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Handhelds Hardware

Webclipping Slashdot for Palm VII 85

Posted by CmdrTaco from the whay-to-go dept.
Patrick 'CaptTofu' Galbraith has completed a palm interface to Slashdot that you can access from this location if you're using the Palm VII's Web Clippings. Feel free to send him thanks/bugs/suggestions/feraris if you're moved to. Update: 07/29 12:15 AM by CT : Avantgo users could try this URL and consider deprecating the old use of light more.
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Webclipping Slashdot for Palm VII More

Webclipping Slashdot for Palm VII

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  • If you want easy, painless wireless get the PalmVII (or wait for the newer PalmVIIx - it will have 8MB of RAM instead of just 2MB) If you want fast, truly tcp/ip access, get the Omnisky. I have both a PalmVII and a PalmVx with OmniSky and I love the OmniSky. You can even telnet and irc from the palm (and VNC too). Omnisky is a more expensive initial cash outlay, but right now they have a program where you get a $150 rebate after you have paid for 6 months of service. The service is also cheaper than Palms (if you are talking unlimited bandwidth - which is the only way to fly IMO). You also have the option of waiting for Omnisky's Springboard for Visor's. That will probably yield your best bet if you don't want a PalmV. --b
  • Your browser doesn't realize it's a binary file.
    Try IE (if possible) and right-click on the link and choose "Save As"; if the server reports the file as ASCII, Netscape will convert it to MS-DOS style ASCII (and mess it up) whereas IE will not.

    Incidentally, all I saw was "slashdot.pqa" (Netscape 4.74)...

    -- Sig (120 chars) --
    Your friendly neighborhood mIRC scripter.
  • It's called RDF and is becoming the de facto standard for headline interchange between websites. For instance, the slashboxes that you can add to your slashdot screen use this interchange.
  • Totaly agree with this one.
  • Thats what I didn't understand. Why would /. post about another PQA? Now that I know who you are, and what you do, it makes more sense. More explaination in the story would have been helpful.
  • I was able to download a Palm VII ROM and the emulator (I had previously signed up as a developer) but I couldn't get the PQA's to work. I apparently needed to go through the same activation procedure as any other Palm VII user, including providing a credit card for billing. Are there ways to use PQA's in a developer-type environment without signing up?
  • Sure you can -
    you can run it in the Palm OS Emulator.
    It's really cool!
  • If you wanna use Avantgo, just create a custom channel with the URL http://slashdot.org/palm
  • Try this [slashdot.org] instead. -- insert amusing remark here.
  • Hmm. Just think of: "Read more ... 433 of 644 comments. That must really be fun on a mobile phone ;-)

  • I know... (Score:1)

    by 23 ( 68042 )
    this is nitpicking, but that spelling up there makes me want to cry. Such fine automobiles, they deserve our highest respect! It's

    F E R R A R I

    pleeeeaaaasee....

    thanks,
    Roland
  • Wicked. I've been using avantgo to read slashdot on the bus to+from work, but the 100k limit was really buggin me. hopefully this'll sort it out. Scraggles Yeah -2 troll bait. And thanks too you too.
  • It needs a bit of reworking. Seriously.

    First of all, it should have the twenty recent posts on the front page. In bold, please.

    Second, the description pages for each post should have the top 10 scored comments listed automatically, and, of course, trunicated to about 5K overall.

    Think how a such a site would work. I don't want to use a 5-level pull for 250K of site when I only view about 40k of it. I mean, the organization needs alot of work. Maybe have a special Palm section for our accounts: One to activate, another to set how it's viewed. Then http://www.slashdot.org/palm would be a form that's filled out on the Palm/Avantigo.



    ---
    Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com." The purpose of that site was not known. -- MSNBC 10-26-1999 on MS crack

  • somewhere. Yes, they encourage you to use a subset of HTML because their browser can't do things like tables... but it's still HTML.

    The browser does actually support tables, has since day one. There is a preference to turn them off on certain pages that has caused some confusion in the past.

    Check out the following link for the list of supported tags.

    http://avantgo.com/developer/web/bi gmatrix.html [avantgo.com]

    Enjoy, dK
  • For pocketmail devices, I threw together my own scripts that parse the .WML to give me just the latest headlines, and story bodies. Anyone doing similar?

    ----

  • CDPD vs Palm VII? You must be kidding, right?
    CDPD is twice as fast, gives your palm real TCP/IP access, and costs anywhere from $5-$15 less per month. The palm VII is tied to the Palm.net service, and you have to use PQAs for everything (you can still use them with a CDPD service if you want, so it's not an advantage).
    Added bonus, you can take the modem off and revert to a smaller form factor if desired (note - my Palm Vx _with_ it's Minstrel V is smaller than the Palm VII).
    For 95% of users, the VII is not worth the drawbacks.
  • What?!?! You don't have a stack of old diesel sub batteries as an UPS for when your local power utility screws the pooch? And of course, you'd have a backup Internet connection, like satellite or laser link to the nearest location powered by "the other guys".

    And of course the "pirst fost"'ers would have twice as much stuff to do their dirty work...

  • <ie-defense>
    You used a closed-source BIOS to load your operating system, didn't you?
    </ie-defense>
    <O
    ( \
    XGNOME vs. KDE: the game! [8m.com]

  • Re:Is it open source? (Score:3)

    by CaptTofu2 ( 108737 ) on Friday July 28, 2000 @10:31AM (#896731) Homepage
    Huh? Chill out. It'll be on sourceforge when I put it up there by the end of today. I just haven't gotten around to it. I wanted it to work first. This is part of slashcode, slashcode is open source, therefore, the code for this is open source.
  • I added my own AvantGo Channel so that I can read /. from my Vx ... just configure /. to be a minimalist (no graphics, no /boxes, etc. ) It's not great, but it's acceptable.
  • When will we see an AvantGo [avantgo.com] channel for Slashdot? I want to read about Natalie Portman et al with my Visor without the per-minute fees.
    ------
    James Hromadka
  • For your info, I was at PC Expo, they said that the OmniSky for the Visor thingamajig is coming out this fall.
  • you know, the least you could do if you are going to type all that script kiddie bullshit is be consistent. Did yah switch the 3 and 1 in midevil for any special reason?
  • I'm happy to see that they finally got this up...Good job
  • Looking at http://www.rgctech.com/slashdot/, and seeing that it's been out since the VII was in beta, what does this PQA add over it? And how is this new and amazing?
  • Thank God, now I can read slashdot wherever I am, I miss getting my fix while driving to wrok/eating dinner/sitting on the toilet but now I can just use my palm! hmm, that actually sounds rather naughty, oh well ;-)

  • It's little more than HTML that's "compiled" for use on the Palm. Only a few of the basic HTML tags are supported, but enough to make it useful.

    Go to Palm [palm.com] for developer info.

  • Excellent service... Of course, now I wonder how expensive the monthly fees will be now that you have people reading /.

    LOL =) Thanks, tho - it's makes perfect sense to do this.. =)

  • I know it's not official... (Score:4)

    by generic-man ( 33649 ) on Friday July 28, 2000 @09:53AM (#896741) Homepage Journal
    ...and I haven't tried it, but this [rgctech.com] PQA has been out since April of last year, according to Palm.net's web site.

    Almost makes me want to get a Palm VII, though... :)
  • Why is this updated palm link not refreshing for anything?
  • cool-now I can exceed my monthly kilobyte allocation all in one day!

    time to sign up for the unlimited volume plan [palm.com]
    ---
    Interested in the Colorado Lottery?

  • I've been using the RG consulting /. PQA for a while. The two advantages I see to the official one are the ability to read comments (depending on the troll factor that might or might not be an advantage :-). The other is that there is one less server in the loop so reliability goes up.


  • It needs a bit of reworking. Seriously.

    I just found out about it now but my first impression is that it's not that bad. It looks like it should work better than my current solution -- a second account with that uses the light settings. That still leaves in a lot of garbage. (Do we really need to have the "about" and "advertising" pages accessible from every page when dealing with a two inch screen?) This setup usually grabs the top five or so comments if I'm lucky. If I'm not, the comments pages for most stories are inaccessible to me because the AvantGo conduit either times out or goes over the 1.5MB limit I've set for it. Either way it takes a long time to hotsync this way.

    First of all, it should have the twenty recent posts on the front page. In bold, please.

    I'd prefer a link to the twenty most recent posts instead.

    Second, the description pages for each post should have the top 10 scored comments listed automatically, and, of course, trunicated to about 5K overall.

    That sounds pretty good.

    Think how a such a site would work. I don't want to use a 5-level pull for 250K of site when I only view about 40k of it.

    That's still a huge improvement over a 2-level pull that still chews up 1100KB for viewing 40-60KB of information.

    I mean, the organization needs alot of work.

    It's still a huge improvement over previous methods.
  • who needs web clipping? I'm posting this from a palm V with Eudora-web.

    Rich

  • Where's the source code? Isn't it a little hypocritical using a closed-source utility to read a web site that promotes open source?

  • How about a WAP interface? All the major news sites have them BBC, CNN etc.

    Go to slashdot.org with a wap phone and you get a wap version of Slashdot. It's only the headlines but who would want to read the comments on a phone anyway?

    And surely it can't be too hard to do as I'm sure the slashdot guys would have had the foresight to do all their content management in XML and therefore just need to knock up a quick XSL to do the translation into WML...

    Obviously, three years ago they had the foresight to use XML. XML isn't the only way to do things, and it's as easy to dynamicly create WAP pages from a db as it is from XML, and due to some speed issues with XML::Parser in perl, it's a hell of a lot faster too

  • There'd be no way I'd use it for more than the occasional novelty, considering what WAP costs with Sprint, but.. How about it?
  • Anyone care to comment on the service (price, quality, availability) between the two? I have a Palm III now, but might want to upgrade in a few months.
  • Read the freakin reference man! Do I say anything about their HTML? No! If an AvantGo is just like any other Web site (but without HTML whistles) then give me the URLs to those 'just like any other site'. The problem is the conduit.

  • Re:Comparison between Palm VII and Omnisky? (Score:3)

    by Drakino ( 10965 ) on Friday July 28, 2000 @10:06AM (#896753) Journal
    I love my OmniSky modem. It's unlimited, works with PQA's (like the one above or the existing /. one), and gives you a real internet connection, so things like ICQ, Telnet, and remote syncing work. The telnet alone could be an excuse for your boss to pay for it. "I need this, so when I'm not at work, I can still fix the servers, yeah, thats it."

    Also, right now, the modem comes with a $150 rebate if you stay for 6 months.

    The advantage to having a modem is you can just pop it off and keep the sleek form factor when only needing PDA access.

    OmniSky's support is execelent. They have also treated the beta team very well (Free service during the beta, 15% off the rate plan, a free carying case, and the $150 rebate).

    I definitly have to recommend OmniSky above the Palm VII for anyone with a Palm V (or soon a Visor).
  • If I had a Palm VII, I would be rendered completely useless, since I would be able to do nothing but look at slashdot 24/7.

    At least now, power shortages can stop me..

    --
  • How about a script that grabs the xml file every half hour, parses the headlines, gets only the new ones and mails them to a distro list, this way you can get the headlines on your cellphone or pager (with text messaging) and just hit the website when you get near your computer. I own a palm, but have no real interest in hooking it up to the net for browsing, but being alerted of new headlines for /. would be great. If I had a box that was connected 24x7 I'd throw a quick perl script together and set it to run as a cron every 30 minutes......Any one got a box out there that's on 24x7 and can handle what I'm sure would quickly become a huge mailing list of people interested in receiving /. headlines via cell or pager? better yet, anyone know got a place that will host for next to nothing with cgi access and unlimited bandwidth?

  • I swear I must be doing something wrong. I clicked the link and I get....
    -----

    slashdot.pqa&ÃSLèNW0UÒås®oeÎ-å¦ÉdlåWÀF0!oeÔGB/~" l54È©v¾¦OE^Õ1tÕ/ÄEÍÌ)ÄØj i'RìaD hÈUðêL@;

    ------ ;-)
  • Without a palm, I can't try it.
    Though I have recommended my friend to look at it,
    I feel the need for some screenshots for Palm interfaces like this.

  • Re:WAP (Score:1)

    by jcs ( 90508 )
    I just tried it on my Sprint PCS phone and got an error (the page isn't WAP'ified).
  • Well, that /palm URL looks pretty good IMHO.

    However, quite a few of us have already ditched AvantGo in favour of Sitescooper [sitescooper.cx], which is a web-clipping engine oriented towards packaging up news sites for view offline on a PDA, using a DOC or HTML-based viewer. It's a lot smarter and more configurable than AG, and it's GPLed.

    Among the hundreds of sites supported is Slashdot, which is displayed showing all stories with a comment filter at level 3. Check it out [sitescooper.cx]. If you have a Palm with a DOC reader or iSilo [isilo.com] installed, you can pick up the previous day's news scooped into iSilo [sitescooper.cx] and DOC [sitescooper.cx] formats.

    (Disclaimer: I'm the main author of sitescooper, and myself and Kornelis Sietsma came up with the site file for slashdot.)

  • Just use AvantGo, and create a second /. acocunt for it. Then, you can set the preferences to lower the complexity of the pages, and have it on any Palm device, online or offline.

  • That reminds me... (Score:4)

    by FascDot Killed My Pr ( 24021 ) on Friday July 28, 2000 @10:35AM (#896761)
    I was checking out Slashcode.com [slashcode.com] the other day because I wanted to submit some patches to create some desperately needed features (killfiles and nick-changing). But then I realized that while some patches have been submitted [sourceforge.net], none have ever been accepted [sourceforge.net]. What's up with this. Also, if they ever DO get accepted, will they ever run on slashdot.org?
    --
    Give us our karma back! Punish Karma Whores through meta-mod!

  • WAP (Score:3)

    by nstrug ( 1741 ) on Friday July 28, 2000 @10:35AM (#896762) Homepage
    How about a WAP interface? All the major news sites have them BBC, CNN etc.

    And surely it can't be too hard to do as I'm sure the slashdot guys would have had the foresight to do all their content management in XML and therefore just need to knock up a quick XSL to do the translation into WML...

    Nick

  • bias? (Score:5)

    by wishus ( 174405 ) on Friday July 28, 2000 @10:35AM (#896763) Journal
    Slashdot has never "officially" supported a PDA interface before.. If you're going to go to the trouble of writing one, an official one, you should have created and AvantGo channel. That way Palm users (of any Palm), Handspring users, TRG Pro users, and, yes, even Pocket PC/Win CE users could get it on thier PDA.

    Yes, I know AvantGo can read the "stripped-down" HTML version, but why not make an official AvantGo channel that looks good, with a little graphic or something. It seems this would reach a larger audience.

    Maybe it wouldn't be as cool as wireless though..

    It's an idea.

    wish
    ---

  • AvantGo/similar? (Score:4)

    by Mike Bridge ( 8663 ) on Friday July 28, 2000 @10:36AM (#896764) Homepage
    when are we gonna get a avantgo channel/super lean version of slashdot that shows up good (i.e. no tables, intelligently placed content) for slashdot?

  • PQA? (Score:1)

    by Hentai ( 165906 )
    Simple question: how does one code/construct a PQA?
  • no one said this was "amazing". What RG Consulting did is quite cool - his approach is to parse the front page, and that was good before the release of slashcode. Since the sourcecode is available now, I wanted to code and engine to produce pages from the actual database, which is what I'm doing. Eventually, I'm not going to use this script, I want the main codebase to be able to output pda viewable content.
  • I don't know. It doesn't really seem like slashdot to me. Without JenniCam in a slashbox and all.
  • What did you do to get the URL to work? I'm on PocketNet, and I'm getting errors from the network.

    Invalid redirect format.


    --

  • WAP, IMHO and others, sucks as a protocol. It's been really slow getting introduced and accepted into the market, and the protocol is rather unintuitive. I've made some interfaces for WAP and there are differences between cell phones, the emulator from phone.com.. not a real stable choice yet.

    Besides, who's getting WAP right now? These 4 line cell phones.. The readability and interactivity on those phones is crap. Maybe when some serious functionality gets out there, WAP (or whatever succeedes it) will be useful to write for on a large-scale basis.

    _________________
    JavaScript Error: http://www.windows2000test.com/default.htm, line 91:

  • A PQA is made up of a subset of HTML and images. The HTML is tokenized and compressed into a 5 bit data format.

    Palm provides a windows based PQA compiler. I have a GPL compiler/decompiler posted at www.linuxlabs.com/software/linpqa.htm l [linuxlabs.com]. It's early alpha but it is useable (I've used it anyway).

  • AvantGo fragments the Web and encourages sites to remove their Palm accessible content in favor content available only through their propietary interface. Read about it at: http://goatee.net/2000/06#19mo [goatee.net]

  • ok, ONLY for the palm VII what about my qualicomm PDQ? what about my Palm IIIx that has a radiomodem on it's back? The palm VII is the least sold palm, while the Qualicomm is screaming off the shelves (Verizon has a 3 week waiting list and we are purchasing 5 more for the office!)

    Gimmie the source and I'll hack it together for the rest of the palm devices!

  • Re:bias? (Score:3)

    by Sethb ( 9355 ) <bokelman@outlook.com> on Friday July 28, 2000 @12:06PM (#896773)
    Absolutely. I love AvantGo, I use it to read Salon, The Onion, Fox News, etc. It's great when you've got 5 minutes to kill before a meeting starts, or you're waiting while your oil is changed, or to get a haircut. Why would I want to read stale beauty magazines when I could have tech and national news as recent as the last time I hit the HotSync button on my Visor?

    I currently use the "light" version of Slashdot with AvantGo, and it rather sucks. It's usable, but not pretty, and forget trying to read comments. I'd love a configurable AvantGo channel that would let me read comments at +2 and above, with nice formatting...

    I'm not much of a programmer, so I haven't really looked at the specs, but how hard is it to write an AvantGo channel?
    ---
  • It's not anything special. AvantGo channels are actually HTML!

    If you just wanted to grab the stories in a nice-looking fashion, it shouldn't be too hard to write a script (php3 or perl, pick your poison) that grabs $name_of_site.xml and turns it into some AvantGo HTML - something like http://slashtogo.sourceforge.net/convert.php3?www. slashdot.org (or www.yourofficegeek.com, etc.) - does anybody want to help start on this?

  • Ahh, but that uses more bandwidth. and requires an "outside company" to do the job, hence they can start tommorow with a "30 cents per viewing charge" I want ist in a way that the origional website can do it (Like wml but better)
  • I'd wait before buying up to the VII. Palm has announced that wireless access will be available on all their Palm lines (the V and the III, including the color model) soon, probably by the end of the year, if I recall. Adding wireless capabilities to the IIIxe will obsolete the VII, which is basically just a III with that nifty antenna on the side. Plus, they'll be more options once they add wireless to the whole line.. There was an article on /. a little while ago in the palm section on the announcement, which might be found here [slashdot.org].


    "Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
  • I think he got smacked for being the second post. Someone wasn't paying close attention and thought he was going for the first. I would fix it but I don't have any mod points today.
  • Yep, I've got a Plam Vx with a CDPD modem. I didn't buy it through OmniSky, so I don't have the app for PQA support...
    The 'light' version of /. comes through okay with Avantgo or EudoraWeb, though.
    Anyone know if there's a free/open app for PQA support on non-Palm VIIs?

    -Dave
  • you can also use http://www.trancell.com if you have any kind of wireless device with email.
  • Shouldn't you be posting [slashcode.com] this over at slashcode [slashcode.com]?
  • Read the freakin reference man! Do I say anything about their HTML? No! If an AvantGo is just like any other Web site (but without HTML whistles) then give me the URLs to those 'just like any other site'. The problem is the conduit.

    Yes, I read the reference. Then I explained to you how AvantGo works. Now I will give you some URLs, as per your request, to show you that AvantGo does not fragment the web. All the conduit does is cache HTML pages and store them on your device. You might want to quit believing everything you read. That guy from your link didn't know what he was talking about and neither do you.

    http://avantgo.hollywood.com/ [hollywood.com]
    http://www.pdalive.com/avantgo/ [pdalive.com]
    http://avantgo.10best.com/ [10best.com]
    http://www.women.com/avantgo/horoscopes/ [women.com]
    http://www.all-legends.com/avantgo/ [all-legends.com]
    http://www.mapquest.com/avantgo/ [mapquest.com]

    Anything else you'd like to add?
    wish
    ---

  • OK, that's the part I was confused about. I can browse any site, and it does strip out the text, and builds a list of links. This is not really a WAP interface, as the text is not optimised for the small display.

    BTW, the Erricson 280 is a very cool phone.
    --

  • See the smiley right after the dashed line?

    Now you get it...

    (admittedly, it wasn't that funny in the first place, but w/e. And yerricide, if you know someone named Himu, tell him Jacob says hi.)
    --
  • How about the NYTimes then? (BTW a reader of the site sent me one (yes I'm that guy) but you'll have a damn hard time finding it from the NYTtimes site.) Yes, you can go to AltaVista and look search for link:avantGo in it, but it's a pittance of the potential content. I am the guy from the site and when I ask for the URL of palm accessible content from a AvantGo partner, I'm frequently shafted, just as I was at NYTimes. If you think about it, it is in AvantGo's commercial interest, nothing surprising. But that doesn't mean we should encourage them. So when I see someone advocate AvantGo, I will protest as it frequently means their content is no longer accessible on less propietary applications. ALL content should be palm accessible and have well known URLs. It doesn't need special HTML nor special conduits.

  • um (Score:1)

    by mattdm ( 1931 )
    Looks legit to me. Why is it an obvious hoax?

    --

  • Is it just me or is WAP near useless for anything other than email? I mean how long have we spent making the phones smaller only to know be making them larger again?

    So many people seem to be jumpimg over any and all 'wired' solutions in favor of wireless, it just doesn't make sense to me. There is no way I'm diving into YET ANOTHER monthly fee.

  • Heck, I'd use that on my PalmIIIxe. Good idea.
    -J
  • I've used this one for a while and it works pretty well too.
  • Because trolls are dumb like that. ;)
    -J
  • I am thinking of getting OmniSky but am concerned about the quality of coverage. Where do you do most of your wireless browsing??

    sulli

  • Re:That reminds me... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Malda's huge fucking ego prevents him from accepting any patches. Is it really Open Source if patches aren't accepted?

    No.
  • Damn! Does that mean that it'll be pushed back 24hrs, now that I've asked?
  • A little off topic, but it's about news reading on PDAs nonetheless. I prefer iSilo [isilo.com]. My Visor is really low on memory, and AvantGo takes up WAY too much room (iSilo is 47k). Although I haven't tried AvantGo(wouldn't fit) I think iSilo works pretty well. Most pages end up looking pretty nice(Slashdot included)
  • AvantGo is nothing more than a web browser.

    The AvantGo service just keeps track of your favorite sites and allows you to download them into your pda when you sync with your computer. Handy. You can view any web page with the AvantGo viewer / service. I currently have AvantGo fetch my SETI@home stats every time I sync.

    If you read the documentation about how to create an AvantGo channel, you will see that is is nothing more than a HTML file on a webserver somewhere. Yes, they encourage you to use a subset of HTML because their browser can't do things like tables... but it's still HTML.

    Last time I checked, a popular console browser among linux enthusiasts only recognized a subset of HTML as well. No one accuses lynx of fragmenting the web. Do some research on AvantGo before you blast it.

    From AvantGo Developer Resources [avantgo.com]: "In its most basic form, an AvantGo channel is just another web site.There's more to it than that, of course. An AvantGo channel page doesn't contain all the bells and whistles you might see on, say, a web page in Internet Explorer 5.0. But if you know how to create a web page, you can make yourself an AvantGo channel."

    wish
    ---

  • Sprint Wireless Web fails, so my guess is your system grabbed it as text.
  • Most has been done in Colorado Springs, with a bit on I-25 to Denver, around the Dallas and Austin areas of TX, and in LA. So far, it's been decent in all these areas. The complete coverage map is at http://www.omnisky.com/products/coverage.jhtml
  • From people browsing text-only on their Palm?

    Are there some text-based ads being used?

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