Update Wednesday April 28 2010

HP BUYS OUT PALM

Well, it has finally happened, Palm is dead. As some of you know, I have had a Palm Pilot since almost Day 1 of Palm. People use to laugh and make jokes about it, then people started to use it. I remember the Motorola StarTac had the first "add on" organizer that could be clipped to the back, and now all cell phones have them.

But the big question, is why would HP want PALM? HP had the first "Net Book" type organizer with the HP Jornada 820, it was way ahead of it's time, but HP didn't advertise it or sell it for very long. Next came the 600 and 700 series. Way cool devices. I had a 720 for a while and other then the screen resolution, it was almost perfect for a "Net book" device, it had a modem built in and a PCMCI slot, so WIFI could be added. In fact, I had one for a few weeks in 1998, and Windows CE at that time seemed to run flawlessly. I even transferred Excel and Word documents to it.

 

Then HP bought Compaq and Killed off the entire Jornada line in favor of the (Inferior) Ipaqs. The 780 and 800 line would be perfect today as net books after a bit of updating.

Now they have bought Palm. There are many theory why, but I don't understand any of them. Palm has no good technology left. The OS is a joke, and Palm was absolutely dead a few years ago (2002-3) so why would HP buy them.

HP has taught us with VOODOO PC, that they will kill and bury any company they buy out. I remember HP swearing up and down that they would leave Voodoo as a "Separate entity" also, and today, even the Voodoo name is completely gone and HP has branded the envy name for their own laptops.

Seems like a waist of money to me..

Wednesday April 14, 2010

I have been very busy trying to throw up content to the website and fighting bad internet access. I was just going to start from scratch, but it is apparent from looking at the server logs, you guys want to see the archives of the blogger posts also. So I will be throwing those up on pages (1 archive,per month, per page?) .
Again, I can see more than 100 people a day still insist on using ATOM and RRS feeds. Its kind of funny, that the are too lazy to come to the site and see why they are getting a 404 Error. Remember if you donate a buck or 2 to the lounge, I will make these feeds a priority.
Speaking of donations, I am going to try mentioning them all the time now, to see if that will help any. Since nobody wants to be the first to donate to the lounge, I will have to start thinking of some incentive program...humm
well back to throwing up content....

In the "HOLY CRAP...THEY DID WHAT???" department. Microsoft outsourced all of its OWN IT departments to INDIA .
OMFG, if Microsoft -the worlds biggest computer company won't even hire or manage their own IT departments, we are all doomed. WOW, I can't even put to words the feelings that this brings up in me. You would have to now conclude that Microsoft is just a shell of a company with no real staff left (except a bunch of "managers" managing other managers. Look out Steve Balmer, you will be out soured next. Where does this outsourcing nightmare end? No wonder America has no jobs left, they all are in INDIA.

 

 

 

SUNDAY April 11, 2010

Well, we had a nice week weather wise, but on Thursday, what started out to be a nice, warm, Sunny day, turned nasty in the evening. We had a freak snow and Ice storm that night, and even today, the wind is bitterly cold. My work schedule had been turned upside down this week, so not much, other than fighting to get on the internet, and updating the main Amiga Lounge site, has been going on. I did manage to get (or will be getting) this afternoon a Textronix Oscilloscope. I will be posting more pictures of that in "THE LAB" site soon.

 

 

My APATCO 2065T kit has been Idle this week, but I did get pictures of it for you .

You can see, I have to go through it all again, to much wires to trace back.

On the Heathkit front. I talked to Heathkit on Thursday (before the snow storm), and ordered the Soldering Course. They said they would call me back with the shipping costs, But so far nothing. They did not charge my VISA yet, so I am wondering what the hold up is. I suspect that they are very busy there, and they only have a small number of staff.

Speaking of Heathkit, I decided to get my HAM licence also. It looks like a free course in Canada- Well, at least the tests are free (there are different levels also), but that will be after the Heathkit electronics courses. I also have the first course "DC Electronics", the records transferred to CD. -Thanks Craig.
There is no stopping me now.

 

 

SUNDAY APRIL 4, 2010

Happy Easter everyone. Although, after 40 years, I am still not really sure if Easter is suppose to be a "Happy" occasion, after all, it is a holiday, were a person was condemned to death for what he believed in, murdered, and died for our sins, then (depending on your faith) rose up again, and will back to judge everyone. I personally don't think that is suppose to be "Happy" in any way...

I have ditched the blogger service all together here at the lounge .Blogger has given me no choice but to sit here and waist a few days putting up a few new sites (like I didn't have enough to do). It looks like nothing has changed since I "Upgraded" the blog from tried and true ftp to Blogger's new service. so here I sit, manually changing the page in dreamweaver. That is not such a big deal, but non of the "other" services like the RRS or atom Feeds work, and even the past links on the side are not updated. I wonder if I am the only person who is having this much trouble with it, and have decided to leave blogger all together because of it. This next week, I will have some time off, to really work on the site and change it all. Yesterday,was just another Saturday, meaning, I had my Coffee /BS/Brainstorming session with the AMICUE guys, then I was off to work at the video store.

I have sort of finished Phase one of my Apatco 2056T kit. I am going to redo it, because something is off, and even though I have power, the LED's are not blinking. Instead of painstakingly going through all connections, I am going to start from scratch, There or just too many wires to trace back, and if you look carefully, it is almost impossible to trace back on some, This gives me a chance to clean it up a bit also, using lengths of wire that are more suited for the task. I also plan to use little zip ties, so I can easily distinguish each group of wires better, and where the go.

I have been doing some research on Heathkit this week. In the wee hours of the morning, when I can't sleep, I have been taking my mind away from my "other" project, by trying to find out what Heathkit's my Dad put together. I have not tract down the TV, as the information on Heathkit TV's is very vague at best, but I did fin one thing, the remote control was a separate kit.

The Heathkit Stereo was a bit easier to track down. The Receiver Dad built was the AJ-33A.

I can't find very much information on it, other than it was a "Solid Sate" model, meaning no tubes. I have yet to track down what year these were released or any real information on it. The Amplifier he got was the "matching" AA 22 . In the previous blog, there the correct picture.

Last we have the AS10 Speakers, which I still have here beside me. The closest Picture I could find was the AS16 below. the only difference I can see is the wood trim has a bit more carving or designed "edge" around the cloth grill.

 

(insane) Security Measures

Last blog, I let it slip a bit that I was working on a top secret project. Here are the insane security measures I have taken to make sure this project is a Success. I am bursting with excitement about it, but I can't really tell anything about it other than what I have already stated and my insane security.

1) I call the Project "GLEKNO" (as in "Glen knows")
2) I am telling No one what the project involves. Not family, not friends, not even potential investors. I bounce vague Ideas off people, but Nothing really important.
3) I keep NO Notebooks on the project. All relevant data is split between 4 computer systems, My Amiga 1000, my Commodore PLUS/4, C128, and PC10-2 Systems. _WHY? because they have no hard drives and I have a stack of over 2500 floppy disks beside them. If someone were to break in and steal my laptop, there would be nothing on it.
4) all relative graphs and charts and 3d renderings will be done on my Amiga 1200 system for the same reasons above.
5) all Research, document inquires, everything that I need the internet for, is being done on RANDOM public computers (library, internet Cafes and such). Why? again, IF someone is watching, they could not put any patterns together and guess the end product.

Yes, I have seen too many movies, like "Anti-trust" and such, but a project this big needs insane security measures. If someone were to put a keystroke logger on my laptop or desktop, or broke in and stole my "good computers" they would find nothing but carefully placed anime and porn (and all my pictures of old computers). There is a reason for this people. this project could be worth billions and if I don't take these security measures now, I end up fucking myself in the future.