archangel

Wait, couldn't they use the same kind of internal storage as the T5 (you wouldn't need 256mb) to store your programs on and save the HDD simply for external storage? Yes, it would increase Palmone's cost, but it would increase the speed of the device and save battery life.

If the next version of the Lifedrive is less expensive to produce I would like to see Palmone go in this direction. Save that HDD as a big SD card so it doesn't need to be accessed constantly for normal non multimedia use.

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Jeff Kirvin

Ah, but it doesn't really work that way. Until WM5 (which works almost exactly like NVFS), if you let the battery on your PPC go dead, you lose all your PIM data, your registry and any applications (today themes, plugins, etc.) that had to be installed in RAM.



In other words, coders have had four years to get ready for this and still messed it up, yes? Anything that worked properly on a VFS m505 should work properly with NVFS.



Again, did you actually read what I wrote or listen to the podcast?

Here, let me refresh your memory:



As long as you don't wipe everything, the problem could still live on that card and keep causing trouble. Favorites on the T5/E2/LD/Treo allows you to run applications directly off the card.

"Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

Jeff Kirvin

Yes, but only marginally. If I were Palm, I'd decide that the performance benefits weren't worth the money and added complexity. (You'd have to have a motherboard with both RAM and Flash, and the hard drive controller at that point. Too many chips.)

Really, folks. Try a LifeDrive for yourself. The lag is not noticeably longer than the one on my T5.

applejosh

Agreed. The 512 byte issue doesn't bother me as much as the memory errors. My problem is that the "fix" has been coming for 6 months. I know you're of the belief that it's just not worth it for PalmOne to fix the little things. The problem is the "general" public listens to people who use their devices every day. And those of us that do grow increasingly annoyed at the fact that it takes so long to fix bugs, but they have time to develop new devices with the fixes in place. (Which along a parallel line is why I don't buy things like Agendus any more.) You can't sacrifice past devices just to get new devices out the door. People will stop going that route because they feel the quality is suffering (regardless if it's because they install third party software, which is what helps drive sales among the power users who make recommendations to the less knowing population).

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Current: T|X, X51v, Q
Previous: Palm Personal, Palm IIIxe, TRGPro, Handera H330, Sony T615c, NX70v, Zaurus SL5500, iPAQ 3955, NX80, rx3715 (second try), T|T3, T|T5 (3rd one in the warranty period, aka "the brick")

Jeff Kirvin

And here I was just commenting yesterday that Surur has been making some well-thought-out, reasoned and cogent posts recently. Guess it was just a phase.



And some web pages bring Firefox to its knees. I agree that Blazer and VersaMail aren't perfect. I use SnapperMail, myself. Also looking at PicselBrowser.

I expect developers to do their job and write solid code. I expect users to realize when an application is a buggy piece of crap and stop using it.



Yellow card, Surur! This ain't PIC. We don't play that way here.

Surur

How can you say that with a straight face? Once you clear the 64MB, how would the LD know you had malignant software on your SD card/Drive? Its these kind of lame excuses that get you labeled an apologist.

Surur

Jeff Kirvin

Again, "normal" people won't do it. For cryin' out loud, how many of you regularly back up your PCs? I don't.

And what headaches are you talking about? Again, running stable software, my T5 is quite stable.

Jeff Kirvin

There are some things you cannot run from a card on a Pocket PC without major problems:

Device drivers

Today plugins

Today themes

Anything that sets and alarm

Also, your PIM databases always go in RAM.

Jeff Kirvin

I still contend that PalmOne was right to focus on getting the Treo and LifeDrive working, but the T5 fix is coming. Should be available within a month.

Jeff Kirvin

Because, oh, I don't know...

The Palm scans the card on boot up?

I'm all for having a civilized discussion with you, Surur, but don't troll. It would be a shame if you couldn't post here.

GadgetGuru

Yeah, but does anyone knows about the warm reset solution? Few people do, so do you expect newbies to know? And if its a Lifedrive, you wouldn't even know its still booting up, if you see it stucked for say 30-seconds or more , many people would thought that the device is frozen and press the reset again..


But if the T5 does not have the bug, then backup solutions should work (no need to rely on NVFS). Palm should have included one(Backup-to-card software). Sony has one since their OS4 units.



Yeah, but 99% of the time, the device will not drains itself out of juice either.



Not true. Everybody get hurt. The end-user has to endure a less than ideal experience. The developer has to waste time recoding their software. And PalmOne get less sales because fewer people will upgrade.



Yeah, but it wouldn't have to access the HD as often and with a 1660 mAh battery, it would last a long time. The Tungsten C has an almost similar capcity battery (1800 mah if I am not wrong) and it's last a long time even with intermitent use of Wifi. And there are other solutions to dead battery, they could do the PPC solution - a lithium battery like those on motherboards to save the data until the next charge. And of course, user-replaceable batteries.

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Jeff Kirvin

How to do a warm reset is in the manual. And how did these hypothetical newbies learn to do a hard reset? Is it instinctive?

To borrow Dmitry's .sig:

if (!clue) {
RTFM()
}



So let me get this straight. You're saying the users get hurt if the developers don't follow the rules and write stable code to begin with? I'm sorry, I can't support that. Developers have an obligation to write stable code, and the OS must run it as per the rules. I don't expect any OS to run any darn fool buggy crap that's thrown at it with no problems.



And again, that submarine would fly a lot better if it had wings and a jet engine.

You're completely missing the point. It doesn't matter how big a battery you put in it. Regular people used to the way cell phones work will not accept data loss on a dead battery.

NVFS is necessary. Deal with it.

And FYI, Windows Mobile is doing the exact same thing with persistent storage in WM 5.0. This is the new normal. Adapt or perish.

Edit: Crimeny! You guys are making me sound like Surur accuses me of sounding! Agh!

Cyker

Really? Mmmm, I must admit that as I don't have a PPC I don't know, but my friend has never had any trouble with that stuff. Maybe there's some sort of extra hack he's using...?



Again, I think this is being unfair on the coders - The programs worked perfectly in their intended method until Palm BROKE them and forced them to workaround the VFS bugs when they could have been doing more useful things like adding functionality and streamlining the program.


Woah! Okay dude, calm down. You're gettin' snarky!


Okay, this needs some serious perspective shifting.

Right, first thing: Have you EVER had to FORMAT a MemoryStick/SD card because it still caused a hard reset after a crash?! I've NEVER had a hard reset situation that required me to format an inserted MemoryStick/VFS and I bet you and everyone else haven't either!

Now, zeroing out the main RAM is understandable, but clearing out the VFS areas? You know what that'd be like? That'd be like your computer formatting it's hard disk when you hit the reset switch!

There is NO reason for *any* computer to do that without user intervention!
Programs CANNOT be executed directly from secondary storage like VFS - They HAVE to be copied to executable RAM first which is why all NVFS devices still need this hidden RAM, so even if a program was corrupted on there the user would have to manually run it!




Well, I wouldn't have picked that particular quote given that in it's context it didn't fix the biggest bug of all


The way the quote system on this board makes it painful to reply like this

I don't know why this subject keeps riling people up so much (Including me it must be said), but I guess it's the little details that people pick at the most.
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter - The end user will use what they got and chuck it if it doesn't do what they want.

At the end of the day, my bottom line on the subject is that NVFS is a good idea but the implementation is poor. I think most would agree.

I can only hope that whoever it is that bought the M-RAM patent get off their collective donkeys and bring it to market, then we can get Palms with real RAM that is not volatile, stop arguing about such a trivial things and get onto more important things... (Like PPC bashing! (j/k )

GadgetGuru

I am not a developer so I can't say that what breaks the applications are wrong coding, but in my opinion, it might be a mix of wrong coding and new rules that the NVFS-enabled OS put out there.


Persistent storage is good, it's Palm's implementation that's lacking. We'll see how Windows Mobile 5.0 device handles them when they arrive.

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