Older blog entries for i0lanthe (starting at number 20)

iLarn - It is an iLarny evening. Fixed the DND store bug I mentioned yesterday. Wrote a small new survey regarding the little four-button popup form.

To do - Unfortunately, no time for any of it this weekend but that's another story. The iLarn map still needs @ and stair squiggles re-inserted; then, zip up a 0.25 alpha for sourceforge, freshmeat, and turn on the survey. Maybe the backordered IIIc will show up by then.
Sometime, I also ought to grovel in the crashy iLarnSaveDB.pdb that a user submitted a while back, since the emulator doesn't crash it for me no matter which ROM I use. Must remember to do this.

Reality - Got back from demo-land, yesterday. Consumed by email and stuff, today. This weekend has already been allocated for ungeeky things (unless operating a consumer GPS counts).

Fantasy - Maybe I can get some debugging done on.. um.. Friday night. Yeah. Chiefly I would like to uncover the doubtless-trivial-and-stupid reason why the store in iLarn went AWOL when I upgraded to SDK 3.5 in the current CVS snapshot. Wait, I don't think there were enough acronyms in that sentence, let me try it again.

IIIc is backordered. sob.

Happy birthday to [someone who isn't here].

Time to pack, to go to a friend's wedding in another city, come home long enough to sleep, then leave for a demo in a city in the opposite direction. This is a little weird even for me.

Handera - The contest deadline seems to be extended a few weeks, to July 2, 2001. Odds are much better that I will have a Handerified game or two ready by then.
I am vaguely wondering whether "Comply with PalmOS UI Guidelines" includes "oh, and move all the modal dialogues down an inch if the virtual silkscreen is minimized" which (a) I'm not actually sure how to do yet and (b) is not done by the modified standard applications on the modified POSE I downloaded either.

Shopping - I ordered a IIIc from Palm just for testing color (telepathically they sensed my crying need and lowered rates for developers last week or so). Alpha testers can breathe a little easier.
The ice FlipCover that I ordered for my Visor has arrived.

House - Computer move has been postponed while we do some rewiring. heh.

Consistency is definitely not the hobgoblin of Handera developer documentation.

Rainy day. Gearing up to move all the computers from this room to another room. This will require much moving of other things first, for the other room is non-empty.

... back from ICSE ...

Yay Handera. Guess now I have no excuse to be lazy.

I just read what hacker wrote about Handera POSE, Handspring POSE, Palm, Etc. Heh.
[random people who say] "..the GPL means nothing unless it's tested in court..."
guess they haven't thought through that if it literally means nothing, then perhaps there have been no rights granted to them by the author, and they shouldn't be using the source at all?

This week I saw a thread in comp.sys.palmtops.pilot about scopin' out how apps will look on the Handera 330. Since iRogue and company make assumptions about screen size (yeah, yeah, it's easier that way) and the 330 doesn't have the what-me-worry pixel doubling of the new Clie N-whatever, I thought "hm, better check this out", which I, a user of PRC-Tools and Linux, could do only because when people need Powerpoint and certain games, Lo, they will naturally have Windows machines which can be borrowed and used to run POSE briefly.

(In case anyone cares, iRogue looked fine in regular font, but of course the extra-small font defined by me looked even crappier than it would on 160x160; and, if you close the silkscreen area and then tap around in it, the principle of least surprise is most likely not going to be upheld.)

To provide incentive for people to actually put enough special-case what-OS-am-i-this-week code in their apps to take advantage of the wacky new screen size and the disappearing silkscreen area, there is a contest on their developers page (which you get to via "Support", or in my case by looking everywhere else first) wherein the 12 best all-wackiness-supporting submitted apps will get a free 330.

so, all ye diary readers, Should I care enough to at least find out whether it's possible to "upgrade" an app as they wish by using the PRC-Tools? (Even if it is possible, gahhh, I would have to test elsewhere under Windows! Inconvenient at best.) What are the odds of iRogue (etc) users caring, or of me winning anything, anyway? Or, should I not even waste time thinking about it and simply shun them for not releasing POSE code?

We are plotting to move all the computers at home (of which there are hrair) from this room to the (furnished differently but just as thoroughly) slightly larger and (more importantly) better ventilated room next door, at the end of the month. This promises to be interesting. So far I have moved two bookcases and an air conditioner and then we drilled a hole in the wall, because, well, every home project should involve either duct tape or drilling a hole in the wall; I certainly can't recall the last one that didn't.
I haven't told the fish yet but the aquarium is going to have to move too. They are not going to be pleased.