Posts by 89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921

Haiku beta 4: BeOS rebuild / almost ready for release / A thing of beauty

Re: Psion, what a machine

> https://gpd.hk/gpdpocket3

When I saw those I was quite amped, because it'd be nice to have a new and more powerful ultra-luggable device... but they're too darned wide! I mean, it's called the "Pocket", but I don't have any pockets which would accommodate that! Or are pockets larger in China? The Sony VAIO P is narrower and just about fits into a few of my coats, I'd prefer if one could carried about in a shirt pocket. I'm about to ask a tailor to make an old leather jacket inner pocket larger, for my VAIO P lol - fashioning a pocket wide enough for the GPD Pocket would be impractical methinks. There were some smaller XP ultraportables of the same or slightly earlier era, which sometimes pop up on fleabay with issues, often the batteries are made using unobtainium or they're in some other language, or are too low performance to be of any use. Plus old stuff breaks easy. Although a bit too big, I haven't seen Sony's Transmeta Crusoe poweredultrabooks appear, but there's the occasional OQO - OQONONO! High purity unobtanium battries required! Besides, I'd never get the band back together and it'd do a lot of screeching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdZ9weP5i68&t=15s

https://regmedia.co.uk/2008/12/24/c1vn_1.jpg

> What puts me off them is the keyboards, TBH.

I agree - icky horrible rubber keys! Very Sinclair. The symbols will rub off in no time, probably - paint doesn't fare well with stretching, rubber wears down, or at least my ebike tyres do.

Until some manufacturers sees sense and produces icle energy-sipping laptops which fit into normal pockets at a reasonable price, I'm holding that purchasing money hostage. For now, I'm stuck with the VAIO P a bit longer. Must swap out that HDD for a 1.8" SSD, after I source a thin and small adapter which will fit... then backup an .ISO of the old drive (facilitated by another adapter) and then go nuts trying different OSs and multiboots - Haiku is first on the list! Hope you do it first ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdZ9weP5i68&t=15s

I wonder how Macrohard™ (their software aint small, and they're hard [of course, jokes are funnier when explained]) will kill Haiku? Presumably harder to kill, because of Google's involvement? I can't imagine Nadella liking this at all. But they make so much more money selling cloud - if Wins 10 and 11 are anything to go by, they clearly don't care about the desktop anymore. Never 10! And 11! 7 forever! (even if I have to virtualise 7 in Linux for decades)

Re: Psion, what a machine

A shrunk Sony VAIO P would suit me even better - I completely fail to understand why manufacturers don't see the market for something like that. I'd be happy with a new product of Psion 3's dimensions and weight, soprting the same puny Atom CPU the VAIO P contains, capable of running Windows XP or 7.

Re: Psion, what a machine

I still miss my old Nokia Communicator, and regret selling "The Brick"... it was sooo useful, even had a dialup modem. The Cosmo Communicator is wildly annoying in lots of little ways in terms of hardware design, plus constant bugginess, which doesn't get deloused.

Re: @Liam Proven

Mine cost me £68 on Gumtree several years ago - the seller texted me an address to meet up, then directed me to an alleyway adjoining the address he had texted... didn't even live there... and the BIOS had a (for setup) password, which had to be cleared later using a code obtained from a seller with a decoder on fleabay. Seller was one of those phone repair guys, the VAIO was used to update phones, he never looked at the BIOS, and hadn't set screen aspect ratio properly... so I haggled him down lol. After we'd done the deal, the lady who actually lived at the property challenged me, asking me what on earth I was doing in her alleyway, so I explained, and asked if she knew who the seller was - she did, vaguely. I suspect he feared buyers seeking refunds? Love my VAIO... I use it most days on the go. Nothing new is small enough...

Re: @Liam Proven

>Thanks very much for the kind words!

Your articles are highlights of The Reg

>> Have you tried Haiku on your Sony VAIO P?

>Ha! Actually, that is high on my list to try.

Could you let us know how that goes? I for one, will read with much interest.

> Oddly, I recently installed Windows XP on it, of all things, and it's quite responsive with that!

Ah good old XP can make any old turd shine! I'm sure that flies compared to Win 7. It's good to hear yours is in use too. I was going to do the same, but didn't want to lose some function or other, can't recall which lacked XP drivers - audio gear is much easier to get working on XP than on Win 7 - I have two Core2Quad 9400 machines (exact hardware and software clones) still making themselves musically useful, and I use them every day. And I have spare motherboards for those mothballed, because they're so useful. However, I find quite a lot of websites will no longer load on any browsers available for XP (I only surf firewalled and port blocked to hell). Once I get a few 1/8" SSDs and solve the converter installtion problem (fitting it into the available space), I'll try various OSs on the VAIO and see what I can install to do useful work on the road. I'm glad I archived all the available drivers before pesky Sony removed them from their website.

Re: You ran it on WinCE and..a..Dreamcast?... Really?

Jobs stated he got the inspiration for the iPhone seeing an employee fiddling about with a PDA - I bet it was a Dell Axim with the phone module. I've still got one, plus the phased array GPS module which works in the jungle and I have maps of the whole world. Not that I frequent jungles all that often, or for that matter this world.

At home, I'm logged in as Admin at all times anyway - prevents some problems but of course creates many others, but I prefer it. I have no need for multi user profiles and permissions...

Firefox ported to Haiku with all the addons I use, would be ideal - could I run Win7 with Firefox in a virtualbox or similar in Haiku?

@Liam Proven

Have you tried Haiku on your Sony VAIO P? I might install it on mine, after swapping out the HD for a SSD... which I'm ashamed to say, I still haven't located a Round Tuit to enable such yet. I'm still umming and ahhing about whether an SSD will fit with a converter, and which converter? I may have to try a few. If it plays music and movies better than Windows 7, is capable of editing field recordings, can connect an external USB soundcard, runs a basic DAW, surfs the web and some version of "Office" variant can be ported, it'll be a keeper for that device as a multiboot option, at the very least. But I'm not holding out much hope because of the VAIO P's puny graphics hardware, which fails to even play Youtube videos without stuttering (I believe this an Intel driver writing issue, their being negligent)(Youtube audio plaback is ok).

KolibriOS on VAIO P perhaps? Small and light might work out better for it's weakling Atom CPU. I don't want to overclock, passive cooling wouldn't keep up. Looks very interesting, I might have a go.

VAIP P battery: I have the original, which is on it’s last legs so I bought a new high capacity “New old stock” version on fleabay. That yields very good battery life indeed, but does so bulkily… so I tried to source another new battery in the slim form factor of the original… but got sent a mislabelled apparently unused new and incompatible version… for which I got a complete refund. I then started wondering if I could simply swap over the lithium-ion gel packs the original and the incompatible batteries contain. Quite likely sadly not, because of Sony’s battery health chip on the BMS, which has to be reset using two different cables and software. Also cutting the wires in the right sequence is critical: positive first or it turns into a scene from Die Hard (1 or n, unsure which or how many there were/are) or something.

I very much enjoy reading your OS articles, and those about somewhat obscure hardware and software, sometimes of yesteryear.

Google frees nifty ML image-compression model... but it's for JPEG-XL

Fractals are being used to train AI to see:

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/04/1017486/fractals-ai-learn-see-more-ethically-bias-imagenet-training/

Barnsley's fractal image compression was very impressive in Microsoft's Encarta, and then it, along with Irritating Systems seemed to disappear - I recall using:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine_Fractals

...it was very useful actually. I wish there was a plugin for video which does the same.

Quantum entanglement discovery could enable futuristic comms tech, Nuclear physicists say

Re: Seek and Ye Shall Find, has forever been the case, has it not?

and the anonymous ones

Need a video editor, FOSS fans? OpenShot and Kdenlive both refreshed

Free but not open source VSDC has a faster renderer tham Adobe Premiere - I use it for the odd Youtube vid, because the exported file sizes can be impressively small. Bloody strange user interface though.

Just $10 to create an AI chatbot of a dead loved one

Re: Cat videos

The trouble with cats: They can occupy the same part of one's brain, which small children do. Quite insidious, effects of loss troubling and persistent. Never again.

Can it do cats? I miss my old cat's meowy chattiness, far more than the utterings of all the now dead people I've ever known.

x86 Raspberry Pi Desktop is a great way to revive an old PC

Why don't they made new netbooks in the same form factor? Much more pocketable than the GPDs, which I keep looking at but they're just too darn wide.

Good to know re: BIOS, if I encounter issues, I'll try and find the BIOS update elsewhere.

Every time I have intended to buy from AliExpress, I found the same item on eb*y dispatched from the UK, and quite often for the same price (or a little more), therefore I have never ordered anything from AliExpress. It's seller beware on eb*y, in all my years they have never refused me a refund. I really don't know what the AliExpress refund policy is, but I doubt it's as good. I someone I know had an ebike battery fail within the warranty period, no replacement or refund from AliExpress, and he's been trying for months.

I think it's best to buy original Sony batteries, so that when it fails the board is less likely to shut itself down into protection mode, which it may not wake up from. This recently happened with my Acer laptop and it was impossible to revive. I took out the CR2032 (supposesly clears CMOS), I couldn't find a "Clear CMOS" jumper, the board is a dodo... and as usual it makes financial sense to throw it away, rather than buy a replacement board. Mind you, this can also happen with original manufacturer laptop batteries. My Vaio P motherboard going the way of the dodo would be a nightmare. The first Sony branded battery I bought turned out to have been incorrectly listed, wasn't actually compatible, so I got a refund. The second was the high capacity version and "New old stock". I search periodically on eb*y, because they're usually clearer about where items are posted from, or at least, they make that clearer these days.

Wow, that's very useful information, thank you! I'll certainly install Pi Desktop (and also try Devuan if Pi Desktop can't run all the software I need) when the mSATA SSD and 1.8" adapter arrives. I'll clone and resize partitions before installing for a dual boot - that "sudo update-grub" tip of yours is deffo very useful!

Rather helpfully, Sony has removed all of the drivers for Vaio Ps from their website - can I ask where you found the BIOS update?

I use mine quite a lot, running Windows 7 Home (2GB RAM). The form factor of the device makes it very useful on the hop. I haven't used the SIM for data for awhile, compatible networks may go dark soon, if they haven't already. I do wish there were new devices as small and (sort-of) pocketable, and with bluetooth bult in like the Vaio P.

The only big issue I have ever had with it, is that the tiny ribbon display cable slightly dislodged from the screen driver board - after opening it up to investigate why the screen was streaky with lines, I discovered it was caused by a tiny blob of glue which had stuck to the ribbon, which pulled it slightly away. I couldn't determine where this glue blob could have come from, but I picked it off and it's been working great ever since.

The other issue is battery life - after much patient searching, I scored a high capacity battery on an auction site, because the original was on it's last legs. I still need to replace the cells in the original. The new high capacity battery pack powers the Vaio P for hours :) but it is a bit bulkier :(

I love that it's fanless, completely silent, uses it's casing as a heatsink, is small but has a decent keyboard (not PSION series 5 quality, but there is the Cosmo Communicator to try next). I believe there are ways of overclocking it, but I think I'll leave that alone lol - fanless solutions have their limits, and it'd be hard to find a replacement miniscule motherboard or replacement CPU (it might be soldered to the board, haven't looked). I should buy a second one, for spares.

@Liam Proven in Prague >Sony Vaio P

Was it usable, faster than Windows 7? I've got a Vaio P and really would like to know. It's a very useful little computer, but with Windows 7 being killed off, I'd like a fast and lightweight Linux. I'm about to replace the HD with an SSD, so this would be a good time to try alternative OSs.

Logitech Zone Vibe 125: Weightless comfort on the ears that won't break the bank

@Richard Speed - Nice photo! :)

Are it's lithium ion batteries user replaceable? That's what I hate about wireless headphones - unless they use mass produced and easy to buy lithium ion battery packs or cells of a generic form factor, you're out of luck in a handful of years (if you're lucky) after which it becomes landfill... adding to mountains of e-waste destroying us all. Does Logitech install sabotageware, to prevent repairs as Bosch (to) do in their ebike batteries? This class of product and it's ilk, is just fast-fashionable tech. My 20 year old mp3 player died last year, but because it used a bog standard lithium battery pack which was cheap to buy on AliExpress, and easy to solder in, it lives a little longer. It's a truly terrible mp3 player, but remains useful in my shed's background music to enhance interest in gardening activity sound system (Vamp amped old speakers with cheap generic lithium batteries). Things don't get dug, unless I hear things I dig. I can't wait for sodium ion batteries to become available.

Taser maker offers electric-shock drones to stop school shootings

The only way to stop violence, is for violent people to accept that living in abject misery is normal. Depression is your only true friend, always there.

Taser should embed auto-targeting tasers into the walls of all US schools - preventing running in corridoors, chewing gum would be a bonus: Guns+gum stopped = everyone kept safe and clean

IBM-powered Mayflower robo-ship once again tries to cross Atlantic

https://www.maritime-executive.com/media/images/article/Photos/Miscellaneous/Mayflower-sea-trials-April-2021-IBM.0f79bf.jpg

Experts: AI inventors' designs should be protected in law

I got framed by cops deepfaking my likeness running naked across town

Dell's rugged Latitude 5430 laptop is quick and pretty – but also bulky and heavy

I would like to have seen photos of this Dell being abused as detailed.

Engineer gets Windows 11 working on a Surface Duo

Re: The reason for the hardware requirements

>XP Service Pack 3 was peak Windows (in my opinion).

Mine daily driver still is, fsck Wins 8, 10 and 11! Shirley they'll ditch that mess and proceed directly to 12?

Re: Meanwhile...

SATNAD looks too weak to lift pencils

Google releases beta version of Android 13 'Tiramisu'

I do wish Google would make my phones and tablet hardware useless at a much slower pace!

British motorists will be allowed to watch TV in self-driving vehicles

When all cars and lorries are zero emission electric, all roads should be submerged out of sight underground... leaving pedestrians and cylists safe to enjoy the surface, and homes to enjoy silence.

As a cyclist this alarms me greatly, because we're very often invisible to self-driving vehicle systems

Elon Musk says he can get $46.5bn to buy Twitter

Musk wants The Orange One in office because he fears the gathering storm of peasants bearing torches and pitchforks, demanding his wealth and head.

Windows 11 usage stats within touching distance of... XP

Almost seven and a half decades of idealism and counting... I don't think I'll be changing anytime soon.

A new all encompassing "Right To Repair" law should extend to operating systems, to cut down on unrecyclable ewaste disintegrating in landfills and poisoning soil and water supplies for generations! MAKE ALL OLD OPERATING SYSTEMS THAT ARE NO LONGER SUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT AND OTHERS OPEN SOURCE!!!!! (Ahem) Making old OSs open source will stop them rebadging old OS tech to sell as "New" - they'd be forced to innovate and sell something genuinely new, every time they tout a "New" operating system, instead of dressing mutton as lamb.

fscking hell im sticking with xp

Logitech Lift: Vertical mouse for those with small hands

It's great that the battery is replaceable and lasts two years, but are the switches and springs any more robust, than in any of their recent offerings? I'm sick and tired of spending good money after bad on Logitech mice! Their keybpard and mouse hardware and software work wonderfullu, while the hardware lasts... and that of late, hasn't been for very long IMHO. I now use one of their ancient trackballs and it has lasted so far, about four times as long, as the M570 that I normally completely waste my money on.

AI hardware, PC gaming rig maker partner on powerful AI/ML laptop

Four times faster? Well, that's embarrassing, isn't it? ;-)

Zuckerberg gets $26m in 'other' Meta compensation

16 bobyguards in 2016... I wonder how many he has now?

https://pagesix.com/2016/02/14/mark-zuckerberg-has-16-bodyguards-at-his-home/

EDIT: It's a 70 plus security team

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9469495/Facebook-spent-24MILLION-security-Mark-Zuckerberg-family-year-to.html

AMD to Intel: Take our GPU talent? Two can play that game

When ARE Intel going to start selling decent discrete graphics cards anyway? They've been teasing for years and it's really p*ssing me off

Another data-leaking Spectre bug found, smashes Intel, Arm defenses

They wouldn't even need to be true AIs, just what is being passed off as "AIs" currently - at least three are needed: design, penetration and consolidationstages, with many iterations. The result would be better than any group of humans is capable of... If you want details, I accept bitcoin.

CPU design should be done by AI; it's now beyond commercially viable human capability

Next-gen Moon buggy FLEX conquers California desert, seeks lunar speed record

Suspension appears to be built into the wheels? I'd like similar functionality in my electric bicycle wheels.

UK Home Office dangles £20m for national gun licence database system

At least 1 in every 411 people in the UK legally owns a gun - that's far too common for my liking... Is there really that much sports shooting? Or are they mostly used in the ever increasing number of Gary Larson's horse hospitals?

https://i.redd.it/4mq0c7k52j441.png

Ford to sell unfinished Explorers as chip shortage bites

I'm looking forward to Ford manufacturing Continas from the 80s again with zero horrible little chips, which need to talk to a multitude of other horrible little chips through a proprietary network that some licensed (for the soft/firmware update, initialisation or configuration, that he's paid some [predatory percentage] through the nose to keep current) mechanic can communicate with using even more horrible chips and yet more networking, just because I a new headlight unit (not just a bulb mind, but an entire light unit, sometimes an entire fascia) to function, or to stop some infernal beeping and flashing on the dashboard to cease.

ReactOS shows off SMP support in open-source take on Windows

I like it! But for now I'll stick with fscking XP

Cryptocurrency ATMs illegal right now in UK

It'll simply return underground: scary meets and person to dodgy person transactions again, as it was before bitcoin ATMs.

...there goes your untraceable and tax-free pimping and drug money hole in the wall folks!

Just two die for: Apple reveals M1 Ultra chip in Mac Studio

QED

I wasn't expecting my post to get by the weird and strange nitpicky admin, who hated my ironic rhymes so muc, that he's still limiting my posts three years later, hence didn't think it was worth the extra effort. Here's some of what I might have posted: ...,.,.,..,.,.,.,.,..,..,,.,,.,.,.,.,.,..,.,..,.,.,.,.