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What app are you missing the most for your Handheld?

cgallaty Page Icon Posted 2021-10-21 6:34 PM
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So it's 2021 and no (sane) person is doing serious development for for Handheld PCs these days, but if they were, what are you missing that you wish you had on your favorite device? It could be something small that annoys you: "If I just had this..." or something more out there.
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cgallaty Page Icon Posted 2021-10-21 6:37 PM
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I should note, as I was trying to get my HP 320XL going, I was like "It's too bad there is not a Bluetooth PCMCIA card I could drop in this and transfer/sync that way. (Spoiler: I Googled it and they totally exist. Now, writing the driver for one...)
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Jake Page Icon Posted 2021-10-21 7:02 PM
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A text-only browser with enough ssl to get you to the sites. Essentially lynx for CE.

Jake
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C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2021-10-22 10:39 AM
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You know everyone is just going to echo chamber "web browser" back at you here don't you?

Damn cgallaty, you're that low level you can do that? I'm envious, jealous and impressed. There are several BT cards for the H/PC ( https://www.hpcfactor.com/hcl/search.asp?categoryId=10 ) one of which had a beta release driver for a few MIPS based devices.

The aching flaw in doing anything modern with CE is schannel. It was long dead even before 128-bit encryption went the way of the Dodo. Lack of (sane) updatable root certificate support meant it was practically useless even in the early 2000's on the the few devices that go it. Without modern cryptography no one can even entertain ideas like direct sync with cloud services or the creation of an app store front-end for the SCL that allows you to just install apps in a single click from the SCL. Updated email, web support etc are all predicated on that really - and on it being transparent, no re-code everything to use OpenSSL.
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cgallaty Page Icon Posted 2021-10-22 2:13 PM
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This is the joy of IoT entering the scene. Everything old is new again and folks are interested in solving these issues. Clearly the focus is shifted, but that does not mean the work done can't be adapted. Case in point is MP3 back in the day. It was considered intractable until some one did the maths and they came up with an integer based decoder. Part of what lead me back to some of these older platforms. It's a lot easier to mess with a chip if getting a screen to talk to it is not part of the project.

As for encryption, a quick poke shows that some folks have been hacking at the issue (case in point https://www.bearssl.org/ ) With the browser I think the bigger hurdle in practice is dealing with all the sites that demand that Javascript is functional but it would be interesting to start the project and see where it goes. Again, you have folks wanting to run things like Node.js on chips it really has no business being on, so perhaps someone already has a dent in a slim JS code. May be worth starting a project around it and see who shows up. ;D
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dl1av Page Icon Posted 2021-10-23 7:51 AM
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I think that live www (what everyone desperatly searches for) ist not the way to go.
I was one of those guys, too, when these devices were actually sold and it was a boring experience. Even with the sites from year 2000 without any fancy encryption or style sheets or whatever. Nothing worked the same way as with my Windows98-PC

But it was cool to use those devices with a datacard, looked very futuristic

Today I would like to see some new organizer apps. Or a frontend to use some actual (google) maps offline. Memory is not an issue anymore and the rendering to display it on the limited device can be done somewhere else.

So I want to use it as an office assistant the way it was intended to - kind of

I have a GPD Micro-PC here which is smaller than the usual Jornada and has a common Intel architecture so all Windows/Linux/whatever stuff runs fine. But the user experience is less than optimal because all modern applications depend on big screens with high resolution. They are not optimized for mobile use (this is done with the Android platform today).
You may use Thunderbird organizer on a 6inch device but it´s more or less a proof of concept but not of good use if you are on the go or in a train and the device is shaking or the sun is too bright.




Edited by dl1av 2021-10-23 7:53 AM
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cgallaty Page Icon Posted 2021-10-25 5:29 PM
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I like the PIM app idea. I've been wanting to revisit that space for a while. Looking at the syncing I was thinking about that again, but like a real solid task management system would still be quite useful on the platform.
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C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2021-10-25 5:52 PM
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When you say task manager, do you mean like the Windows Task Manager?

If so, we do have several legacy ones already e.g. https://www.hpcfactor.com/scl/237/WR-Tools/WR-Tools_Resinfo/version_...
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cgallaty Page Icon Posted 2021-10-25 6:52 PM
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"Task Manager" as in "It's Wednesday, so you need to take the rubbish out to the curb." not as in managing processes. Having a good one is an issue on even a modern system. The plus side is the client tends to be like weight and tends to use a stock 'sync' paradigm for functionality and so works in the older paradigm. The plus side being that you would also not be 'stuck' on an older bit of software as you could use it on a newer device as well.
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C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2021-10-26 7:59 AM
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Gotcha. In that case, apart from Outlook, I think CE Agenda was the one to beat:
https://www.hpcfactor.com/qlink/?linkID=83
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