Quickies: New Features, Styli Offer, Tipsheet & Much More

Posted By: Ryan Friday, October 18, 2002 12:49:43 PM

PIC has rolled out a new system for displaying user comments with articles. The new system now displays 40 comments per page, and users can easily navigate multiple pages of commentary on smaller, less bandwidth intensive pages. The deployment has resulted in a huge increase to the site's overall speed and stability. –Ryan

Proporta have announced a special promotion on their executive styli, for the readers of PIC. The promotion code of, CRS10, will entitle you to 10% off the chrome styli and the 100th person to order will win a solid silver English hallmarked stylus worth $150.

The Palm Tipsheet 35 - October 2002 is now online. This issue of the Tipsheet features Topher Macintosh's perspective on the future of Palm handhelds in education, a six month follow-up on my Visor to Clié switch and an interview with Belgian Palm user Pascal Zander. –Mike Rhohde

Happy Anniversary to Palm-br.com.br, which recently celebrated its fourth birthday. Founded in 1998, it initially was a mailing list. Presently, Palm-br is the largest Palm OS mailing list in Portuguese, and has an updated website, which offers other mailing lists, Info service, monthly meetings for Palm users, a Forum and much more. (sic) -Carolina

And (sorry we missed it) Last Saturday marked the Nashville Palm User Group's 3rd Anniversary! Congratulations!

GetHighTech.com - Just announced that they now have screen repairs for the newly released Palm Zire units. This is just another addition to the many screens and hard to find parts that they carry for PDA units. -PR

iSilo (in conjunction with iSiloX) can be a great Avantgo-alternative; unfortunately, it is not easy to find and configure the links to the popular news sites. At Turcic.com, you can find a collection of mobile web channels that you can use with iSiloX to easily convert web content to the iSilo 3 document format.

Attention Apple Resellers
If there are any Apple resellers or anyone who operates a Mac online or retail shop in the readership, please send me an email. -Ryan

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Site Speed has improved but ...

Token User @ 10/18/2002 1:38:37 PM #
... any chance to do the following:
1. Put a "Jump to page 1 | 2 | ... | n" link after each article to allow you to go to the end of the comments faster.
2. Put a "Jump to page 1 | 2 | ... | n" link at the top of page 1 of an article so you don't need to go to the bottom of the page to get to the next page.
3. Have the 40 comment limit user adjustable - 40 is a good default, but less might be good for dialup/mobile, and more might be better for T1 :)

It's all looking good. Congrats.

~ "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." - DV ~

RE: Site Speed has improved but ...
Admin @ 10/18/2002 1:45:50 PM #
I'll add the |, and I plan on everntually making the 40 adjustible and have the option to display all comments on one page. Thanks for the compliments & tips.
RE: Site Speed has improved but ...
KRamsauer @ 10/18/2002 2:02:07 PM #
He won't increase the limit because that would defeat the purpose of using it to limit demands on the server.

RE: Site Speed has improved but ...
Fammy @ 10/18/2002 2:04:12 PM #
The only thing about the comments, is if you where on a thread on page 1 on a certain day, and people reply to the threads above it you can end up on another page. Makes following it a little hard. I'm not sure how I would fix that.

On one story, I was one page 1 yesterday and page 3 today!

_____
Fammy

RE: Site Speed has improved but ...
Token User @ 10/18/2002 2:32:58 PM #
He won't increase the limit because that would defeat the purpose of using it to limit demands on the server.
I am mainly thinking of being able to adjust the number downward so that the load time of pages can be optimised for wireless access. The ability to bump that number up is just a consequence of that type of change ... Ryan/Admin could put an upper limit on it that still allows for server load optiisations.

~ "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." - DV ~
RE: Site Speed has improved but ...
james_sorenson @ 10/18/2002 2:33:35 PM #
Perhaps a "Sort by Date" option would help?

I don't know. I've seen so many styles where the admin is trying to balance features with server bandwidth. The only problem I had with the old PIC format is that when I clicked on one thread, it reloaded the entire article and ALL of the threads. That must have been taxing for the server.

I would like a thread view where clicking on a thread would open just the contents of that thread in a new window. Of course, I'm running the tabbed Mozilla browser, so opening a new window/tab is actually very convenient for me. A bunch of open windows in Internet Explorer may drive others batty.

I don't know of a perfect solution, but I must admit that finding replies to my posts is a little more difficult now.

Jim

-------
James Sorenson

RE: Site Speed has improved but ...
Rolando @ 10/18/2002 4:06:56 PM #
It would be nice to have the separate topics in the comments section display in separate threads. Therefore, at the bottom of the story, you would see only the top few levels of each, beginning comment. If you wanted to follow that thread, you would select it and come back to the story to go to another thread.

Thank you for listening...

Rolando

RE: Site Speed has improved but ...
Clarence @ 10/18/2002 10:29:24 PM #
I Like it just as it is. This is one of the few forms I can stand to read. I don't need to click around to read the comments. Keep it as it is.

RE: Site Speed has improved but ...
Cheap Guy @ 10/19/2002 5:48:12 PM #
I agree with Clarence. Because my employer is able track the amount of time I spend on the 'net, I like the new set up because I can access a particular article/feature with a minimum of clicks, save it to hard drive and shutdown my 'net access with a minimum of time and clicks.

Good stylus for T series CLIE

mentalsrule @ 10/19/2002 4:43:36 AM #
I am looking for a good stylus that fits the T series handhelds, such as the NR and well, T series...

something like a 4 in 1, such as the stylus, pen, pencil, and reset pin...

anyone have any suggestions?

____________________
PalmInfocenter Junkie by heart, Mental by name!
www.pocketloft.com

RE: Good stylus for T series CLIE
Davy Fields @ 10/19/2002 1:37:41 PM #
Brando makes one with a pen, but really, how can you fit anything in that stylus? Unless you buy an extra one that does all four (which are readily available and are pretty cool), so just check Staples or whatever.

-Davy Fields
http://nr70.davyfields.com
RE: Good stylus for T series CLIE
mentalsrule @ 10/20/2002 6:03:58 PM #
yea but i want to know a good one, that doesnt rattle, or break easily, cause if its not in the clie, it will take a hard beating with all the stuff in my bag, and other places it would be going with me... what about those camelon pens or whatever, i know they have some for the N series, my friend has one, but do they make one for the T series yet?

____________________
"WE DONT WANT YOUR STD's!!"
www.pocketloft.com

Bring back comments on handheld!

achitnis @ 10/19/2002 9:32:26 AM #
Ryan:

Now that so many changes have been imnplemented, and load on the system reduced, how about bringing back at least the ability to *read* comments for each article in the Avantgo/Handheld edition?

This ability (to read comments *and* to post comments on my handheld) was something I really liked before, and I never understood why it was removed.


Atul Chitnis
http://atulchitnis.net

RE: Bring back comments on handheld!
Admin @ 10/19/2002 2:20:52 PM #
I am working on this.
RE: Bring back comments on handheld!
achitnis @ 10/20/2002 2:06:46 AM #
The Load [sic] be praised! ;-)

Thanks!


Atul Chitnis
http://atulchitnis.net

Adios Avantgo!

Jeff_T @ 10/20/2002 7:36:47 PM #
For the past days I've been looking for an Avantgo replacement (why would I buy a Sony Clie when I cannot use hi-res?).

When I stumbled on http://www.turcic.com, I decided to go for iSilo. I *love* it! Why I didn't use iSilo/iSiloX before, I don't know. I can only recommend it to anyone who likes reading his/her everyday's news.

RE: Adios Avantgo!
Kwed @ 10/23/2002 3:04:21 PM #
Take a look at Plucker (http://www.plkr.org). Freeware, takes up a lot less space than iSilo, has better compression, loads of other advantages, and a very nice desktop application as well. The HiRes version (http://hires.plkr.org/) adds support for Sony and Handera devices.

Sure, iSilo is neat (I regged it back at Version 2.58) but once you're on the Plucker wagon you'll wonder why you didn't join up earlier. =)

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