Rennlist availability on PDA
09-17-2002, 12:41 PM
#1
Racer
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Louisville, KY
Posts: 318
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Rennlist availability on PDA
I was going to send a private message to John D., but decided to make this public - I guess it might be interesting to others.
I just bought a Compaq Ipaq PDA. I've never had one before, and am still reeling with the capabilities of these things. I'm a techno-geek, so it's right up my alley. Nothing better than being able to whip out high res pictures of the bumper covers that I'm considering, any time any place!
A friend showed me AvantGo, a free service that will download web content from sites designed to be viewed on a PDA. When you're connected to your computer via USB (or serial, I guess), it will dump new web content into the PDA for you to view throughout the day. My question/comment is, is Rennlist set up to be able to do this, and if not, would it be possible? My presence on Rennlist runs in spurts, sometimes I go for days without being online. It would be so cool to be able to read Rennlist forums on my PDA.
I just bought a Compaq Ipaq PDA. I've never had one before, and am still reeling with the capabilities of these things. I'm a techno-geek, so it's right up my alley. Nothing better than being able to whip out high res pictures of the bumper covers that I'm considering, any time any place!
A friend showed me AvantGo, a free service that will download web content from sites designed to be viewed on a PDA. When you're connected to your computer via USB (or serial, I guess), it will dump new web content into the PDA for you to view throughout the day. My question/comment is, is Rennlist set up to be able to do this, and if not, would it be possible? My presence on Rennlist runs in spurts, sometimes I go for days without being online. It would be so cool to be able to read Rennlist forums on my PDA.
09-17-2002, 02:19 PM
#2
Banned
Hi A.J...!
As of right now, the answer is "no" as you describe - unless you want to use the IPaq as a simple web browsing device (with terrible tradeoffs), in which case - it's pretty cumbersome. However - with that being said.......
There are some pretty cool technologies I have already installed and could use if there was enough demand. For example - your PDA is already NG capable, and Rennlist already provides for some faily robust NG capabilities. In fact, many folks have been accessing the Rennlist e-mail lists using their NewsGroup readers for the last 4 years, when I put that capability on line. For that, it would be a simple matter to re-write headers from posted messages in these databases to send to my NEWS server (news.rennlist.org). However, even that has limitations - as communication would be archival rather then bi-directional.
Second, I could use MS SDE for SQLServer CE - and use my backend databases. More user rich from an interface standpoint - but the extensions that I program to aren't universally supported yet with the PDA OSes..
Third - AvantGo is pretty cool, yet there are two "technologies" which require information to be delivered to your PDA - one is "server side" (those things on my end) and the other is the rendering of that content (which is on your end in your PDA). So, to support AvantGo specificialy, I would have to encapsulate the posts in the format that your PDA AvantGo programs wants to see. Frankly, it's one of the reasons that AvantGo has been successful, as it allows the ADMIN to choose the delivery for the information database replication to the PDA (and select the best representation for that data in a PDA - a chart is different then a text database record, for example). In this case, for Rennlist - that database would have to be "replicated" fairly frequently for you to "interact" with the threads - as they occur in "real time" within these databases....
Anyway - the answer to your question is "yes" and "no". I can do it today - but the cost of development and support may be prohibitive given the limited acceptance (a few users would want this capability), on top of the fact that the extension I would support aren't universially supported by all device manufacturers in either the communiction or the OS extensions within existing PDAs... Interesting "chicken and egg" problem on the support of any new technology
...
Great question, though!!!!!
John
As of right now, the answer is "no" as you describe - unless you want to use the IPaq as a simple web browsing device (with terrible tradeoffs), in which case - it's pretty cumbersome. However - with that being said.......
There are some pretty cool technologies I have already installed and could use if there was enough demand. For example - your PDA is already NG capable, and Rennlist already provides for some faily robust NG capabilities. In fact, many folks have been accessing the Rennlist e-mail lists using their NewsGroup readers for the last 4 years, when I put that capability on line. For that, it would be a simple matter to re-write headers from posted messages in these databases to send to my NEWS server (news.rennlist.org). However, even that has limitations - as communication would be archival rather then bi-directional.
Second, I could use MS SDE for SQLServer CE - and use my backend databases. More user rich from an interface standpoint - but the extensions that I program to aren't universally supported yet with the PDA OSes..
Third - AvantGo is pretty cool, yet there are two "technologies" which require information to be delivered to your PDA - one is "server side" (those things on my end) and the other is the rendering of that content (which is on your end in your PDA). So, to support AvantGo specificialy, I would have to encapsulate the posts in the format that your PDA AvantGo programs wants to see. Frankly, it's one of the reasons that AvantGo has been successful, as it allows the ADMIN to choose the delivery for the information database replication to the PDA (and select the best representation for that data in a PDA - a chart is different then a text database record, for example). In this case, for Rennlist - that database would have to be "replicated" fairly frequently for you to "interact" with the threads - as they occur in "real time" within these databases....
Anyway - the answer to your question is "yes" and "no". I can do it today - but the cost of development and support may be prohibitive given the limited acceptance (a few users would want this capability), on top of the fact that the extension I would support aren't universially supported by all device manufacturers in either the communiction or the OS extensions within existing PDAs... Interesting "chicken and egg" problem on the support of any new technology
...Great question, though!!!!!
John
09-17-2002, 06:58 PM
#3
Drifting
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Villanova, PA
Posts: 2,331
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Screw the others John, make Avantgo work on MY Ipaq too!!! That makes two of us, does that lower the cost enough. 
Oh, that and I need another way to make DJ and his Blackberry pale in comparison...
Watching full length movies on my Ipaq just doesnt impress him enough...
What about making the forums WAP capable so I can use my nextel phone to cruise the forums???
E. J.
Oh, that and I need another way to make DJ and his Blackberry pale in comparison...
Watching full length movies on my Ipaq just doesnt impress him enough...
What about making the forums WAP capable so I can use my nextel phone to cruise the forums???
E. J.