Magic Cap Users Mailing List

Sunday July 28, 1996

From: Manuel Veloso <veloso@APIX.COM>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 04:59:56 -0500
Subject: Re: Are Presto products safe?

>     I am getting a little spooked here.  I just bought
>Presto!Mail/Presto!Links to replace PersonaLink on my PIC 1000.  Given
>the current defending of the irresponsible programming practices of
>FarCast by an employee of Active Paper, do I have another product that
>will crash and burn my system?

Heck, if you don't like it I'll buy Plinks/PMail back from you (I don't
want to break my box).



-----------------------------------------
Manny Veloso          Digital Plumber
Active Paper, Inc.    http://www.apix.com
-----------------------------------------
"A small boy with diamonds is no match
for a large burglar with experience"

From: Mike Lombrozo <lombroma@MAIL.FIA.NET>
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 11:11:36 -0700
Subject: Re: AOL in Hawaii

Joe

I'm having 2nd thoughts about that job offer in Hawaii now.  I thought I
only had to work a few hours in the morning, then spend the rest of the day
at the beach sipping Mai Tais.  You mean to tell me that I actually have to
put in a full work day in paradise like I do on the mainland.  I suppose
the next thing you're going to tell me is that the good looking women don't
wear bikinis to work. ;-)

Oh well, I knew it sounded too good to be true.  I'd probably get tired of
the coconuts anyway.

Mike

----------
From:   Joe Solem[SMTP:JoeSolem@AOL.COM]
Subject:        Re: AOL in Hawaii

Thanks for your input. Sometimes it's difficult for those of us working
in Hawaii make people realize we're not all down at the beach sipping mai
tais out of coconuts. :-)

Joe Solem

From: Robert Joy <A5043644610@ATTPLS.NET>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 16:02:35 +0000
Subject: HELP!! Battery problems...

Jim Hinson,

Yes, I have experienced this behavior before and also fixed it by
removing the main battery and reseating it.

Bob Joy
Robert_Joy@attpls.net

From: Wayne Sanderson <A5023644635@ATTPLS.NET>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 16:57:24 +0000
Subject: HELP!! Battery problems...

There is also a possibility that the electrical contacts are becoming
corroded and need to be cleaned. I just went through this recently with
the power plug. It would be plugged in but I would have to rotate it
around before the charging indicator would come on over the battery
symbol. Eventually it would not charge at all and I had to clean the
tarnish off of the outer contact in the socket. If your problem gets
worse over time, try cleaning the battery and socket contacts with one
of those cleaning kits that are sold to clean the contacts on the
Nintendo game machines. Or contact Sony and ask them what they suggest.
Maybe they have a kit for their products.

---
 NOTICE: This message originally included graphics and/or sounds which
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only the text portion(s) of the message.  Please contact the sender for
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From: Greg Satz <satz@CISCO.COM>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 10:19:14 -0700
Subject: Re: Are Presto products safe?

Poster:       Kevin Fries 
>      I am getting a little spooked here.  I just bought
> Presto!Mail/Presto!Links to replace PersonaLink on my PIC 1000.  Given
> the current defending of the irresponsible programming practices of
> FarCast by an employee of Active Paper, do I have another product that
> will crash and burn my system?  I bought my SML to save me time and
> trying to recover lost data is not a time saver to me.  Since it is
> still in cello wrap, I can still return it.  I would much rather have a
> machine with no email that keeps my data safe, than one with email that
> I always have to be worried about.  Could someone please advise me
> based upon their own experience on a PIC 1000 as to whether I should
> return the package, buy something else, or go ahead because it's safe.

Kevin, given your recent posts I think you should return your magic link if
you still can or sell it. Magic Cap versions 1.0 and 1.5 have bugs. It is
new technology and the cycle time to introduce bug fixes is long (in some
cases infinite). If you can't live with the memory management issues we all
have learned to face or the particular drawbacks with the platform, you
should do something about it.

Sending comments about 'programming practices' isn't constructive. Blaming
Sony New Technologies and now Active Paper with no real evidence isn't
constructive. I can tell you that UUDecode was developed with much less
'programming practices' then SNT or AP used. I suggest you throw UUDecode
in the trash right now as you have more evidence now then you do on SNT or
AP.

I know a person who has two communicators. One is used with absolutely no
external packages and it gets all the mail. The other is used for loading
new packages and playing around.

One benefit to PersonaLink's demise is that cold booting the communictor
(removing batteries and starting over) will be much easier. I usually cold
boot my device and restore from a known good backup.

Greg Satz

PS. Farcast ate my pc card too. I was pretty upset about it. Though in the
final analysis I only had myself to hold accountable because: 1) I know
Magic Cap has the potential to eat pc cards; 2) I didn't have a very recent
set of backups (3 weeks); 3) 1.0 isn't the safest version of any software
package.

From: Keith Felkins <A5393644684@ATTPLS.NET>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 17:52:01 +0000
Subject: Re: Are Presto products safe?

Dear Magic,
Magic Cap Discussion List writes:
"the current defending of the irresponsible programming practices of
"FarCast by an employee of Active Paper, do I have another product that
"will crash and burn my system?
Kevin,
The software options have grown faster than the hardware. It's like
trying to put Jet Fuel into a two cycle engine, put a Rock on that 1000
and get a Four Stroke 2000.

Lemon Head

---
 NOTICE: This message originally included graphics and/or sounds which
can only be received by AT&T PersonaLink(sm) subscribers. You received
only the text portion(s) of the message.  Please contact the sender for
information that was deleted. To learn how to send and receive
graphics, voice and text messages via AT&T PersonaLink Services, call
1-800-936-LINK.

From: Scott Doniger <A5603644614@ATTPLS.NET>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 19:01:11 +0000
Subject: New Address

Pls note:

The internet address for :

Jam Systems &
Scott Doniger has changed to:

jamsys@usa.net

Pls make changes if needed...

Thank you....


--------------------------
            From the desk of Scott Doniger...

From: Keith Felkins <A5393644684@ATTPLS.NET>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 19:08:31 +0000
Subject: News stand - Farcast

Dear Magic,
Down loaded Farcast 1.1, every thing is fine. Threw away 1.0, but old
"News stand on Desk is still there. Get message "Can't be removed from
this scene." Any one know how to Trash This Item! Remember earlier
message, I've been trying to remove this object for over a month.

Thanks
Lemon Head

From: Kevin Fries <A5743644696@ATTPLS.NET>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 23:19:19 +0000
Subject: Re: recovering a crash

Hi all,
I do not know who posted the the suggestion about batch-up, but thanks.
 It did not work but it is nice to hear constructive alternatives in an
attempt to fix my problem.  Also, I may have found a utility that could
be useful in reducing (or at the least lessening) problems in the
future.

Thanks

Kevin Fries

From: Kevin Fries <kfries@ORCI.COM>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 23:19:04 +0000
Subject: Re: Are Presto products safe?

Hi all,
Lemon Head writes:
> The software options have grown faster than the
> hardware. It's like trying to put Jet Fuel into a
> two cycle engine, put a Rock on that 1000 and get
> a Four Stroke 2000.

I do not doubt that in the least.  Why shoud the MC platform be any
different than PC, Mac, & Unix systems.  As for the 2000, that is
another matter.  I have been critical of Sony's marketing department
not only on this list, but also directly to Sony.  If I had proper
guidence in making my decision, most of these problems would have never
happened.  However, you can not buy a 2000 here in Denver.  Incredable
Universe has Envoys and 1000, but no Envoy 150 or 2000.  Office Depot
is selling 1000s like crazy, but no 2000s yet.

Greg Satz writes:
> Kevin, given your recent posts I think you should
> return your magic link if you still can or sell
> it. Magic Cap versions 1.0 and 1.5 have bugs. It
> is new technology and the cycle time to introduce
> bug fixes is long (in some cases infinite). If
> you can't live with the memory management issues
> we all have learned to face or the particular
> drawbacks with the platform, you should do
> something about it.

This suprises me coming from you.  I have used UUdecode and am now
looking at ReturnReply, and have seen no irresponsible behavior in
either program yet.  It is those who push beyond, in a recless way that
make things more difficult for people like yourself.  I also have a
news flash for you, Windows and Mac OS has bugs too.

> Sending comments about 'programming practices'
> isn't constructive. Blaming Sony New Technologies
> and now Active Paper with no real evidence isn't
> constructive. I can tell you that UUDecode was
> developed with much less 'programming practices'
> then SNT or AP used. I suggest you throw UUDecode
> in the trash right now as you have more evidence
> now then you do on SNT or AP.

Greg, get your facts staight, I have accused AP of nothing more than
defending a program that steps over the bounds, then does not even use
enough common sense to check on a regular basis if the system is
stable.  It is kind of like the old 'bird of a feather' saying.  I only
questioned if AP was defending that practice since they were being
equally recless.  This was only a question.  As for UUdecode, this
program is no where as complacated as FarCast.  Far more testing NEEDS
to go into FarCast.  There is a simple command that programmers can add
to there programs called assert.  If you have questions as to its
validaty, can I recomend a great book from Microsoft Press called
'Writing Solid Code'.  I would recomend it to anyone who writes
programs for a living.

> I know a person who has two communicators. One is
> used with absolutely no external packages and it
> gets all the mail. The other is used for loading
> new packages and playing around.
> One benefit to PersonaLink's demise is that cold
> booting the communictor (removing batteries and
> starting over) will be much easier. I usually
> cold boot my device and restore from a known good
> backup.
> PS. Farcast ate my pc card too. I was pretty
> upset about it. Though in the final analysis I
> only had myself to hold accountable because: 1) I
> know Magic Cap has the potential to eat pc cards;
> 2) I didn't have a very recent set of backups (3
> weeks); 3) 1.0 isn't the safest version of any
> software package.

Way back when, people would hire secretaries to (amoung other things)
maintain schedualing and contact information.  If the secretary kept
loosing this information, she would be fired.  In the '80s the
activities were replaced with DayRunners.  If any information got lost,
it would be because the owner of the book took a proactive act that
caused the loss of information.  Today, people are reling more and more
on PDAs.  If this platform is to survive, the protection of the data in
the device must me the number one concern.  This concern must eclipse
features.  I for one never considered that the people who's best
interest it is to further this platform would not know this.  When I
write programs, I always crash the OS just to test my programs
behavior.  I will give you an example:

I wrote a program for the state of Colorado.  The end user wanted to
enter both the county where work was to take place, and which regional
office would administer the project.  2 weeks into testing, she came to
me yelling that the computer was putting everything in the southeast
region.  I kindly informed her that she selected a county in the
southeast region and the computer was simply correcting her.  I also
would shut down windows (power reset) during an update.  The reason
why, the data was critical, legal contracts were based upon this
information.

Excuse me if I expect the same level of proffesionalism from others
than I do from myself.

Kevin Fries

From: Jim Hinson <JimNKar@AOL.COM>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 19:58:05 -0400
Subject: Re: HELP!! Battery problems...

[This message may have contained graphics created by a Magic Cap device on
America Online.]

Thanks for the suggestions, Bob.
Unfortunately, I've thought of these....  Other occurrences, I removed the
battery and replaced it several times, finally succeeding after ten-fifteen
tries, or pulling all batteries and rebooting the third time.  This fouth
time, however, I did nothing.  Simply left it plugged in while running
errands Saturday, and now it appears to have recovered.  It would almost
appear to be a bug in the power management hardware/software.  Or maybe a
fading battery?  Any other ideas?  Anyone?

SONY??

General Magic??



REPLY1:
Yes, I have experienced this behavior before and also fixed it by removing
the main battery and reseating it.

REPLY2:
There is also a possibility that the electrical contacts are becoming
corroded and need to be cleaned. I just went through this recently with the
power plug. It would be plugged in but I would have to rotate it around
before the charging indicator would come on over the battery...

From: Scott Doniger <A5603644614@ATTPLS.NET>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 00:40:04 +0000
Subject: Re: Are Presto products safe?

Dear Magic,
Magic Cap Discussion List writes:
> >     I am getting a little spooked here.  I just bought
> >Presto!Mail/Presto!Links to replace PersonaLink on my PIC 1000.
Given
> >the current defending of the irresponsible programming practices of
> >FarCast by an employee of Active Paper, do I have another product
that
> >will crash and burn my system?

Manny Writes
> Heck, if you don't like it I'll buy Plinks/PMail
> back from you (I don't want to break my box).
> ----------------------------------------- Manny
> Veloso          Digital Plumber
> Active Paper, Inc.    http://www.apix.com

Look,
First Manny should not have to defend ANYTHING.   Who gave you
BathUp???????
Farcast has trashed my system dozens of times, WITH data loss!

The guys at SNT try their best...  Noone forced you to buy the
software.  I still use Window 3.11, not 95!! If Bad Bill Gates couldnt
get me to switch,  put that into perspective with GM.

Remember Onno's Tools?  I bet you couldnt live without that. I would
kill for it on my 2000.

I sent a letter to Steve Schram about the bugs in MC.  I said I wouldnt
make it public if he responded.  A month later nothing...

MC and GM are the problem.  These poor programmers do their best,  with
only what GM gives them.. I wouldnt trust my life with Magic Broker,
but I get 200+ articles a day w Farcast...
The only way to run it is with the Farcast pkg in main mem,  set
AutoProcessing on in the rules.  This way the package never gets big...

MCW,  remember MS Bob????


No Flame.....  Scott
--------------------------
            From the desk of Scott Doniger...

From: Greg Satz <satz@CISCO.COM>
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 20:24:45 -0700
Subject: Re: Are Presto products safe?

Poster:       Kevin Fries 
> This suprises me coming from you.  I have used UUdecode and am now
> looking at ReturnReply, and have seen no irresponsible behavior in
> either program yet.  It is those who push beyond, in a recless way that
> make things more difficult for people like yourself.  I also have a
> news flash for you, Windows and Mac OS has bugs too.

I am not sure why you are surprised. In any case I think you really should
return/sell your magic cap communicator. Your expectations are very
high. Much higher then you will probably deal with. Magic Cap 1.0 is much
like the 128k Mac or the first versions of DOS from IBM and Microsoft. Run
it out of memory and it crashes.

How would you know whether I was being reckless or not?

> Greg, get your facts staight, I have accused AP of nothing more than
> defending a program that steps over the bounds, then does not even use
> enough common sense to check on a regular basis if the system is
> stable.  It is kind of like the old 'bird of a feather' saying.  I only
> questioned if AP was defending that practice since they were being
> equally recless.  This was only a question.  As for UUdecode, this
> program is no where as complacated as FarCast.  Far more testing NEEDS
> to go into FarCast.  There is a simple command that programmers can add
> to there programs called assert.  If you have questions as to its
> validaty, can I recomend a great book from Microsoft Press called
> 'Writing Solid Code'.  I would recomend it to anyone who writes
> programs for a living.

Thanks for the book reference. Asserts only work in the debugging
environment for Magic Cap. They aren't compiled into shipping code as there
is no support for them in the hardware (communicator).

If you wouldn't mind, I would love to see a subroutine that informs me that
Magic Cap is stable. I honestly can't say I know how to write such a
function.

'Birds of a feather' is not justification to slander someone's good name
and effort. It is a real shame you must stoop to groundless
accusations. You may not realize that asking the question is a way of
inferring the accusation.

Let me give you an example. Let's just assume that SNT and AP are made up
of reasonably good people who are doing their best to write software for
all of us to use. They are doing this with very little documentation and
very little support from a small company vendor (GM). Furthermore they are
attempting to deliver software on a brand new hardware architecture with a
cpu chip made especially for it by Motorola. They are also writing code for
a completely new operating system which is only available in its first
incarnation (1.0 version). Add to this the fact that the programming
paradigm isn't quite like other programming paradigms and the GUI is quite
unique as well.

I have my gripes with Magic Cap. However, SNT and AP are heros for
attempting to deliver software on Magic Cap we want to use.

Greg Satz

From: Daniel Stanton <dstanton@IDS2.IDSONLINE.COM>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 00:34:51 -0400
Subject: Re: 28.8 wireless link

At 15:10 7/27/96 +0400, you wrote:
>Dear Magic,
>I red in previous message of someone who was using the wireless link with a
>28.8 modem could you please tell me how is the performance?

Do you remember what kind of modem card they were using that worked with the
pic?  Was it a 1000 or a 2000?

> With presto
Presto mail is a software package that allows you to send and recieve email
via your isp, and presto link is a software package that allows you to
connect to the www using your PIC. Keep in mind that on a PIC1000 you need
to turn off the graphics.

From: "Rishi R. Oswal" <Yipadedoda@AOL.COM>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 00:59:27 -0400
Subject: Re: Are Presto products safe?

[This message may have contained graphics created by a Magic Cap device on
America Online.]

>>
 If you have questions as to its
validaty, can I recomend a great book from Microsoft Press called
'Writing Solid Code'.
<<

Please don't use the words "Microsoft" and "Writing Solid Code" together.
They just don't match!

Rishi Oswal

From: Scott Doniger <Scott_Doniger@ATTPLS.NET>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 05:18:36 +0000
Subject:

Dear Magic and two others,
Does anyone have a keyboard for sale?????  Resonably priced??

Scott

jamsys@usa.net
--------------------------
            From the desk of Scott Doniger...

From: Cliff Hemming <chemming@FMI.COM>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 00:39:40 -0500
Subject: Re: Are Presto products safe?

Personally, I don't think it is a bad book. It has a lot of
good points in it. I think that a lot of programmers could benifit from
the book.

As far as "Solid" and "Microsoft", that's a different topic.

As far as MC, GM, Sony, Presto go. As someone wrote, they are a small
company. This is a new operating system. This is new a platform. BUT,
because they are a small company,  one would think that communication
wouldn't be a problem. Documentation, wouldn't be a problem.

I personally expect bugs in a 1.0. But, I also expect people/companies to
stand behind(or in front of) their work and provide fix/solutions for
problems/features. I know I do. And somethimes that means going back to
the drawing board.

If you are worried about loosing data, make backups. I do at home and
work. In fact, if your not making backups, your just asking for it.

-Cliff

#include 

From: "Raymond D. Overman" <1rabbit@MAIL.GLD.COM>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 02:05:13 -0400
Subject:

I purchased a GRID SRAM card a while back and for some reason every time I
turn on my PIC 1000 it goes into clean up mode and doesn't find the card.
Anyone have any suggestions?  Unfortunately I had not backed up my card so
I wouldn't mind getting some of the data off of it.

Also, does anyone have a number for GRID or somone I could get warranty
info on it...

Thanks.

Raymond

From: Robert Joy <A5043644610@ATTPLS.NET>
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 06:28:40 +0000
Subject: tinker tool

Could somebody send me a copy of tinker tool also?

Thanks,
Bob Joy
Robert_Joy@attpls.net
guitarzar@aol.com