oracle Calendar fucking sync conduits must have fucking broken it[0], surprise surprise, mutter mutter. Disable the conduits. Pull out the only Oracle-looking thing from Palm folder. Click on Conduit Manager, thinking that that's the configurator thingy, discover that that pops up the "Preparing to synchronize..." dialogue. Hit the HotSync button on the cradle ... hey, it's working! Watch it sync, and exit normally. Think, okay, it's substandard but at least it's a possible way to get it working. Try repeatedly and *completely* *fail* to perform whatever goat-sacrifice under a new moon whilst painting symbols on self with the blood of a virgin and snail slime magic resulted in it working at all. Even try to reproduce the interval of time between clicking Conduit Manager and thinking "Oh, it's that; I should hit the button" and actually hitting the button. Of course it doesn't work. That it ever worked at all was only to taunt me. Hate. Portable digital fucking overgrown portable Minesweeper. Gadget. hatefully, --s. 0 - I'm *SURE* it's not Oracle Calendar's fault. After all, it's such a stunningly well-done piece of -- gritting teeth -- software that it couldn't possibly have managed to fuck up all of my HotSyncing just by dropping in a couple of conduits. Oh, no. Oracle Calendar is certainly above reproach. Not that it makes me want to change my password to "IFUCKINGHATETHISPIECEOFSHITandIHOPEYOUCRACKTHISPASSWORDSOYOUKNOWITTOO" or anything, but that's so long and any time you make an error typing your password and hit backspace, it helpfully erases the entire fucking string because you couldn't possibly know that you only fucked up the last one or two characters and only actually need to erase back that far. No, I *love* Oracle Calendar. It's beyond reproach. Really.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 21:26 on 05 May 2005 Subject: Re: Perpetually Damaged Appliance. > Of course it doesn't work. That it ever worked at all was only to taunt > me. Tell me, do you see something like this when you run 'ps wwwaux | grep -i palm'? % ps wwwwaux | grep -i palm peter 429 0.1 3.5 107840 9108 ?? S 1:10PM 0:35.23 /Local/Applications/Palm/Palm Desktop/Contents/Resources/Palm Desktop Background.app/Contents/MacOSClassic/Palm Desktop Background /Local/Applications/Palm/Palm Desktop/Contents/Resources/Palm Desktop Background.app/Contents/MacOSClassic/Palm Desktop Background -psn_0_1310721 peter 434 0.0 3.4 97604 8852 ?? S 1:10PM 0:00.52 /Local/Applications/Palm/Transport Monitor/Contents/MacOSClassic/Transport Monitor /Local/Applications/Palm/Transport Monitor/Contents/MacOSClassic/Transport Monitor -psn_0_1966081 You might also look in your logfiles.
From: David Champion Date: 22:33 on 05 May 2005 Subject: Re: Perpetually Damaged Appliance. * On 2005.05.05, in <20050505202602.26DFA413C6@xxxxxxx.xx.xxxxxxx.xxx>, * "Peter da Silva" <peter@xxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > > Tell me, do you see something like this when you run 'ps wwwaux | grep -i palm'? > > % ps wwwwaux | grep -i palm > peter 429 0.1 3.5 107840 9108 ?? S 1:10PM 0:35.23 /Local/Applications/Palm/Palm Desktop/Contents/Resources/Palm Desktop Background.app/Contents/MacOSClassic/Palm Desktop Background /Local/Applications/Palm/Palm Desktop/Contents/Resources/Palm Desktop Background.app/Contents/MacOSClassic/Palm Desktop Background -psn_0_1310721 > peter 434 0.0 3.4 97604 8852 ?? S 1:10PM 0:00.52 /Local/Applications/Palm/Transport Monitor/Contents/MacOSClassic/Transport Monitor /Local/Applications/Palm/Transport Monitor/Contents/MacOSClassic/Transport Monitor -psn_0_1966081 Or better, do you see several of them? Cause that's one of the high points of my Palm Desktop Experience. Peter, I know you don't feel the same, but for me iSync -- while shoddy and irritating -- is the best thing anyone could have done for me as a Palm user, short of finding me a better PDA. I still need the godawful Carbonic app-within-app transport junk (and a $40 add-on to talk Sonyese), but at least I *never* have to translate usability into Palmthink on the fly. > You might also look in your logfiles. Yeah, but good luck finding anything helpful. I've really about had it with PDAs. As much as I hate the feature creep of PDA functions into my blazing *cell phone*, for crying out loud, it at least does something for me that none of my other gadgets (i.e. laptop) can cover, so I can settle for letting it be the one to remind me of what time the appointment is and where the meeting is located. When someone rethinks the whole design and makes a marketable product that actually works and isn't based on Linux -- because if I don't want to waste days of my life getting my ThinkPad to start up, do something useful, and shut down cleanly, I sure don't want to also be root on my handheld -- you can find me jotting comfortably with a deck of 3x5 note cards and a USB storage pen, or behind a PowerBook transcribing them back into iCal, Address Book, and plain old text files, because it *saves me time* to do it longhand. Don't nobody say "Newton", either. It was ahead of its time, and I mean that only in a bad way.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 22:40 on 05 May 2005 Subject: Re: Perpetually Damaged Appliance. > Or better, do you see several of them? Cause that's one of the high > points of my Palm Desktop Experience. Peter, I know you don't feel the > same, but for me iSync -- while shoddy and irritating -- is the best > thing anyone could have done for me as a Palm user, short of finding > me a better PDA. I still need the godawful Carbonic app-within-app > transport junk (and a $40 add-on to talk Sonyese), but at least I > *never* have to translate usability into Palmthink on the fly. I dunno, I just abuse the hell out of my Palms and Palm Desktop and they respond by working perfectly, or at least failing in a way that doesn't lose data. The two worst times I've had with them were both when I tried using another sync solution. I'll take occasionally having to go in and mess with the system at a low level if it means I don't have to worry about the software doing something horrible to my data the rest of the time.
From: Ann Barcomb Date: 22:44 on 05 May 2005 Subject: Re: Perpetually Damaged Appliance. On Thu, 5 May 2005, David Champion wrote: [...] > useful, and shut down cleanly, I sure don't want to also be root on > my handheld -- you can find me jotting comfortably with a deck of 3x5 > note cards and a USB storage pen, or behind a PowerBook transcribing > them back into iCal, Address Book, and plain old text files, because it > *saves me time* to do it longhand. Reading all this stuff reminds me of why I chose my way of handling things. I never use my cellphone except to call and store phone numbers. I only use my ipod for music. I use my camera to take pictures. I hate feature creep because it tends to result in horrible interfaces. Maybe when they develop a component based system where I can pick the flavor I like for each task I'd see the point, but for me it is seperate devices all the way. Anyhow, here's what I do: I have a text file called 'agenda' which I keep in a revision control system with checkouts on my laptop and workstation and the repository on my server. Other important information is stored in the same way. It's pretty low-tech, but on the other hand, it just works. Also, I like text files. At one point I thought I might write an app to send me SMSes for my appointments, but it has proved completely unneccessary because I haven't missed an appointment yet. Probably this solution only appeals to people who are inclined to love writing lists, however. - Ann
From: Luke A. Kanies Date: 00:30 on 06 May 2005 Subject: Re: Perpetually Damaged Appliance. On Thu, 5 May 2005, Ann Barcomb wrote: > Reading all this stuff reminds me of why I chose my way of handling things. I think that I've avoided sending any device hate, but I'm pretty sure that calendar hate has made it to the list (e.g., the fact that Evolution has an 'email alert' option, but it's grayed out with no explanation whatever). In other words, I have a similar system to yours, but I don't think of myself as having 'chosen' that system. > I never use my cellphone except to call and store phone numbers. I only > use my ipod for music. I use my camera to take pictures. I hate feature > creep because it tends to result in horrible interfaces. Maybe when they > develop a component based system where I can pick the flavor I like for > each task I'd see the point, but for me it is seperate devices all the way. I follow this basic model, also, although I've got a couple more requirements from my phone (it basically has to support Bluetooth syncing, and it has to be GSM because I hate the phone companies being able to require things from my just to swap phones), which makes choice in the 'States very limited. FWIW, T-Mobile will actually unlock your phone for you at some point in your contract; just that is enough to keep me with them a while longer. > Anyhow, here's what I do: > I have a text file called 'agenda' which I keep in a revision control system > with checkouts on my laptop and workstation and the repository on my server. > Other important information is stored in the same way. It's pretty low-tech, > but on the other hand, it just works. Also, I like text files. At one > point I thought I might write an app to send me SMSes for my appointments, > but it has proved completely unneccessary because I haven't missed an > appointment yet. I've got a system very similar to yours, and, um, I miss meetings all the time. Of course, I'm using a phone that only supports Bluetooth syncing with Tiger (which I don't have yet), and I'm using Linux as a desktop anyway, so I couldn't sync regardless, and I don't ritually look at my 'agenda' file nearly often enough... In other words, it's not your system that keeps you from missing meetings, so much as your commitment to it. I've taken to considering my agenda file a stack that I pop off of, and my phone to be the notification system -- I put all actual meetings in the phone, with a large warning time (I work at home, and it's quite possible I'll be in bed until the meeting is supposed to start, so I like enough warning that I can get food and caffienation). It's pretty rediculous that we've come to this, though; I keep flailing because I keep expecting software to make my life easier, and in so many cases it complicates it without adding much. > Probably this solution only appeals to people who are inclined to love > writing lists, however. I expect it appeals to all who don't use a Mac as a desktop and/or have some specific requirement that flips the hate switch.
From: Paul Holden Date: 00:48 on 06 May 2005 Subject: Re: Perpetually Damaged Appliance. On 2005-05-05 16:30, Luke A. Kanies wrote: > It's pretty rediculous that we've come to this, though; I keep flailing > because I keep expecting software to make my life easier, and in so many > cases it complicates it without adding much. That's your first mistake. Software, like plastic cling wrap, is a creation of the devil himself.
From: Ann Barcomb Date: 09:08 on 06 May 2005 Subject: Re: Perpetually Damaged Appliance. On Thu, 5 May 2005, Luke A. Kanies wrote: [...] > In other words, it's not your system that keeps you from missing meetings, > so much as your commitment to it. I've taken to considering my agenda > file a stack that I pop off of, and my phone to be the notification system [...] I agree that it requires commitment from the user; my point was that something so simple can be effective. But I also think it's a solution that probably only works for people with certain sorts of personalities (control freak, attentive to detail, afraid of missing appointments, appreciative of routine--take your pick). > > Probably this solution only appeals to people who are inclined to love > > writing lists, however. > I expect it appeals to all who don't use a Mac as a desktop and/or have > some specific requirement that flips the hate switch. What would a mac user have less tolerance for this? I do have a mac laptop, which I use all day at work. I don't think of it as my desktop, though, that's the freebsd box sitting at home. However, I spend more hours by far with the mac. - Ann
From: Luke A. Kanies Date: 15:49 on 06 May 2005 Subject: Re: Perpetually Damaged Appliance. On Fri, 6 May 2005, Ann Barcomb wrote: > I agree that it requires commitment from the user; my point was that > something so simple can be effective. But I also think it's a solution > that probably only works for people with certain sorts of personalities > (control freak, attentive to detail, afraid of missing appointments, > appreciative of routine--take your pick). Ah; I guess I agree with that, although adding it might work for those who feel failed by everything else. > What would a mac user have less tolerance for this? I guess I just meant that a Mac user might be slighly more likely to have software in this specific category (thanks to iSync and iCal,w hich are simple and functional) that works for them, not that they're different. > I do have a mac laptop, which I use all day at work. I don't think > of it as my desktop, though, that's the freebsd box sitting at home. > However, I spend more hours by far with the mac. I have a mac laptop and a linux desktop, but I spend far more time with the desktop. If I spent most of my time with a mac (which isn't likely to happen any time soon) it's possible that the stuff available there (esp. now that my phone is supported for bluetooth syncing) would be sufficient.
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