[the] Code Girl (aka UnrulyGrrl)

For Firefox/Mozilla users: http://www.firefoxtoolbar.com. If you aren’t using Firefox…well WHY NOT?!?

The whole reason I started using it was because i was annoyed that I could not reorder my list of search plugins for the built-in Firefox search bar. This other toolbar lets you rearrange everything easily, and insert separators. To add a new search, just visit the site and search for “ubterms”. You get a popup box with all the data already filled in, even the “favorite icon” from the site. That only works with forms that submit using “GET”. If the one you want to add uses “POST”, install the Web Developer Firefox extension, then use Forms –> Convert POSTs to GETs, then try again.

I’ve already set it up with a bunch of internal search stuff at work and that functionality could be enough for us (my group) to get everyone else to use Firefox (why they arent, I’ll never understand). “I have this very cool toolbar that lets you lookup somebody in the employee database….. or search for info on a host/ip…..or search all NOC documentation …… or search NetCool events”. So work intranet type stuff is a perfect use for it.

If you’re worried it will take up too much room: have no fear, you can remove the built in search box, drag the address/url bar up to the very top of the screen next to the menu, then drag all your bookmark toolbar items up to the next bar up. Then turn off the “Bookmarks” toolbar.

So I bit the bullet and bought myself a Palm Tungsten T2 off eBay “for my birthday”. I’ve had it over a month and I really love it. The previous owner beat the hell out of the screen and especially the Grafitti area. Just ordered a replacement screen from PDAParts.com. I’ll be replacing that this weekend.

The T2 is heavier and thicker than my m500 but since it’s a lot shorter, I can deal with that. The battery life is not fantastic, but I expected that. It helps that I use both an under/overclocker and a program that dims the brightness after a set delay. The screen is actually so bright it hurts my eyes and I usually use it at 5% brightness (yes that’s 5%). At night I can lower it to 2%. In the office under flourescent lights, 20% is the most I need.

When connecting it to my Linux pcs, I noticed that it appears under /dev/usb/tts/0 rather than /dev/usb/tts/1 (as the m500 did).

The fonts that it uses are just so nice and smooth looking. Reading ebooks is an even greater pleasure than it already was on my m500.

My biggest problem was this horrible high pitched squeal coming from the screen, even when it was more than an arms length away from my head. Unfortunately this is a problem common to the Tungsten T2, T3 and the E series. I found a thread on Brighthand about surgery to fix it by inserting paper/foil/plastic between the glasstop/digitizer and the LCD. I decided to use plain white office paper. This made the noise completely bearable…I don’t really notice it unless I actually hold the T2 within a few inches of my ear. The T2 was only under warranty by Best Buy, and they wouldve just given me a T3 (which I didnt want) instead of fixing my T2, so I figured I may as well give the fix a shot. The hardest part was getting the slider off — you need to bend a paper clip so that it can press two little holes at once to release the slider. Everything else was a breeze. Thank you Palm for using regular screws and not Torx on the Tungsten models. Otherwise I would’ve been SOL as I have yet to successfully remove a Torx screw from my m5xx series without stripping the heads.

All in all I love my T2. I am thrilled that I can use all the addons that I purchased for my m500 as the Tungsten series also uses the “Universal Connector”.

Note to self: if your perl CGI script ever returns what looks like raw HTML in your browser, check for print statements that
dont print html. ALL DAY I looked for the bug, luckily another team member found it for me. It was in a totally different method
from the one that generates the HTML, and therefore ended up getting sent just before the header, screwing up everything.

I also learned today that you can use

wget -d

to see all the headers being returned.

PDA #10 not only has battery that lasts just 3 hours, but also dust trapped under the glass.
PDA #11 did turn on…a few times anyway….after a full charge. Then it proceeded to give me Fatal Exceptions regularly, including
anytime an SD card was inserted or ejected…sometimes even before it had fully booted up. It was acting this wierd with *absolutely nothing* installed.

Crap.

I guess I have no choice but to go right to the palm T2. Having a hell of a time finding one that is 1)new and 2)has more than 30 day warranty.

I’ve begun heavy duty use of my Furl account. If you’re interested in all of what I’m interested in, or just certain categories, check out my archive here. I already have *2* whole subscribers! Interesting to see what others find
interesting in my list. You can ’subscribe’ (via email or as an RSS feed) to certain categories or to everything.

If you haven’t tried Furl yet, you should. It is an awesome service. And you can’t beat free. They have just started with some unobstrusive Google AdSense ads, which I’m okay with. I’m also willing to pay a small monthly fee to get an ad-free version of the site. I think its (Furl) greatest strength is the ability to save a copy of the page you are Furling, seeing as how people yank or change things regularly, for various reasons. They are adding new things all the time, but they don’t usually tell you, so you’ll be pleasantly surprised on a regular basis with new features (like the ability to put an entry into multiple categories, or the option to open your Furl items in a new browser window).

And if you like what you see, donate a few bucks via PayPal. They deserve it.

I decided I wanted to give a color Palm a shot, so I bought a m505 about 2 weeks ago….got it for only around $35 (no software, cradle, nothing… and battery was completely discharged…..screen was covered with I don;t even know what). Without the backlight on (super battery suckage), it was hard to see the display. The battery also drained quickly even with the backlight off. So I bought a ‘high capacity’ replacement battery and a set of Torx screwdrivers. I got one screw off. The rest I think I just stripped. ooops.

So i just stumbled on an m515 (supposed to be the super succesor to the m505 with much better display) ending in 5 minutes (eBay of course) and only $20. The catch: It won’t power up even in the cradle. I came in at the last minute (literally) and put in a max bid of $50. I ended up getting it for only $33 (before shipping). I’m praying that the only problem is a totally shot battery. If so, I can use the battery that I had intended for the m505, and I just got myself a lightly scuffed m515 for a mere $33 when it’s selling most places for $130. Wooooooohoooooooo

and from that one week when I was using the Visor Deluxe, I felt that I just *had* to have wireless and did a ‘pre purchase’ of a wireless SpringBoard module on Amazon. Turns out yesterday someone was willing to accept what I was willing to pay (at that time anyway). Promptly charged to my CC and on its way to me. Even though I don’t want or need it anymore. Well I should be able to get good
money for it as it’s nearly impossible to find.

Please do not use this program to distribute illegal copies of ebooks.
… that would make Baby Jesus sad.

This is from the readme file of “Convert LIT”. A program that lets you take M$ .LIT files and convert them to something you can read on your Palm PDA or any other platform that is non-M$ (and therefore exists no LIT reader for it).

With my new script [perl], you can run full backups as often as you wish.

Backups are stored in dated dirs (ex: m500_backup.20040707-1610)

Requires: Perl and pilot-link