webos
Thursday, April 19 2012
[14:29:52]
matt [wronka.org]/Trip
I don't think there's any way of sending an actual, proper, eMail from the HP Touchpad while it's running WebOS. There's no option for having an text/plain part; you always get multipart/alternative with just text/html which blows my mind.
Thursday, March 1 2012
HP Touchpad
[16:17:55] matt [wronka.org]/Trip I've finally upgraded my Touchpad to WebOS 3.0.5 (I leanred with the 3.0.4 update to wait at least two weeks for the patches to be updated), and transferred Touchpads to my parents for Christmas.
Previously, I used the Touchpad tablet as a means for carrying a Debian computer around with me (using the Debian chroot). This allowed much greater flexibility, but the XServer didn't have ideal touch-support. It also completely lost the informational-messaging infrastucture built into WebOS.
Shortly before updating to 3.0.5 I started using my tablet more often for work business, synching with Exchange and configuring the mail client. I've also got it synchronizing with my personal schedule, and in general it's very good at those things.
Drawbacks to the standard usage:
a) no encryption. I wouldn't want to go through customs anywhere with my touchpad, especially not the US.
b) no PGP support in the mail client. The "flagged only" option doesn't seem to do what I expected (it's not showing anything; I'd expected it to sum-up all of the starred mailboxes).
c) Exchange synchronizing doesn't work at all unless you say to synchronize eMail. This seems odd, especially since my exchange system doesn't even synchronize eMail, but after telling the Touchpad to do this it works fine.
d) WiFi kept dropping out on an WPA2 network. Telling it to turn-off WiFi when asleep caused it to be smart enough to re-connect.
[16:17:55] matt [wronka.org]/Trip I've finally upgraded my Touchpad to WebOS 3.0.5 (I leanred with the 3.0.4 update to wait at least two weeks for the patches to be updated), and transferred Touchpads to my parents for Christmas.
Previously, I used the Touchpad tablet as a means for carrying a Debian computer around with me (using the Debian chroot). This allowed much greater flexibility, but the XServer didn't have ideal touch-support. It also completely lost the informational-messaging infrastucture built into WebOS.
Shortly before updating to 3.0.5 I started using my tablet more often for work business, synching with Exchange and configuring the mail client. I've also got it synchronizing with my personal schedule, and in general it's very good at those things.
Drawbacks to the standard usage:
a) no encryption. I wouldn't want to go through customs anywhere with my touchpad, especially not the US.
b) no PGP support in the mail client. The "flagged only" option doesn't seem to do what I expected (it's not showing anything; I'd expected it to sum-up all of the starred mailboxes).
c) Exchange synchronizing doesn't work at all unless you say to synchronize eMail. This seems odd, especially since my exchange system doesn't even synchronize eMail, but after telling the Touchpad to do this it works fine.
d) WiFi kept dropping out on an WPA2 network. Telling it to turn-off WiFi when asleep caused it to be smart enough to re-connect.
Thursday, October 20 2011
WebOS 3.0.4 Upgrade
[15:06:45] matt [wronka.org]/Psi.dementia WebOS 3.0.4 fixed a number of issues for sure, such as the fact that the web browser would crash Luna(?) on certain large pages. However, it also means a lot of patches that made the device usablish no longer worked, the bluetooth keyboard (which previously didn't have key repeat enabled by default) now drops more characters, and often gets stuck repeating in X. Tab doesn't work--it outputs '9', whereas shift-tab does produce a tab sometimes (also ctrl-shift-i). Escape is oddly ctrl-shift-[ now, which makes it seem like the ctrl key is by default broken, or something else, until it is shifted. I should probably xev that.
The tweaks to start X without the keyboard space reserved are gone--all of tweaks is currently broken. X also doesn't want to start vertically now, whether or not the keyboard is connected--this might actually have been an existing issue if there were any record of a keyboard connected. I hadn't spent much time with 3.0.2 with a keyboard stored in the bluetooth devices but not actively connected.
The default WebOS browser and mail client won't connect to my server, and die with unhelpful errors "Cannot load page" for the web browser, and "error code 990" being one of the errors for the mail client (the other being simply indicating a socket connection error). The mail client also doesn't indicate whether the problem is with the IMAP server or the SMTP server. The problem in all cases only happens with TLS or SSL; removing encryption works. I've installed the root certificate, but that hasn't seemed to fix the connection issues--my kingdom for useful error messages. Of course messaging doesn't work with Jabber, and athe existing (7 month old) messaging-plugins package doesn't seem to work with 3.0.4--I hadn't tried with 3.0.2 but it sounded as if it worked from the forums.
It's arguable if I feel like it make sense to look further into these issues. I'll admit a big part of my reluctance is no fault of HP, Palm, or the community but from the results I saw with Nokia where patches just sat stagnant on bugzilla until Maemo basically died. Unrelated to the software front, it's nice to see that HP offers 90 day service, but the actual page reminds me of why I stopped buying Palm which was because when I called them for support on a new device they basically tried as hard as possible to chargre me for the call. Later it turned out they knew there was a static electriciy discharge issue which would often cause the device to lose stored data. I should have gone with Handspring.
[15:06:45] matt [wronka.org]/Psi.dementia WebOS 3.0.4 fixed a number of issues for sure, such as the fact that the web browser would crash Luna(?) on certain large pages. However, it also means a lot of patches that made the device usablish no longer worked, the bluetooth keyboard (which previously didn't have key repeat enabled by default) now drops more characters, and often gets stuck repeating in X. Tab doesn't work--it outputs '9', whereas shift-tab does produce a tab sometimes (also ctrl-shift-i). Escape is oddly ctrl-shift-[ now, which makes it seem like the ctrl key is by default broken, or something else, until it is shifted. I should probably xev that.
The tweaks to start X without the keyboard space reserved are gone--all of tweaks is currently broken. X also doesn't want to start vertically now, whether or not the keyboard is connected--this might actually have been an existing issue if there were any record of a keyboard connected. I hadn't spent much time with 3.0.2 with a keyboard stored in the bluetooth devices but not actively connected.
The default WebOS browser and mail client won't connect to my server, and die with unhelpful errors "Cannot load page" for the web browser, and "error code 990" being one of the errors for the mail client (the other being simply indicating a socket connection error). The mail client also doesn't indicate whether the problem is with the IMAP server or the SMTP server. The problem in all cases only happens with TLS or SSL; removing encryption works. I've installed the root certificate, but that hasn't seemed to fix the connection issues--my kingdom for useful error messages. Of course messaging doesn't work with Jabber, and athe existing (7 month old) messaging-plugins package doesn't seem to work with 3.0.4--I hadn't tried with 3.0.2 but it sounded as if it worked from the forums.
It's arguable if I feel like it make sense to look further into these issues. I'll admit a big part of my reluctance is no fault of HP, Palm, or the community but from the results I saw with Nokia where patches just sat stagnant on bugzilla until Maemo basically died. Unrelated to the software front, it's nice to see that HP offers 90 day service, but the actual page reminds me of why I stopped buying Palm which was because when I called them for support on a new device they basically tried as hard as possible to chargre me for the call. Later it turned out they knew there was a static electriciy discharge issue which would often cause the device to lose stored data. I should have gone with Handspring.
Tuesday, October 18 2011
[20:44:16]
matt [wronka.org]/Vasilissa
After the update, the default WebOS browser has stopped causing the UI to restart (restarting Luna?), which is a huge win. It's still choking on the large pages, but honestly that's more of an issue with the page in my opinion given how ridiculously sized it is. It looks like all of the preware patches need to be reapplied.
[23:23:25]
matt [wronka.org]/Vasilissa
Maybe this should be obvious, but if you update WebOS, all of the "patches" you installed through Preware stop working, and are no longer visible. Tweaks is empty (and/or throwing an error) so I can't get rid of the X keyboard again--among other things.
[23:23:59]
matt [wronka.org]/Vasilissa
Apparently pressing thorn twice on the soft keyboard in WebOS (in X) locks the control key. I am sure there's a use for that.
Saturday, October 15 2011
[13:08:26]
matt [wronka.org]/Vasilissa
I am a bigger fan of the way the WebOS soft keyboard works compared to the iOS equivalent, however I do feel like it could be better. At least when I am in X, it isn't auto-incorrecting every fifth word.
Wednesday, July 27 2011
One Hour with the WebOS TouchPad
[17:16:54] matt [wronka.org]/Psi.dementia The web browser has different trade-offs with the pre-IOS5 web kit browser. General display is better, but there are instances where the scrolling is broken until you zoom in or out first; support for Arabic is noticeably absent by default.
The device itself collects and displays fingerprints more-so than others I've used (Apple iPad, Nokia N900, Samsung/Google Nexus S).
Oddly, when I set the language to Spanish, it still showed the Google location services terms-of-service in English. Other license agreements were in Spanish.
It required me to create a "WebOS" account with my name and eMail address. It didn't require me to set the timezone, which it presumably got from my location.
My co-worker, and IOS advocate, voiced that there weren't enough apps in the store, and that the UI looked too much like KDE.
I might like it better than an IOS device--the fact that I can switch between the Web browser and other programs without closing each in turn is a large part of this--but I'm not sure that I would buy one on my own. It seems rough still, but still promising. If it hadn't been for the disruption of Palm going out of business and being acquired by HP, I would imagine that a lot of these rough edges would have been polished, and am dissapointed that this hypothetical device isn't what it is my hands.
[17:16:54] matt [wronka.org]/Psi.dementia The web browser has different trade-offs with the pre-IOS5 web kit browser. General display is better, but there are instances where the scrolling is broken until you zoom in or out first; support for Arabic is noticeably absent by default.
The device itself collects and displays fingerprints more-so than others I've used (Apple iPad, Nokia N900, Samsung/Google Nexus S).
Oddly, when I set the language to Spanish, it still showed the Google location services terms-of-service in English. Other license agreements were in Spanish.
It required me to create a "WebOS" account with my name and eMail address. It didn't require me to set the timezone, which it presumably got from my location.
My co-worker, and IOS advocate, voiced that there weren't enough apps in the store, and that the UI looked too much like KDE.
I might like it better than an IOS device--the fact that I can switch between the Web browser and other programs without closing each in turn is a large part of this--but I'm not sure that I would buy one on my own. It seems rough still, but still promising. If it hadn't been for the disruption of Palm going out of business and being acquired by HP, I would imagine that a lot of these rough edges would have been polished, and am dissapointed that this hypothetical device isn't what it is my hands.