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Some things I don't understand

Quote:

I have some computer smarts, but sometimes I'm baffled by the Nokia Internet Tablet.

There are some things I just don't understand about the tablets (or their OS or the pre-installed apps):

- Why I can't construct a playlist in the Media player?

You'd think this would be a no-brainer. I just want to grab 5 or 6 of the 80 songs on my N810 and play them together, even though they're by different artists on different albums.

- Why isn't connecting to my PC via Bluetooth really easy?

Sometimes I'm at my office, where WiFi is verboten. I want the tablet to use my PC's direct connection to the internet -- I've done it plenty of times laptop-to-laptop in meetings where only one person was plugged into the wired network. Why isn't this a snap with the NIT?

- Why is Linux made so hard?

OK, it's clear that Nokia doesn't want to support unsophisticated users with all the things that can trip them up in Linux. But why doesn't File Manager have a simple switch (Show hidden) that lets me see the whole contents of my drive? Even with the trick of adding a symbolic link to root (or any directory), I still can't see hidden directories (eg, whose name begins with a dot).

Which leads me to my next question:

- Why can't I easily add fonts to my tablet and use them in the browser?

Right. I had to make a /home/user/.fonts/ directory and mail myself a font and then jump through command-line hoops to put a simple font on my tablet. And go through contortions to tell the browser to use it. (Except I haven't succeeded in that yet. Emoticon with amazed look of disbelief here.)

Might as well ask the real puzzler here:

- Why can't OS2008 et al just let you be root when you need to?

If us unsophisticates need so much protection against our careless actions, shouldn't we be wearing goalie gloves when we handle scissors? Why isn't there just a switch that says, "It's OK. I'll take the consequences. Just please let me make a directory or use apt-get without having to acquire developer-class knowledge."

Heck. That's the deep side. But what about the glam cam that arrived with the N800?

- Why isn't there a face-to-face cam call capability yet?

It's only the most amazing possible use of this walkaround-web device -- unlimited cam calling via WiFi without having to sit in front of an anchored webcam.

It's visual IM -- just leave the call connected and talk when you want to talk. It's IM taken to the next dimension.

Btw, don't tell me this is here. My wife has the N810 and I have an N800 loaner from Nokia, and we can't manage it. It needs to be click-simple and using Skype. *

- Why does upgrading the OS obliterate every manually installed app I've put on my tablet?

I know, if I go from Windows XP to Vista (and I haven't), I'd have to re-install my apps. But every upgrade and patch in WinXP is managed without that requirement. Shouldn't it be possible in this marvelous Linux world?

- Why can't the application memory be extended to one of the memory cards?

Is swap the extent of this? You know, I'm willing to risk the possibility that my flash card will get the same spot written to 100,000 times and fail.

Yeah, there are more things I don't understand about my tablet's design. Just getting the answers to Why not a model with a keyboard? and How can you call it an internet tablet without handling Flash and YouTube? have really lowered my orneriness. I won't pick and pick and pick.

On the other hand, it's your turn. What behavior or aspect of the Internet Tablet makes no sense at all to you?

[Added later]
__________
* Tablet-to-tablet cam calls via Gizmo apparently arrived during my recent period of submersion. I'm happy, even if it isn't Skype. (I mean: even if the five friends I know with VOIP all use Skype instead of Gizmo.) Me-to-wife cam-IM is plenty great.

Read the full article.

Re: Some things I don't understand

Gizmo 5 (http://www.gizmo5.com) can do video calls from n800 / n810 to n800 / n810 AFAIK.

It can also do video calls from n800 / n810 to PC as well.

Re: Some things I don't understand

Well, you see, that's what I call responsiveness! :-)

OK, our last cam-call effort was made some weeks ago. The software available at that time didn't offer cam calls from tablet to tablet. Believe me, I checked.

Thanks for bringing me up to date!

Roger

Re: Some things I don't understand

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

have some computer smarts, but sometimes I’m baffled by the Nokia Internet Tablet.

Why is Linux made so hard?

Which leads me to my next question:

Might as well ask the real puzzler here:

Why can’t OS2008 et al just let you be root when you need to?

If us unsophisticates need so much protection against our careless actions, shouldn’t we be wearing goalie gloves when we handle scissors? Why isn’t there just a switch that says, “It’s OK. I’ll take the consequences. Just please let me make a directory or use apt-get without having to acquire developer-class knowledge.”

To protect the rest of the world from people who think they have a lot more knowledge than they do!

Another question you didn't ask. Why is there so much spam and so many viruses in the world. Answer: because microsoft thought that people didn't need protection against their actions.
And they were wrong.

Sure thing if you want to hurt yourself, but I have to put in effort to read my mail because of all the other people that shouldn't have been allowed to have full access to a computer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

Why can’t the application memory be extended to one of the memory cards?

because memory cards are much slower than memory that you are using to run stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

Yeah, there are more things I don’t understand about my tablet’s design. Just getting the answers to Why not a model with a keyboard?

The 810 has a keyboard.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

and How can you call it an internet tablet without handling Flash and YouTube?

Because they are one very small part of the internet that don't matter to a lot of people?

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

On the other hand, it’s your turn. What behavior or aspect of the Internet Tablet makes no sense at all to you?

Just the 'why didn't they make an operating system designed to run a small keyboardless portable device with limited memory and smallish screen'.

Re: Some things I don't understand

Pretty much all you said has been said before. It is the frustrating part of the N800 tablets. We love the hardware, we aren't interested in the "other" devices out there because they don't measure up on some level, BUT

But the software side of the N800 is still SO WEAK. I'm guessing a lot of the development efforts end up going into the subsystem (hildon-gtk, microb, etc.) rather than in the polish and usability.

It is not hard to come up with simple and obvious UI fixes for almost everything on the tablets. Hopefully there is time for Nokia to get these things done before something else comes along that can draw us away.

Re: Some things I don't understand

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

- Why isn't connecting to my PC via Bluetooth really easy?

Mostly because official PAN support isn't done, but with the community PAN support it should be fairly straightforward.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

- Why is Linux made so hard?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. Are you saying Linux is too hard or it's too hard to get to the Linux underpinnings with ITOS?

I'm going to assume the later, anyway. It all goes back to Nokia's user-friendliness philosophy of keeping the users that don't know what they're doing away from Linux. Not that I particularly agree with it, but, really, if you've got a problem with anything, that's what bugzilla is for.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

- Why can't I easily add fonts to my tablet and use them in the browser?

Such are the pitfalls of an immature Linux platform. An enhancement request for a GUI font-manager of some sort, maybe?

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

- Why can't OS2008 et al just let you be root when you need to?

It does, it's called R&D mode. If not that, it's not as if the 3rd party packages are particularly hard to install.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

- Why isn't there a face-to-face cam call capability yet?

Gizmo, amsn, and Google Talk all provide this and it's fairly dead-simple to use.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

Btw, don't tell me this is here.

:rolleyes: C'mon, now . . . get yourself a Google Talk account for both devices and you're done. Dead simple. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

- Why does upgrading the OS obliterate every manually installed app I've put on my tablet?

Because that's how the upgrade process works. ;) This is irrelevant, anyway, as Diablo is just a little ways away.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RogerS (Post 162846)

- Why can't the application memory be extended to one of the memory cards?

Do you mean RAM or rootfs? Swap is RAM extension, and we already have this. rootfs extension is slightly less straightforward, but certainly do-able with a little Linux ability (or the ability to follow instructions closely). Nokia probably figured (largely correctly) that most users wouldn't run out the internal storage.

An enhancement request for GUI method to extend the rootfs to the internal card couldn't hurt, though.

Re: Some things I don't understand

A couple of things:

Quote:

- Why is Linux made so hard?"

That the file manager doesn't show all files have nothing to do with Linux being hard, it's a file manager application issue only. It's presumably written by Nokia, I haven't seen this file manager elsewhere. The issue is a real enough problem, the heading is misleading.

Quote:

- Why can't the application memory be extended to one of the memory cards?

Is swap the extent of this? You know, I'm willing to risk the possibility that my flash card will get the same spot written to 100,000 times and fail.

The above is a bit confusing. Are you talking about Memory, as in RAM, virtual memory (as in enough memory for a big application), or are you talking about storage space (as in enough room to install many applications).

For case 1: Swap space _can_ be enabled on the memory cards - that is how it works. Even though the N800 control panel application will only let you do that on the internal card (the system itself can use it wherever it's put).
For case 2: The main reason applications can't be installed into memory cards is that memory cards come default formatted as FAT filesystems, and FAT filesystems don't have proper access bits support - which means that you have to choose between every file being "executable" or no files being "executable". Blame Microsoft for this one.

Re: Some things I don't understand

Re: getting root access, all you have to do to get root is install one package (is it getroot or becomeroot? I don't remember...) through the package manager. Then, from the terminal, sudo gainroot makes you root... The days of ssh being required, or of having to reflash with rd-mode, are gone. I assume you're referring to one of those techniques with "developer-class knowledge".

For fonts, you need to use fc-cache... dunno if you tried that and still had trouble.

Re: Some things I don't understand

Quote:

Originally Posted by tabletrat (Post 162886)

>> Just getting the answers to Why not a model with a keyboard? and How can you call it an internet tablet without handling Flash and YouTube? have really lowered my orneriness.

The 810 has a keyboard.

Because they are one very small part of the internet that don't matter to a lot of people?

Er, I'm saying these are old questions that finally did get responded to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tabletrat (Post 162886)

Just the 'Why didn't they make an operating system designed to run a small keyboardless portable device with limited memory and smallish screen?'

OK, instead of the open-ended tablet we have, there might be a smoother-operating but closed-environment tablet. I can grok that. Just, I think a few user aspects might have been dealt with over these last two-plus years.

Roger

Re: Some things I don't understand

Quote:

Originally Posted by coffeedrinker (Post 162889)

I didn't offer up these complaints two years ago, though plenty did.

It just seems ridiculous that the built-in apps are clueless in these significant ways, and that the tablet is harder to use than regular Linux (for us Linux tourists).