Jason and Dave's ThoughtCast - August 16, 2005

[Dave Conger]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/thoughtcasts/jasondave08162005.mp3' target='_blank'>http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/tho...ave08162005.mp3</a><br /><br /></div>The ThoughtCast world is expanding! Ed's been doing such a great job with the ThoughtCast but we want to provide even more content coming to you over the RSS feed. Jason Dunn and I connected up a little while back to chat about things that were going on in the mobile devices market. Of course Jason is in Canada and I am the US so we didn't actually meet up, but through the miracle that is Skype we were able to chat. This is the first part of our chat. Part two will be on the way soon.<br /><br />Show notes:<br />• Mass Storage in the PDA Market<br />• Features that need improving (using the LifeDrive as an example)<br />• Why memory sizes have stayed small<br />• Storing Programs and Data<br />• Windows Mobile 5 Look and Feel<br /><br />Direct Link to this show: <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/thoughtcasts/jasondave08162005.mp3">Download</a><br />RSS Feed: <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/xml/thoughtcast.xml">PPCT ThoughtCast Feed</a><br /><br />And actually, Jason and I thought it would be cool to include a special edition ThoughtCast as well. This is our "beta" show we recorded back in March 2005 - Jason had a headset microphone that picked up a lot of "popping p's", so you'll have to excuse frequent "pppops". It isn't really Pocket PC heavy in content, but we wanted to pass it along to you as well to spur some discussion.<br /><br />Show notes:<br />• Skype and VoIP<br />• WiFi/Cell Service Jumping<br />• WiMax for Data Service<br />• Internet as a Utility<br /><br />Direct Link to this show: <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/thoughtcasts/jasondavebeta.mp3">Download</a><br />RSS Feed: <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/xml/thoughtcast.xml">PPCT ThoughtCast Feed</a>

[MS Mobiles]

Interesting podcast but I have impression that it is an advertisement for PalmOne company (due to much talk about PalmOne's Lifedrive product), rather than a podcast about Windows Mobile... did you get paid by PalmOne for that Podcast?

[x999x]

Interesting podcast but I have impression that it is an advertisement for PalmOne company (due to much talk about PalmOne's Lifedrive product), rather than a podcast about Windows Mobile... did you get paid by PalmOne for that Podcast?

My "thoughts" exactly.

[surur]

Re the Lifedrive.

I believe the 32Mb ram is devided between 16Mb for the OS, which is therefore always in cache, 10Mb cache for software and databases and 6 Mb dynamic ram.

Surur

[Dave Conger]

All I will say is that sometimes your thoughts will make you think about more than just Windows Mobile. The LifeDrive is a major competitor to the media-centric nature of Windows Mobile. On occasion, Pocket PC Thoughts covers competitor news as well. This was an "occasion" for the ThoughtCast and just happen to be one of the things we were thinking about at the time.

There is sure a lot of bashing of the product for it to be an advertisement. By the way, PalmOne has changed its name (though you hear us refer to the company as PalmOne because the podcast was recorded just before the official name change). This is why compitor news is covered :-).

[Dave Conger]

I believe the 32Mb ram is devided between 16Mb for the OS, which is therefore always in cache, 10Mb cache for software and databases and 6 Mb dynamic ram.

Mmmm, not sure that is right. Palm did state, at least to me, that it was a 32 MB cache for the hard drive, not for storage. Could be wrong though. I also see that in a number of places across the web as well. Note that the hard drive also has "64 MB RAM" on it as well.

[surur]

The HDD has a 64Mb partition, which takes the role of NVFS (Non-Volatile File System). This is "mirrored" to the executable RAM, so that everything is preserved in case of powerr loss. On bootup (e.g. after a soft reset) it takes 2 minutes to check the intergrity of the drive and load up the OS into the 32Mb RAM. For many people resets are quite frequent (the only failure mode it seems for a device without protected memory)

There is an application called sharkcache which will lock your databases to ram, so it wont be paged out by other software, but this itself causes many crashes.

The LifeDrive is very crashtastic. I sure hope when Dell implements their HDD PPC it does it a lot better (using real flash rom and real RAM). The 'HDD drive support in WM5' does worry me a bit. Do they mean th ability to use the HDD in place of flash storage? I'm sure that ppc would suck as much as the LD.

Surur

[Jason Dunn]

...did you get paid by PalmOne for that Podcast?

Yes, they paid Dave and myself enough to buy a small island, so I'm going to retire there next week. Time to start packing! :roll:

I'll respond to serious questions only.

[Dave Conger]

The LifeDrive is very crashtastic. I sure hope when Dell implements their HDD PPC it does it a lot better (using real flash rom and real RAM)...

I agree, and I think that is what Jason and I were poking at. :) This is a kind of product that should be on the Windows Mobile line, though we hope that Dell and others will do it better.

[PatrickD]

Great job guys. Dave you sound like a professional broadcaster :D If Jason and Dave did get paid to advertise the life drive, then it is no wonder Palm is in trouble, because I don't think they will get many sales from that review :wink: Anyway, I think it is valuable to see what the competition is doing. As long as it is a constructive and balanced review (which I think it was) and not just an exercise in Palm bashing then I am interested.

[surur]

Well, a balanced review would have to include the positives:

1) Large HDD
2) Ability to use as an Ipod with Napster et al, using a $35 upgrade to Janus/ PlayforSure.
3) Comes with software to rip your DVDs.
4) Comes with software to synchronize your My Documents folder on your Desktop.
5) Rather nice looks (accept for thickness)

If a PPC OEM makes a HDD device I would expect them to do all of the above, so the functionality of the HDD is Out Of The Box (ie. movies, music and large amount of documents are easily implemented by newbies.)

Surur

[Dave Conger]

Great job guys. Dave you sound like a professional broadcaster :D

Maybe I am... :wink:

Thanks, glad you liked the show.

[OSUKid7]

Great job guys. Dave you sound like a professional broadcaster :D
Agreed! Great job guys. And yes, I can tell the difference between Jason and Dave now. ;) I'd heard Jason's voice before, but not often enough (and you have to admit, they're a bit similar, right?? er...maybe not...anyway :p).

Listening now. :)

[OSUKid7]

Regarding WiMAX in the beta ThoughtCast, the way I always thought it should work is somehow like you described the subletting from your ISP, but I differ a little. We already have a great wireless LAN technology, WiFi. So that should stay, and improve of course thorough future 802.11 specs. WiMAX should be provided by the ISP, and you can then by a router that connects WiMAX to your home/business WiFi network. IMO, the wide range of WiMAX should be used to reach the outer areas with fast, reliable broadband, not as a replacement for WiFi.

[Patrick Y.]

GREAT JOB!! This thoughtcast is extremely informative and entertaining. I thoroughly enjoy it. 8) I will be looking forward to the next one. Again, it is fantastic!! :D

[bvkeen]

Dave and Jason: a very informative and well-done podcast. Thank you.

It's too bad about Palm, in my old-fashioned, capitalistic view, because I do think competition is good for everyone. But sounds like they have blown it with the LifeDrive (or whatever it's called now), and I was definitely disappointed with the T5 and Treo 650 that I had - good thing that I never gave up my x50v.

Jason, you briefly mentioned some disappointments with WM5 memory management, or maybe a better way to say it is that you mentioned that some expectations weren't met. Can you elaborate without violating NDA? I am very, very much looking forward to WM5, as the ONLY complaint I have ever had with my x50v is memory (and I use every tweak imaginable and store as much as practical into BIS). I never run below 20MB free program memory, but anything less than 25 leaves me a little unsettled (maybe I'm just spoiled by having had a 128MB RAM e805 as my first VGA device). I would love to load Pocket Plus and Spb Diary and Spb Time onto my system, but all should really be installed to RAM and that would just put it too low for me. But, my understanding is that all of these products would work with WM5, so I could use them. BUT, you mentioned some continuing memory management problems (at least that's what I thought I heard) ... ?

Looking forward to future thoughtcasts gents. Well done.

[Mitch D]

Interesting podcast but I have impression that it is an advertisement for PalmOne company (due to much talk about PalmOne's Lifedrive product), rather than a podcast about Windows Mobile... did you get paid by PalmOne for that Podcast?

Hmmm.... somethings never change... :twak:

[mangochutneyman]

The HDD has a 64Mb partition, which takes the role of NVFS (Non-Volatile File System). This is "mirrored" to the executable RAM, so that everything is preserved in case of powerr loss. On bootup (e.g. after a soft reset) it takes 2 minutes to check the intergrity of the drive and load up the OS into the 32Mb RAM. For many people resets are quite frequent (the only failure mode it seems for a device without protected memory)

There is an application called sharkcache which will lock your databases to ram, so it wont be paged out by other software, but this itself causes many crashes.

The LifeDrive is very crashtastic. I sure hope when Dell implements their HDD PPC it does it a lot better (using real flash rom and real RAM). The 'HDD drive support in WM5' does worry me a bit. Do they mean th ability to use the HDD in place of flash storage? I'm sure that ppc would suck as much as the LD.

Surur

Here is a good explanation of how ram/Nand/HD is integrated into NVFS devices like the Lifedrive:

http://www.red-mercury.com/nvfs.html

I short the Lifedrive has:
HD total Size =4GB partitioned into 64 MB 'ram' and 3.86 GB user accessible...

Boot Code ?? (however other NVFS devices like T5, Treo have &lt; 1 MB)

Compressed ROM (~14 MB)

User Data or Storage Heap [ram] (64 MB)

Internal Volume (3.86 GB)

RAM (Total Size = 32MB)
Decompressed Rom (16 MB)
DB Cache Area (10 MB) - to keep HD in sync with HD
Dynamic Heap (6 MB)

Thus you could say, modern NVFS based Palm's only really have 10 MB of actual ram! IMO, I wish palm would have increased the DB cache >10 to improve performance, but there are probably other mitigating factors like battery life etc to deal with too...

Apps like SharkCache (http://www.ludustech.com/modules.php?name=SharkCache) and Resco Locker (http://www.resco.net/palm/locker/) (latter is free btw) reduce lag by locking apps into the DB cache thereby reducing time to load...

I wonder how WM05 will execute it so called 'persistant memory' any differently than PalmOS...

[Jason Dunn]

Jason, you briefly mentioned some disappointments with WM5 memory management, or maybe a better way to say it is that you mentioned that some expectations weren't met. Can you elaborate without violating NDA?

I don't actually recall what I said, so can you be a bit more specific? I'll answer if I can. :-)

[bvkeen]

Jason, you briefly mentioned some disappointments with WM5 memory management, or maybe a better way to say it is that you mentioned that some expectations weren't met. Can you elaborate without violating NDA?

I don't actually recall what I said, so can you be a bit more specific? I'll answer if I can. :-)

Jason:

"There's still a lot of things missing from Windows Mobile 5 in terms of memory management that drive me nuts...."

(I had to listen to it again to see exactly what was said.)

Basically, you and Dave had finished talking about LifeDrive and why it didn't buffer better (at all?) and into running programs on flash ROM, vice a card, and so on.

Your statement seems to me to have been an "WM5 could be a bit better" type comment rather than a "it's no help at all" type comment, but, still, it caught my interest. Bottom line for me would be: do I need to go ahead and do the 128MB RAM upgrade, or is WM5 going to make me a happy enough camper? Maybe it's all too subjective to answer (?) .

Thanks,
Bruce

[KTamas]

Bottom line for me would be: do I need to go ahead and do the 128MB RAM upgrade, or is WM5 going to make me a happy enough camper? Maybe it's all too subjective to answer (?)

My secret hope for WM5 is a RamDisk driver (oh wait, there is one already, mmmmm... if you read xda-developers, you know what i mean)...Cause that could operate as some sort of fast-storage. Of course, it is ram and you lose it at hard reset.. but it will be faster.

[bvkeen]

My secret hope for WM5 is a RamDisk driver (oh wait, there is one already, mmmmm... if you read xda-developers, you know what i mean)...Cause that could operate as some sort of fast-storage. Of course, it is ram and you lose it at hard reset.. but it will be faster.

I see.
I saw mention of the Ramdisk on the WM blog, in connection with power-user use for PIE. Sounds like I can avoid the expense of the 128 MB upgrade.
Thank you.

[Jason Dunn]

"There's still a lot of things missing from Windows Mobile 5 in terms of memory management that drive me nuts...."

Oh that! I was thinking more along the lines of storage management - things like Pocket Internet Explorer not having a way to limit the size of the cache, etc. You'll still be good with 64 MB of RAM for execution.

[bvkeen]

Oh that! I was thinking more along the lines of storage management - things like Pocket Internet Explorer not having a way to limit the size of the cache, etc. You'll still be good with 64 MB of RAM for execution.

Thanks, Jason. I appreciate knowing this. I really get po'd at the RAM sometimes [I get that way too easily at my age]. Sounds like PIE issues are all I'll need to be concerned about, and I doubt it'll be a big issue for me.