For quite some time ExactCODE was shipping a Mac OS X TWAIN driver for Avision document scanners. However, with ExactScan version 2 the device support was now extended to cover many Kodak and most Visioneer and Xerox document scanners as well!
This includes, but not limited to the devices: Avision: AV121, AV122, AV210 C2, AV220 C2, AV610 C2, AV3200 SU, AV3750 SU, AV3850SU, AV8050U, AV8350, FB2080E, FB6080E - Kodak: i30, i40, i55, i65 - Visioneer: Patriot 430, Patriot 470, 9450 USB, 9650, 9750 PDF, Patriot 680, Patriot 780 - Xerox: DocuMate 152, DocuMate 250, DocuMate 252, DocuMate 262, DocuMate 272, DocuMate 510, DocuMate 520, DocuMate 632, DocuMate 752.
However, ExactScan 2 is not just about more devices: Under the hood it was completely redesigned and rewritten from scratch to allow monitoring the current scanner’s hardware buttons and profile selection and perform scans to be invoken by a fingertip on the scanner.
Also new are a bunch of ExactCODE’s image enhancement algorithms for automatic and intelligent binarization of images for massive long term archiving, very accurate and fully automatic auto-crop and de-skew as well as faster sharpening, de-screening and more.
This way ExactScan matured from a classic TWAIN data source it was in version 1, to a full blown image processing suite that also runs persistently in the background to monitor scanner actions, interface with existing TWAIN applications non-the-less and comes with sophisticated, state-of-the-art image processing.
Designed for Apple’s Mac OS X.
Made by ExactCODE in Germany.
Now, after all the year++ of waiting for a smaller MacBook, like the size of the former 12″ PowerBook “sub-notebook”, Apple wants to sell us the MacBook Air? Nice try but they should have tried a little harder - at least my expectations are not really satisfied:
Form: A wedge shaped - something one expects from Sony and Dell? It’s not as simple and stylish as the last designs.
Keyboard: Black keyboard in an Alu case? Not without reasons the external Alu keyboard has white keys - this really does not match into the line … Imagine the external Alu keyboard connected to the “Air”, …
Ports: Too few ports! At least 2 USB ports are a must, and where is Firewire? - Especially with the need of an external drive (which, however, is good ™ I was waiting for this space reduction for quite some time already) a little more connectivity would be welcome.
Ethernet: Or, the lack of it. Much fun opening professional image, audio and video files from a network server, think Photoshop or Video editing or just copying those huge Xcode project folders around
The moving ports door: To break apart sooner than later. At least it is not a rubber clutter as Sony is using.
Battery: Built-in battery? So no second battery for longer traveling abroad and bring-in plus service fee every year when the battery is worn out
Speaker: Mono? What? Still living in the 70′th of the last century? As if back side, display reflecting stereo speakers of the lower price MacBook would have added much to the size …
Screen frame: Why the heck does this “world’s thinest” laptop come with such a big frame around the display that already looks so ugly on the MacBook? As small as on the Pro’s the frame should have been.
Air: Built-in 3G (UMTS) would have made the thing even more wireless in the Air abroad.
Name: Air? Why not MacBook nano or mini? Such a name would have fitted so much more into Apple’s current cooperate naming scheme.
In my opinion the 3D models and photoshop’ed images floating the net for some time where better designed. Maybe Apple should google for Mac mockups for inspiration more often …
So still waiting for the perfect sub-notebook to fill the gap still left open.
Finally my Neo1973 (advanced box) arrived. Finally, because I did not even expect it anymore. Not because they targetted beginning of 2007 to ship the initial prototypes, but because the people running the online store and shipment have been so unresponsible and did not answered a single mail asking on a status update. We where mostly curious, because we ordered early and the shop did not yet had the “no functional software” disclaimer and no color choice option. So we had to answer auto generated mails confirming “YES_I_DO” “know that there is no functional software” and which color to ship: “ORANGE”. But then there was a big silence - and apparently we thought the order would have been gone lost or whatever. But - well - now it is there.
Of course I knew the software is not ready, I even replied “YES_I_DO”. Actually I did not even care, because I’m going to use it for my own development. However, that it would be that incomplete, I did not dare to imagine: Depending on which image set you flash (2007.1 or 2007.2) you either get a little UI phoning capability, but unreadable buttons and fonts (2007.1) or no phoning, but better buttons and readable fonts (2007.2). No phoning due to a non starting gsmd. And on some actions, such as activating GSM with no SIM present and other variations the whole X server dies away. Ooops.
Even for images where a the gsmd is started, they usually (at least not for me for all the pre-built images I gave a try) did not even setup the ALSA mixer to route the GSM audio stream somewhere. And as there is not even an UI part to alter the audio level, yes. This mean you either have to use the built-in terminal or ssh into the phone to load ALSA settings in order to be able to communicate with the person you are talking with. Now both problems should be one-lines to fix, and I wonder why even after man years of development and nearly 1000 shipped phones this did not even happen?
13:18 < hhf423> so, here we go. the new SIM I have here gets accepted by the Neo
13:19 < hhf423> the not so funny part is that I do not get asked for a PIN. libgsmd-tool dialling works, though
13:20 < hhf423> oooh, i get asked for pin, the joy!
13:23 < woglinde> hhf423 hehe
13:23 < woglinde> dial 112
13:26 < hhf423> how do I crank up the vulume, I can hear nothing
13:27 < hhf423> something with slsa, no?
13:27 < hhf423> alsa
13:27 < woglinde> hhf423 alsamixer
13:27 < woglinde> m for mute/unmute
13:27 < woglinde> up down/left right
13:27 < hhf423> woglinde: where is that?
13:27 < woglinde> open console
13:28 < woglinde> type alsamixer
Additionally the closed GSM firmware of the Texas Instruments Calypso based chip has compatibility problems with most SIM cards from the year 2007. While my USIMv1 I use primary in my primary (functional) phone (Sony M600i) my second SIM I just got for testing the Neo phone is a USIMv2 which does work with the GSM modem at all. From the #openmoko IRC channel and their bug #666 it becomes obvious this is one of the biggest showstoppers for new users of the Neo1973 phone right now. Let’s hope FIC and TI can provide a firmware update in the future.
But if that is not all, the Neo has a rather short battery life right now, probably the reason why (at least my advanced) came with 2 battery packs. As the phone did not overlived the first night I explicitly turned it off the second, but still the battery was fully drained in the morning. Yes, while it was “software off”. Maybe the GSM modem was left on in the firmware was proposed as an answer on the #openmoko channel - probably, as I can not imagine the Philips power-management chip would draw that much energy.
Last but not least the GPS chip can not yet used due to no open protocol spec and no clearance to ship the binary blog from the manufacture, …
Well - that said it becomes clear why the OpenMoko company let you select:
Please note that the OpenMoko products are not meant for the end user and explicitly marked as Developer preview at this time. Read this wiki article to find more technical details of what you can and cannot expect of these devices. I have been warned!
Well any other company would probably be bashed badly with such a product, but - well - the OpenMoko is a shiny Open project. Well, almost. The driving force behind the phone is FIC, First International Computer, and it’s newly founded sub-company OpenMoko, Inc. Most development happens behind closed doors and closed IRC channels: #openmoko-devel and #openmoko-core can only be joined with a channel key. The hardware schematics are non-free and most of the time changes appear to be only communicated in the classic, one big PR event at a time fashion with counting news probabilites counting up in the channel:
Probability for major news utill next wednesday 70%.
Now while pointing out this mayor flaws in the #openmoko channel, you get badly bashed about beeing a troll, to go away, to be /ignored, … Now they care about their customers.
At last I like to point out that the OpenMoko folks are also not basing on existing open source code for their applications. With the focus on Gtk+, GPE would have been a natural choice. But the project decided to implement an own application stack from scratch, with custom Gtk+ widgets and applications - maybe to have some IP lock-in for their OpenMoko Inc. company?
For OpenMoko it can only be hoped they get their software stack into an better shape, because otherwise the “just average” phone hardware is of little use and not really an helpful promotion for Linux on embedded end user devics.
Update 2007-11-24:
Still not much progress update, The Rasterman is now paid by FIC/OpenMoko, while Harald Welte quit as technical project lead.
Some random daily IRC scroll-by:
17:35 < Writchie> Crofton: actually the “design process”, if it even exists, is completely closed.
17:35 * mwester still is stuck with a hammerhead.
17:36 < mwester> Writchie: the “if” is a big question when it comes to certain parts of the software ;)
17:36 < Writchie> and hardware
17:36 < buz_> mwester: even with the hardware i have my doubts
17:37 < Writchie> 9 spins of the board - gimme a break
17:38 < edistar> Writchie: 9? quite a lot..
17:38 < buz_> other companies churn out 2 phones a month
17:38 < edistar> buz_: lol.. but I hope the next generation will be faster..
17:39 < Writchie> not unless they get some engineering process
17:39 < edistar> Writchie: What does that mean?
17:39 < buz_> hiring some good industrial designers wouldnt hurt, either
17:40 < Writchie> chinese engineering teams do what you tell them - if you don’t tell them you can get anything
17:40 < CM> I think someone said GTA01 was designed by some guys in taiwan, but gta02 was done “in house”
17:40 < CVirus> in house ?
17:40 < CM> By OpenMoko
17:41 < oramirez> Hi, I am trying to install openmoko h3900 image, but it freezes at the booting. I have been searching for some work-around .. but I haven’t found anything.. any idea?
…
16:25 < borg_> abraxa_: i could deamonize neod and add dbus bindings and outsource the aux/power menu and the lock display, but i wont do it when neod will go anyway :)
16:26 < borg_> so it is like with every other application in openmoko, no information about the future of them at all.
For some time I keep an eye on normal PC laptops as the Mac world degenerates more and more to real junk quality. Most annoying right now is the high-frequency noise of the MacBook that is killing my nerves while I try to think about the innovative code and algorithms in our company and the ongoing battery issues that even sometimes keep the MacBook from powering on at all and all the other tiny details that are imperfect.
Now the Sony TZ series comes quite near to a good ultra-portable. Of course the CPU of the 1.1kg device only runs at 1 or 1.2 GHz (depending on how much money you have to spare), but that’s pretty fine for my normal business, programming tasks with the resouce efficent Linux kernel anyway (Vista anyone ?). But the Sony TZ series has some extremly annoying design bugs that really keep me from grabbing one:
no digital video output, no DVI nor HDMI nor Display Port - only good old VGA
glossy finish exactly where you touch it all the time: the keyboard area
as usual for Sony, the network port is mounted upside down. You have to lift the device to un-plug the network cable while on most other devices on the world you can comfortable press the RJ-45 nipple from the top.
superflous, sparkling media keys on the front side
and if you ever use Windows (thanks God I don’t) you get ugly black/white, “back to the 80s” on-screen notifications on brightness and volume change (as it was for previous Sony devices aas well)
The rest of the sub-notebook is really pretty neat, obviously because Sony was influenced by the MacBook design and nearly copied the keyboard 1:1 … :-)
However last but not least comes the price tag, and starting at 1.999 € (in Germany) for the entry model, over 2.699 € - for the model which has a black display cover, comes with 2 GB instead of 1 GB memory, 100 GB instead of 80 GB hard-disk and a finger print reader - up to 2.899 € for the top model - which comes with a 1.2 GHz (instead of 1 GHz) Core 2 Duo ULV CPU. Last but not least for 2.999 € you can get a 32 GB SSD (solid state disk) extra, special, ueber edition, … These prices are just insane. Other people get a whole car for that money!
And even despite the insane price I even still considered purchasing one (the least expensive one that is), but well - no digital video output to connect a high-definition display on my desk really kills the whole baby.
Since I was quite unimpressed by the Apple MacBook version 1 I got rid of it on eBay rather sooner than later.
In former times I bought PowerPC based Macs just for the hardware quality and run them with Linux-only. But with the MacBook revision 1 the quality reached a point where I rather would have bought any non-Apple laptop if there would be any reasonable. Unfortunatly the ordenary PC market does not yield an amazing quality either and among the vast amount of Linux related Open Source project my companies is involved in, we now have two Mac OS X products leaving me no choice but bite into the sour apple …
As the look of the device did not change at all the pros are quickly counted:
even faster
finally a 64 bit CPU as it is suppost to be in this millenium
appears not as hot and noisy as the MacBook v1
However nearly the same cons are counted up quickly as well:
still the same bad TFT
still high-pitch whining under low load when the CPU cores take a nap
still touchpad with low pressure point
still strange case finish / material visualizing every touch with detailed fingerprints
still the sharp edge border of the top case that cut’s into your wrist (c’mon Apple, even my years old iBook has a round top-case border!!!)
All in all not the worst choice compared to the even more depressing PC market, but definetly not the kind of hardware quality Apple once stood for.
Note: Apple updated the Atheros WIFI chipset to a flavour no Linux driver is available for, yet.
Update: The MADWifi project has a “alpha” driver for this Atheros chipset, now. However only unencrypted networks work so far.
In the past I happily choose Apple Laptops such as the legendary, black G3 PowerBook’s or the pleasant G3 iBooks (those with the transparent inside-white plastic) even for use with Linux instead of Apples OS - but nowadays after the disappointing MacBook experience I wonder what Laptop^W err Notebook one can even purchase.
Right, Notebook as Apple itself officially stats that their recent Notebooks are not for peoples laps … (huh?) :-(
And the rest of the PC market? Well, I read a lot reviews over the last days and I found not a single laptop I would invest into. Every el-cheapo PC noebook does usually just look pure ugly, with plastic nobs and holes and un-stylish forms all over the place and or has other major drawbacks (such as few connectors, a 32bit CPU and the like) or is big and clumpy.
The only devices I barely would consider are the aging Sharp Actius MM20 or the IBM^W Lenovo Thinkpad X60. But they have the drawback of a 32bit CPU and the later requires an expensive add-on docking station (I even consider the lack of an optional drive a pro - I barely need it and connecting one in the rare case is quite ok - especially when it saves me from carrying the unused drive with me all the time - but an $$$ docking station just for the DVI output?).
Well - poor PC market; I guess I end up with a Core 2 Duo MacBook (I do not like the PowerBook / MacBook Pro speaker design and their keyboards …) although I already heart in a store that is has the sime high frequency noise when idling and the same sharp top border design bug that I really wonder how Apple could let slip into production. At least it should have less “Kinderkrankheiten” and at comes with a 64bit CPU - if just the silly DC-DC converter whining would have been fixed - sigh.
Also this is a major drawback of Apple’s Mac platform: When you do not exactly love the current hardware they have for sale you are out of luck. No IBM X60 to escape too - well - at least not legally …
Good that despite one Mac product I’m in the Linux business and can choose any CPU and plastic combination I want too … (just too bad the other PC manufacturers sleep that much).
A few days ago the Sun T1000 machine arrived that we ordered for a 60 day trial’n buy run. Historically we already worked with and supplied Sun UltraSPARC machines and even are one of the few that support this platform in our own Linux distribution (T2 SDE).
Of course, this massively parallel machines are just impressive. With its 6 or 8 cores, each with 4 threads of execution you get 24 or 32 processes or threads running in parallel on your machine. Though only when they do integer computations, since all those threads share the same and only FPU (Floating Point Unit). Though usually this is not too much of an issue in classic thruput computing such as Web, File or Database serving or custom scientific applications where you have the choise how to implement computations. The only thing that needs to make sure is to have enough processes or threads running to saturate the machine. Just one big binary without any thread will only give you 1/24 to 1/32 of the machines power, but saturated the machine performs like 24 to 32 GHz machine that you would need from competors to do the job!
And now the suprise for people that do not yet have read the T1 CPU (codenamed Niagara) SPECs: The CPU just consumes less than 80W and the whole machine is said to require less than 100W.
So it is nice to see that Sun is again ahead of companies like AMD or Intel that just ship 2 core CPUs today, plan for just 4 cores the next year and we have bare computational power to choose from.
My first contact with the Sony MiniDisc format was in the mid 90th. At that time I have been a bit more active palying guitar and bass and the Mini-Disc was a perfect medium to not only record some jam sessions or concerts but also carry the tiny player with other pre-recorded music around when others either had big, skipping CD-players or grinding and noisy analog tape walkmans. Despite a Yamaha MD HIFI deck I have the portable Sharp MD recorder. The later, now nearly 10 years old, is still in perfectly function after it was in use for 3 years when I was an trainee, for music yam sessions, I even borrowed it to a friend who studied composing and it made it to Ireland on a three week bicycle tour.
I never brought one of those MP3 player, whether iPod or other low-quality incarnations, because the ability to record is too handy and those mp3 player can not form the base for a music collection. At some time the hard-disc, or even sooner the flash, is filled up. MDs can be collected nicely among the CDs - and hundreds of them.
Now that Sony released a High density, Hi-MD format, including the possibly to store arbitrary data as well as inject MP3 tracks caught my attention. With the announcement of the MZ-RH 1 MD-Walkman it was the time to give that promising product a try:
The MZ-RH1 comes with quite a lot of paper work, the left side bunch are manuals in several languages, the cable remote, usb cable, and since the device has only a USB connector - not a dedicated power-supply plug, a power supply with a usb connector to charge the battery independent of a computer.
Overall the device looks very stylish and professional, especially the jog-wheel with play and record button and the OLED display. Compared with my former Sharp recorder it is much thiner and way lighter.
Usability wise it is as intuitive as usual, the jog wheel is used for navigation and fast forward / rewind in tracks, and as usual for MD recorders you can move, split, combine tracks on the fly, edit titles and so on.
The cable remote is a bit disappointing, it looks a bit cheap, plastic-wise, and lacks viewing angle. Also just because of this limitation I had to notice the device display does not allow to show the track names - maybe because the device has two separate displays and some Sony engineer decided the gab inbetween would be too big for scrolling text …
With a Hi-MD formatted disc the recorder appears as normal USB storage device and thus is accessible from any OS: Linux, Mac OS, Windows to name a few. However the old, classic MDs are only accessable from within the Sony SonicStage software - not even from the Mac software shipped with the package. Also SonicStage is not able to play the old MD tracks in real-time, instead the recorder will play the track out of the headphone / line-out if requested to play in the software, however it is still possible to copy those tracks back to the PC.
To upload audio tracks, be that MP3 or ATRAC files, the device should be able to play, meta data updates in special files of the Hi-MD medium are required, just drag’n dropping the files is not enough. SonicStage is required to register the files properly - not even the Hi-MD Transfer for Mac allows this, however it is just a matter of time until some open source developer will figure out how to update the meta data accordingly - as it was case for the Apple iPod as well …
All in all it is a awesome portable recorder that should be quite a pleasure to use for the next years, the music can be collected on a shelf while the 1GB media is still large enough to allow a current “personal best of” to be carried around as one would do with other MP3 players.
The quality of the headphone / line-out is exceptional perfect, and a menu option allows raising the level to the standard line level. I still wonder why in contrast the Sony walkman “cell phones” produce clicks and clacks between some mp3 files that make your ear wanna die with a far from linear output frequency spectrum.
The use as ordinary data storage is a much welcomed extra that might, or should suspend my 250MB Zip - random access CD / DVD media is still not widespread either. However the Sony DRM is really a drawback, especially with not even Mac software to transfer music onto the player. (I need to figure out the meta-data to up and download the tracks under Linux, however a first glimpse indicate that will not be that easy …)
Update:
The self discharge is quite high. When it is on stand-by for about a week the Li-Ion battery is about empty.
Update 2016:
Unfortunately the OLED display apparently die after some time. Since the “o” in OLED actually stands for organic, I personally call this “rotting away” displays. Sigh.
As far as I have found out the same part: 1-802-022-11, Indicator Module, Organic EL, is also used in at least the Sony NW-S202, S203, S205 and NW-E305, E307.
Update 2017
Now that I can upload mp3 from Linux I accidentally realize the MZ-RH1 refuses to play 48kHz files :-/ Apparently the decoder or DAC is limited to 44.1kHz.
Due development of Apple OS X software and phasing out of my former 800MHz iBook a new laptop had to be selected. Since I never quite liked the design of the PowerBooks and the negative stories one can find about the MacBook Pro on the net, I decided to wait for the iBook a-like Mactels. Recently they got released and I finally had the ability to aquire a black Apple lap^Wnotebook.
The last sentence already reflects that Apple tries to sell it not as a laptop but a notebook because it gets quite hot. Though unlike some other, normal PC laptops not on the top, the keyboard but more on the bottom. That said although I’m a bit disappointed about the performance / heat ratio after the switch to Intel I rather like a touchable keyboard.
At least the black flavour is quite stylish and unlike PC laptops the fan is nearly off when idle. However after some days I had to notice a subliminal whining when the machine is running, idling on battery.
The list of pro’s and con’s boils down to:
Pros:
stylish
light, thinner
outstanding keyboard
fast CPU
Mag-safe power connector
magnetic display holding, nothing to break apart
linear audio out without noise and spikes including optical in/out
brigther display than former iBooks
graphic chip with outstanding Open Source driver for Linux and friends
Cons:
hot like vulcano underneath
glossy, very viewing angle dependant, overdriven display with worst white to black switch time I ever saw (thin black or gray text even disappears while scrolling!!!)
end of life x86 CPU without 64 bit extension
sharp border of the top-case where the former iBook was rounded. I guess a shortcumming of cut down production costs …
touchy DVD drive, does not read many CD-RWs and skips when moved slightly
still not perfectly processed, some unevenly placed plastic parts (as usual)
whining while idleing on battery, most probably some DC-DC converter
What I wonder is why unlike the former iBooks the power-on fanfare is not mixed to the headphone when one is plugged in, there appears to be no way to silence the beast when you power up your machine in an audience … :-(
Also, personally I have no use for the IR remote and the built-in iSight which I btw. find a bit noisy. The later is also easily touched while opening the conver.
All in all the design is the logical continuation of the former product lines, however some more detail work such as choosing a display that is not as laggy when the display content changes, a rounded top-cover border and better heat dissipation would have been very much welcome and would have made it an outstanding machine.
As it is it is just about average: Good design but too many pitfalls that could have easily been avoided.
Update:
Later on I noticed due to whatever reason the hostname was amusingly set to blackrider :-)
For quite some time ExactCODE was shipping a Mac OS X TWAIN driver for Avision document scanners. However, with ExactScan version 2 the device support was now extended to cover many Kodak and most Visioneer and Xerox document scanners as well!
