NetBook Personality Module

[sebgate20]

I know what the post below this one says but..

I am looking a a personality module for my Series 7. I would be willing to swap my HP Jornada 568 for a module. Expansys don't seem to sell them any more and there have been none on eBay for several months.

Any ideas?

Seb

P.S No response from post below!

[netBookBabe]

Hi Seb

I wish I knew! The modules really are like the proverbial hen's teeth to obtain at the moment.

I phoned Expansys, who were less than helpful I have to say - it does actually state "last few in stock" on the site, but they haven't got any. The person I spoke to said they "might be in stock in about a month", but when pressed admitted that this could well mean "never". :mad:

{sigh}

Julie

[stolkjo]

If interested I have a MBook module laying around.

John

[netBookBabe]

Seb

Did you ever get a personality module? There seem to be a few doing the rounds again at the moment.

Julie

[Conkers]

I bought my Netbook PM from Expansys this week (Monday 20th September in fact) and they told me that they had "a few" in stock. Then after i bought it, there were five on ebay all starting at £30 (one on this link) (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=14405&item=5125747405&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW).
Hope this helps you

[netBookBabe]

Originally posted by Conkers
... after i bought it, there were five on ebay all starting at £30 ... Actually, there are a lot more than five because some of the auctions from that seller are Dutch (multiple quantities - bid on one or more of the same item).

Anyone interested in buying at the best possible price might be advised to pick one of the Dutch auctions, rather than bidding on a single-item one.

Julie

[sebgate20]

Hi All

I have finally bought my module! I got it from a Dutch auction for £34.00. BUT, the interesting thing is that the guy who is selling all these modules off works for Psion PLC! His address if ****.***@psion.com and is says Psion PLC at the bottom of the email. Maybe Psion have had these is stock and have chosen now to get rid of them!

The first mutliple auction I tried I lost because somebody put a bid in for 10 of them in the last 20 seconds. But on the second lot (only 30minutes later), I put in a maximum bid at £36.00 and at the end, one person got 7 of them and three others (including me) got the others for only £34.00.

I wouldn't normally other with these but these modules were so cheap, it seemed worth it. All I need now is a Buffalo PCMCIA card and I am away in the air!

Seb

[aflegg]

Exactly the same happened to me (presumably on the exact same auctions :-))

Not heard anything back from the seller yet, and PayPal claims the money is unclaimed so far. OK, patience is a virtue: I'm just eager to turn my 7 into a nB - especially since I've come to the decision that replacing my 5mx with a Sony Clie PEG-UX50 was a bad decision and that I can't live without EPOC.

Cheers,

Andrew

[netBookBabe]

Glad to know you finally got your upgrade module, Seb! Hope you get your WiFi card soon. Best price at the moment for the Buffalo one seems to be at www.ebuyer.com - that's where I got mine, and I found them very efficient.

Julie

[sebgate20]

I paid for it using PayPal last night and I have confirmation today that it will be shipped tomorrow and it should be here either Tuesday or Wednesday.

The Sony UX50 looks interesting but the keyboard looked too small and Sony's own interface looked terrrible (scrolling I think) and it is nearly £500!!! Stick with a 7Book or Series 5!

Seb

[sebgate20]

I NOW HAVE A 7BOOK!

The module came at 7:30am this morning. I copied the OS.img onto my 256mb CF card. Popped the module in and hey presto! No problems at all.

The machine still identifies itself as a Series 7 but it is deninftly a netBook. It has a demo of Opera (do I have to buy a key?), Ethernet drivers etc...

The CPU speed is 191MHz. Is this faster than it was? I know the RAM is 2mb larger than it was.

Just need a Buffallo card now and....


Seb

[wanman]

There is a fix for the badge will change 7series to netBook. Do a search on the 7book forum and you will find it. You run a .exe on the 7book and perform a soft reset.

[aflegg]

This is the following thread (started by yourself, wanman) - unfortunately the link doesn't work:

http://www.pdastreet.com/forums//showthread.php?s=&threadid=3534

Cheers,

Andrew

[donkeyontheedge]

The version of Opera that comes with nB OS158 shouldn't be a demo - it should be a full version of Opera 5.14 - what makes you say it is a demo?

John

[netBookBabe]

Seb

As John has said, the version of Opera included in the the netBook OS is a full copy of 5.14 and you don't need to pay for a key. Another great reason for buying that module!

However, if you should happen to have an installation of Opera on your CF (whether evaluation or registered) for some reason the netBook chooses to run that rather than the inbuilt one. This caused me some confusion when I first upgraded to OS 158 on mine!

Yes, the speed is significantly faster - S7 runs at 133MHz.

Glad to hear the upgrade went well! :cool:

Julie

[wanman]

The link is quite old and I think they have had a sort out of their content. The new link is as follows:

http://www.psionteklogix.com/teknet/pdk/faq/Articles/faq0098.htm

You do need a username and pw to access this so if you don't have this, just download the following zip with all the files and instructions to change the name to either netBook or 7.

Cheers
Si

[wanman]

Almost forgot. You need to perform a hard reset for this change to take effect and this means remove all batteries and then reinstall the OS again.....doh !!! As all this app does is change the name...and the name really doesn't effect the operation of your new improved 7Book, I would leave it until you next need to rebuild your machine (perhaps if you add a 32mb dimm or the like).

[victormarchand]

Somewhere next week I´ll receive my NB personality module.
Is there a user guide somewhere for the installation ?
Or is it just as simple as installing the series7 DIMM ?

Thanks,
Victor

[netBookBabe]

Originally posted by victormarchand
Somewhere next week I´ll receive my NB personality module.
Is there a user guide somewhere for the installation ?
Victor

I think the best user guide for installation will be found right here on the forums! I haven't actually done the upgrade, since mine is a "born and bred" netBook, but those who have seem to report that it is very straightforward.

Have a search through the rest of the 7Book forum and I'm sure you'll find all the information you need.

Good luck with the upgrade - I'm sure you will find it well worth it.

Julie

[wanman]

Hi Victor,

As Netbookbabe confirmed, head over this thread:

http://www.pdastreet.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1352&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

In short the procedure would be:

1) Backup 7 fully
2) Remove all batteries
3) Ensure you are static free
4) Remove Memory upgrade if you have one installed (16mb upgrade will not work with the new personality module)
5) Remove 7 personality module (right slot)
6) Insert nb personality module
7) reinstall batteries and attach power cable if possible.
8) Copy latest NB OS (release 158) onto a spare CF Card with the filename set to OS.img
9) Insert cf card in drawer and switch on. OS should install and you will now have a netBook.
10) Reinstall all applications from scratch and copy across their setting files only.

Thats about it.

Cheers

Si

[victormarchand]

Thanks Julie and Si. That´s just what I need I think.

Now I only have to wait for the arrival.

How much should I want an upgrade to 64 MB as well ?
I´d be using it for opera and email mainly. And later on maybe try out Linux on it. :D

Victor

[jameswi99]

Hi Victor,
You may want to make a couple of copies of the OS.IMG file onto separate CF cards before you upgrade, because my 7book would not read the first one I tried (gave me a real fright actually).

Cheers,

J

[jameswi99]

All,
I went through this process a month or so ago. Is it normal that I am now being asked to register my Opera browser (i.e. pay out $39 on top of the upgrade)? I was under the impression that Opera was part of the standard OS build and should be free.

Any ideas?

J

[wanman]

Hi Victor,

Mmm tricky question about the extra ram. As you probably know, adding more ram will not increase the spead of your netBook like it would a PC. All you gain is extra space. This is handy for me as I tend to have alot of apps running at the same time. To be fair though I keep very little on my C:Drive. All my email, data and installed apps go on my D:Drive as if I loose all battery power I don't loose my data (which is important). If you have the spare cash for the 32mb Dimm then go for it. To install it you will need to hard reset and reinstall the OS so you might aswell do both at the same time ;)

Hi James,

That is very strange indeed. What version of the OS are you running (release 158)? What version of Opera is it (5.14)? I have never heard of Opera asking for a registration code. Especially as this is a full version of Opera which comes with the OS. Very strange.

One thing you could check is that when you restored your data after upgrading to the netBook OS, you did not restore application data for Opera. Did you have Opera installed on your 7? If so then check C and D drives for system\apps\opera folders. there should be atleast on. Make sure there are no .app files If there is then I would do the following:

a) take a backup of the opera folder/s and then delete both.
b) Launch Opera by selecting the silk screen web button (top right immediately under the email button). All should now be ok.
c) Please note that you will loose all your previous settings so if you want to recover them, locate the backed up opera folders on your PC (assuming you had 5.14 installed on your 7) and copy the following files back to your 7Book:
Bookmarks
cookies4.dat
global.dat
opcacrt5.dat
opera.ini
opera.win
oprand.dat
opssl5.dat
user.css
vlink4.dat
cache4 folder and all it's contents.

If you are missing any of the above files then not to worry. The main files are bookmarks, cookies and opera.ini

Cheers

Si

[Nemo20000]

I went through this process a month or so ago. Is it normal that I am now being asked to register my Opera browser (i.e. pay out $39 on top of the upgrade)?

You did remember to delete your Opera demo off your compact flash cards didn't you? A copy on CF from your Seven days will override the NB's ROM copy!

[netBookBabe]

James

I think Nemo's suggestion here about Opera is the most likely - it caught me out too when I first installed OS 158 on my netBook. As a quick test, see whether Opera launches OK without a CF in the drive.

Julie

[jameswi99]

DOH!

How come it's always me doing the stupid stuff! That must be it - I had an old lapsed version on my 7 and that must have somehow got re-activated... I will deal with it tonight.

Cheers,

J

[netBookBabe]

Originally posted by jameswi99
How come it's always me doing the stupid stuff! It's not, James - I did it too, and it took me a while to figure it out. Any copy of Opera on the CF will launch in preference to the one built in to the OS - it doesn't seem very logical to me, but maybe somebody has a technical reason why this should be?

Julie

[donkeyontheedge]

It's how EPOC is built Julie, and makes it wonderfully easy to upgrade.

EPOC will search for files starting with C:, then D:, E:, etc and eventually look on Z:.

This way, if you only have the ROM version, it gets loaded from Z:. If you have updated one of the files (i.e. the World Time bitmap) and placed it on C: or D:, it gets picked up before the ROM version and used instead.

If only people had the info to create new system files, it would therefore be very easy to upgrade ER5 ourselves.

John

[netBookBabe]

Thanks for the explanation John - yes, that makes perfect sense. I should have been able to work it out! :D

Julie

[Nemo20000]

Although it may not be as simple as that with regard to AIFs, we will see!

[jameswi99]

All,
With regards to my Opera Licensing issue ... You were right - I had an old eval version on my D drive.

Thanks again guys, $39 saved!

J

[victormarchand]

Hah, I got myself on of these personality modules. And finally I have myself a 7book now. Too bad that the series7 16MB extra memory does not work anymore.

But finally I can do some experimenting with wlan, ethernet and linux.

Is using a wireless card really worth it from a speed point of view ? I mean, Opera can be boring slow sometimes, and it seems to me that it is processing power and not network speed that is doing that. Any opinions about that here ?

B.t.w., the person I bought the module from seems to have some more of them. :)
PM me if you´re interested.

[netBookBabe]

Originally posted by victormarchand
Is using a wireless card really worth it from a speed point of view ? I think it rather depends upon what we're comparing to. I assume your intention would be to use a WiFi card to hook up to a broadband connection, but how are you connecting the Psion at present?

Personally I find browsing speed pretty acceptable on my netBook linked to a basic ADSL connection over WiFi. The principal advantage of WiFi has to be the freedom though, in my opinion - no cables or IR to worry about.

Julie

[victormarchand]

I would indeed be looking at using the wireless connection to broadband through my PC. If browsing on the netbook will be fast enough I'd like to try that out, but if I would still have the speed which Ihave for instance now, using the netbook and opera through a GPRS connection. Phew , it took minuts before this page was loaded.

So , how would one quantify this ? (more a question to myself this is....)

Victor

[netBookBabe]

Victor

I find my WiFi connection on the netBook substantially faster than GPRS - browsing these forums is quite comfortable on WiFi, much less so by GPRS. I'll try to do some timing comparisons and post them here for you later on.

Julie

[cangiante]

I am constantly on the road during working hours and I try here and there to browse on over Pdastreet via GPRS... well, it's not too bad but via WiFi is a totally different thing, that is much faster

[netBookBabe]

I think you probably have your answer then Victor, in light of Gianluca's comments.

I suppose it's down to cost at the end of the day, and what equipment you already have - if you already have WiFi set up and all you need is a card for the netBook, then I should say you'd be mad not to go for it.

Julie

[victormarchand]

Thanks to both of you! It´s indeed a matter of cost. Currently I do not have any wireless stuff, except for bluetooth. (no not on a Psion..) So I´ll dig myself into what I need and where to get it reasonably. In a while.:p

Thanks again.
Victor