Photographic evidence of PPC abuse

[Dave Beauvais]

I would like to ask that all Pocket PC Thoughts readers take a moment to silently grieve for the mortally wounded Toshiba e405 pictured below, killed in the line of duty. While diligently standing watch in its kiosk in a Columbus, Ohio Micro Center (http://www.microcenter.com/) store, serving to advertise the capabilities of its brothers and sisters to passing customers, it was struck down in a brutal attack by an unknown assailant. Unable to flee from the attack due to its restraints, the valiant device was subjected to multiple forms of torture as its kiosk mates looked on in helpless agony. The touch screen was deeply gouged repeatedly by a sharp, possibly metal object, and its buttons were damaged by being pressed with far more force than they were intended to withstand. Ultimately, the mostly defenseless e405 was unable to hold out any longer, and powered down one last time.

http://www.beauvais1.com/images/ppc/scratched_e405.jpg

Terrified by the horrible acts of terror they had just witnessed, the other devices in the kiosk were found to be suffering from multiple forms of shock and mental stress. One iPAQ was found to be stuck in a soft reset loop, while a second iPAQ, a tiny h1945, was suffering from complete memory loss, its settings and demo software lost as a result of an apparent self-inflicted hard reset. It's possible it had attempted to purge its memory of the horrific events it has recently witnessed.

Fear not, poor Pocket PCs, for your legacy shall live on in the minds and pockets of users such as us who faithfully care for our own Pocket PCs and mourn over the conditions you are forced to live in. Many of us also take it upon ourselves to keep you and those like you in proper working order -- despite neglect by those who are supposed to oversee you -- by performing healing soft resets, cleaning you of useless data entered by uncaring consumers, and occasionally beaming you a clean set of themes to make you more attractive to passers by. We salute you.

;)

[OSUKid7]

Ouch. Who would do something like that? I hope they made him (her?) pay lol.

I never shop at MicroCenter anymore really. Terrible prices. Wide variety is the only thing they've got going, but nothing beats online shopping.

[ghostppc]

Oh yeah, it was definitely a conspiracy!!! Just look at the casing. It couldn't possibly be a simple accident. It was an inside job. Someone had to unlock the security mechanisms, leaving the poor Toshiba completely vulnerable and defenseles. All the while the assailant was waiting in the book depository, ready to hit his target!!!! :snipersmile: Possibly even a well planned....."walk-by!"

[Ryan Joseph]

This device shall be remembered with honor. We've all witnessed horrors like this in our local stores where devices are strapped down and assulted by the clueless "public."

It's a rare and unique task to be a display device. Most never have to experience the onslaught of so many curious hands. Most are lovingly cared for by single owners. Most live long, productive lives. And while it's true that some are struck down by a single unfortunate accident by their owners, the vast majority live to a ripe old age and die in their sleep.

These devices, however, have a higher calling. They are asked to sacrifice everything and to be an example of all the other devices. Such a calling, whether it results in death or not, should be respected.

For all those who fall in the line of duty, we stand by you. Your memory will never die and you will always hold a special place in our hearts.

We will now observe a moment of silence (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/media/users/7636/Taps.mid) for all of the fallen devices, past and present.

[OSUKid7]

moment of silence (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/media/users/7636/Taps.mid)
Windows Media Player encountered an unknown error.
Oh no! They've killed the music too!

[Kati Compton]

Windows Media Player encountered an unknown error.
Oh no! They've killed the music too!
"...but I knew I was out of luck, the day, the music, died."

[Pony99CA]

http://www.beauvais1.com/images/ppc/scratched_e405.jpg
I don't see any image in either Mozilla or IE. If I try to access the photo directly, I get the following:

HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

You do not have permission to access the file or location you attempted. Please go to the Front Page.
I did, and it didn't show up in your Blog, either.

Steve

P.S. The subject made me think this was going to be a thread about Ronald Reagan's death.

[Kati Compton]

I don't see any image in either Mozilla or IE. If I try to access the photo directly, I get the following:

HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

You do not have permission to access the file or location you attempted. Please go to the Front Page.
Weird! I see it fine...

P.S. The subject made me think this was going to be a thread about Ronald Reagan's death.
Actually, me too.

[Kacey Green]

I was afraid from looking at the subject that it would be something much worse (one of our fellow PPCTers)

[Pony99CA]

I don't see any image in either Mozilla or IE. If I try to access the photo directly, I get the following:

HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

You do not have permission to access the file or location you attempted. Please go to the Front Page.
Weird! I see it fine...

Do you see the image in this thread or visiting the URL directly? In the thread, here is what I see:

JPEG Image, 400×533, 27.8 KB
I cleared my browser cache, refreshed the page, then looked in the cache folder and found a 28 KB file. I renamed it to a .jpg file, but trying to open it in Microsoft Photo Editor or Photoshop gave me an error saying the type couldn't be determined.

I don't have problems viewing other JPEG images. Weird indeed! :?

Steve

[Kacey Green]

No, I'm here late and I still got the Image just fine so its not a case of being PPCTed

[Pony99CA]

No, I'm here late and I still got the Image just fine so its not a case of being PPCTed
I didn't think it was. I thought Dave might have taken the image down for some reason, but I don't think so anymore. See the update I made to my previous post as you were writing yours.

Steve

[Dave Beauvais]

... I renamed it to a .jpg file, but trying to open it in Microsoft Photo Editor or Photoshop gave me an error saying the type couldn't be determined. ... Weird indeed! :?
That really is weird. The image is definitely still online and loads fine in Firefox and IE under WinXP and Firefox, Mozilla, and Konqueror on a Linux box I have here. I only allow images to be loaded from certain sites -- PPCT among them -- which is why you got the forbidden error. I really have no idea why it's not loading for you. Interestingly, no 403 errors are showing up in my server logs for the past few hours. :?

P.S. The subject made me think this was going to be a thread about Ronald Reagan's death.
At the time I posted this, I hadn't heard of his death. If it won't screw anything up, I'll certainly edit the original post to change the subject line, and I apologize to anyone who got sucked into this light-hearted thread thinking it was a tribute to President Reagan.

[Kacey Green]

Regan our comrade, Ha! (No disrespect intended) He was a politician and with political discussions being disallowed, it didn't even cross my mind (sad stuff though)

[Pony99CA]

... I renamed it to a .jpg file, but trying to open it in Microsoft Photo Editor or Photoshop gave me an error saying the type couldn't be determined. ... Weird indeed! :?
That really is weird. The image is definitely still online and loads fine in Firefox and IE under WinXP and Firefox, Mozilla, and Konqueror on a Linux box I have here. I only allow images to be loaded from certain sites -- PPCT among them -- which is why you got the forbidden error. I really have no idea why it's not loading for you.
Did you process the image with any software? The size doesn't look like it would have come directly from a digital camera. Maybe you could open the image in another program, resave it, and use that version. I'm curious to see what the fuss was about. :-)

Steve

[Pony99CA]

Regan our comrade, Ha!
Donald Regan (http://www.ustreas.gov/education/history/secretaries/dtregan.html) was Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Treasury. He died last year.

Seriously, at least spell the man's name correctly -- he was only our President. :roll: (Besides, I spelled it correctly in my first post, so you could have just copied it.)

Steve

[Kacey Green]

Its way past my bed tyme and u know I can't spewl aftwer then

you knew who I ment :D

This is Kacey Green saying good night every body
"Good Night"

[Dave Beauvais]

Did you process the image with any software? The size doesn't look like it would have come directly from a digital camera. Maybe you could open the image in another program, resave it, and use that version. I'm curious to see what the fuss was about. :-)
It's a pic from the camera in my phone (http://www.sanyo.com/wireless/handsets/PM-8200.htm). I opened the JPEG in Photoshop (v7.0.1) to fix the color just a bit, sharpen it a little, and reduce the size to 400 pixels wide in accordance with image posting guidelines here at PPCT. I then resaved the image as a new file.

I'd be interested to know what's causing the problem, but I don't think it's the image itself since it displays normally on every browser I've thrown at it.

[Jon Westfall]

This was truly one sad and horrible tale. But Kudos to Dave for making it so humerous to read.

;)

[dh]

Regan our comrade, Ha! (No disrespect intended) He was a politician and with political discussions being disallowed, it didn't even cross my mind (sad stuff though)
Regardless of politics, Reagan was certainly one of the few people who made a real difference to the world in the 20th Century.

Stalin, Hitler, Churchill. Roosevelt, Reagan, are the main ones I can think of on a world scale.

On a more regional scale people like De Clerk and Mandela, Martin Luther King come to mind.

Who have I missed?

[Jon Westfall]

Regan our comrade, Ha! (No disrespect intended) He was a politician and with political discussions being disallowed, it didn't even cross my mind (sad stuff though)
Regardless of politics, Reagan was certainly one of the few people who made a real difference to the world in the 20th Century.

Stalin, Hitler, Churchill. Roosevelt, Reagan, are the main ones I can think of on a world scale.

On a more regional scale people like De Clerk and Mandela, Martin Luther King come to mind.

Who have I missed?

World Scale: Mao, Lenin
Special Interest: Bill Gates, Jason Dunn

[Kacey Green]

Regan our comrade, Ha! (No disrespect intended) He was a politician and with political discussions being disallowed, it didn't even cross my mind (sad stuff though)
Regardless of politics, Reagan was certainly one of the few people who made a real difference to the world in the 20th Century.

Stalin, Hitler, Churchill. Roosevelt, Reagan, are the main ones I can think of on a world scale.

On a more regional scale people like De Clerk and Mandela, Martin Luther King come to mind.

Who have I missed?

World Scale: Mao, Lenin
Special Interest: Bill Gates, Jason Dunn

By as I said in my post I was reading comrade as a PPCT member, I'm sure President Reagan was not here as a member. (nothing is impossible)

It doesn't even matter anymore now that the subject doesn't read "A moment of silence for a fallen comrade"

[Steven Cedrone]

O.K. guys. Feel free to start an off-topic post about President Reagan...

Steve

[Kacey Green]

I already said this wasn't about the president, I thought we lost a member and said that in my original post. (we already had one hand and one ppc in the last month oh and a phone)

Edit: make that two PPCs with this little guy suffering up in the kiosk :(

[v_ralev]

Are you kidding?
My device is in this condition since an year, and it works just fine. :)

[Pony99CA]

Are you kidding?
My device is in this condition since an year, and it works just fine. :)
I can hear Dave calling the PDA Cops right now. :rotfl:

My Sharp Mobilon Handheld PC is in worse condition; it has a cracked screen. Fortunately, because Handheld PCs had keyboards, I could still use it for most things (some games weren't playable because they required the stylus, and a few system programs aren't controllable, either).

Steve

[Pony99CA]

Did you process the image with any software? The size doesn't look like it would have come directly from a digital camera. Maybe you could open the image in another program, resave it, and use that version. I'm curious to see what the fuss was about. :-)
It's a pic from the camera in my phone (http://www.sanyo.com/wireless/handsets/PM-8200.htm). I opened the JPEG in Photoshop (v7.0.1) to fix the color just a bit, sharpen it a little, and reduce the size to 400 pixels wide in accordance with image posting guidelines here at PPCT. I then resaved the image as a new file.

I'd be interested to know what's causing the problem, but I don't think it's the image itself since it displays normally on every browser I've thrown at it.
For those following the saga of my not being able to view the image, I took the problem with the image to Private Messages to avoid dragging the forum off-topic. If anybody cares (yeah, right :lol:), here's what happened.

Dave kindly sent me the picture, which I had no problem viewing. I sent him the one downloaded from here, and he couldn't view it. Oddly, I had no problem viewing the picture in this thread from my daughter's computer. I'm not sure we cleared anything up, but at least I got to see what the fuss was about. :-)

Steve

[jgrnt1]

Steve,

It's not just you. I get exactly the same thing when trying to view the image. WinXP Home and IE6. Other images in the forum display just fine.

[Kacey Green]

maybe it's a setting somewhere?

[Pony99CA]

maybe it's a setting somewhere?
So what setting tells a browser to download a corrupted version of the image?

As I said, I got a file in the cache, but no image viewer I tried would view it. When Dave sent me the image directly, I had no problem viewing it.

Steve

[Kacey Green]

you know what i meant!

it should refresh and not keep that corrupt version have you checked for gremlins?

[Pony99CA]

you know what i meant!
Yeah, but since you didn't suggest a specific setting (or even a specific program to check settings in), I didn't find it a particularly helpful suggestion. It's not like I haven't been trying to think of what settings could cause this.

it should refresh and not keep that corrupt version
Yes, it should -- but it didn't. I had cleared the cache and refreshed the page in Mozilla and got the same error. I tried viewing the page in Internet Explorer (which uses a different cache) and got the same error. I tried viewing the picture on Dave's blog site, and still got the error.

Since I can view the image without problem on my daughter's computer, I know it must be something on my system, but I'm at a loss to figure out what.

have you checked for gremlins?
If you mean viruses or Trojans, I'm behind my router's NAT firewall and Norton Personal Firewall (which I turned off to see if that was causing the problem -- it wasn't), so I doubt a worm got me. I have Norton Anti-Virus running all the time and I don't run attachments in E-mail, so I doubt I have a virus or a Trojan Horse.

I also just tried Spybot Search & Destory and the Bazooka Spyware Scanner and didn't find anything. I'm running the SwatIt Trojan Horse scanner and doing a full scan on my C: drive with Norton Anti-Virus now, but I don't expect them to find anything.

As I said, only this one image has been a problem, so it's not something general with images. However, no image viewer I tried could view it and the image caused problems on two browsers and two different Web sites, so it does seem to be system-wide. If you have a specific suggestion, let me know, but I doubt that vague suggestions are going to help.

Steve

[Kacey Green]

maybe something along the lines of the file that says what's local and what's wan/internet (hosts I think it is)
point is can you view any of his other images on his site?

[Pony99CA]

maybe something along the lines of the file that says what's local and what's wan/internet (hosts I think it is)
Here's my hosts file:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost

It looks pretty virgin to me. :-)

point is can you view any of his other images on his site?
I checked Dave's blog again, but don't see any images on the home page other than the mutilated Pocket PC one (which just shows up as text anyway).

If Dave posts a link to a story with another JPEG image, I'll certainly be happy to check it.

Steve

[Dave Beauvais]

The image that displays (or should) in the root of this thread is the exact same image that's on my site. (i.e., the image tag is referencing the same file on my server.) It's not surprising that you have the problem here and there. :)

I'll resave the image using different settings to see if that makes a difference for you and post here when that's done.