Managed to pick a couple of these up.

 

Questions:
Is there's a fairly decent word processor you can install?
Homebrew sites, any to recommend?
Anyone tried cranking up the clock speed? Stable?
Android, worth slapping on yet? Some places say wifi is not right, others that video driver is dodgy.

- There's something called QuickOffice built in, I think. I've never used it. Manthorp might have tried it, though.
- Get Preware on there, which gives you lots of patches and tweaks and (mostly crap) apps to put on it.
- Again, Manthorp's done this; I'm not sure I have. If I did, I can't remember doing so.
- I think the Android that you're looking at is a version of Android that runs as an app, which is barely in Alpha, so it's more of a proof of concept at the moment. Cyanogenmod are working on installing Android on the Touchpad properly, and seem to be most of the way there. They demoed an installer that lets you dual-boot between WebOS and Android recently, but they don't seem to like releasing code until they've fully tested it. Personally, it's what I'm waiting for.

- QO only seems to come in the viewer variety
- Will wait for Manthrob to come and fill in the gaps (No, John)

As soon as you update it, quickoffice will have basic but adequate word processing.

Yeah, you need to install Preware, and in so doing, you might as well overclock to 1.5Ghz (or, technically, clock, as I believe it's underclocked on the Touchpad):
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Feature/267962,top-5-tips-for-tweaking-tuning-and-speeding-up-your-hp-touchpad.aspx

It's absolutely smooth on 1.5Ghz - there are other methods & patches to overclock to 1.7 & 1.9Ghz - I haven't felt the need, though.

Preware has all the homebrew you can eat. There's a bit of a fiddly hack to install Kindle (you have to use a homebrew app called Impostah to spoof the Kindle app into believing that your Touchpad is Merkan), but it's worth it once it's on.

For the moment, I'm perfectly happy with WebOS.

Best paid-for app, btw, is Kalemsoft Media Player, which plays loads more video formats than the clunky built-in app. In conjunction with the free Kalemsoft Media Streamer, you can watch any video on your Jim machine on your Touchpad

I was actually quite impressed with webOS as well. I was very impressed with it picking up my other HP. Stuff and it just worked. The gesture system works very splendidly and actually slicker than apples offering.

 

Kindle Took seconds to install, I did see the version you were alluding to, but I found a way where upon entering the konami code was able to install the package and just worked.

 

Thanks for the link, I will be cranking up the speed to 1.7, mainly just because I can.

 

The media player, I tried one on the preware storefront, but it didn't display the video a full screen, instead some weird repetition of the image where you normally find the black border for images.

Unfortunately (if you see what I mean) the paid-for version 4.0 is much, much better & totally Touchpad compatible.

If you can find the charging cradle for a reasonable price, that's quite fun.

Jim?

Not as far as I know. GreyHair has got it across 5 tablets, but with their blessing and in the cause of artfaggery. It phones home regularly, so any jimmage would have to through a patch rather than a serial.

Well, would you look at that.

I saw that. I particularly saw the way it's been called the "Lower Your Expectations Edition". I'll be waiting till it's not an Alpha, at the very least.

It's a shame in a way. WebOS just looks like a much nicer (and more flexible) platform. But, as Manthorp has said, there's fuck all apps for it.

Pfft. I'm running the alpha CyanogenMod on my HTC Sensation and it works fine!

Admittedly the HTC Sensation was designed to run Android, so it running CyanogenMod isn't too far fetched an idea compared to the TouchPad which wasn't.

I'd still do it though.

Ignoring the WebOS's abilities, it would have been nice for it to have been successful just for the increased competition and therefore the extra choice available to consumers.

It'll be a dark day when the EU allows software patents.

Hopefully they never will. I mean... no one can look at the insanity that's breaking out in the US and think that would be a good idea here surely. Then again since when have lawmakers cared about anything other than which lobbyist is paying the most.

At least Google are openly anti-patents. Hopefully they'll mobilise if it ever looks likely.

But yeah, WebOS looked interesting being a bit closer to a desktop OS. I would've been tempted to get a WebOS tablet when they got cheap. Now I'll just wait til they get to the point where they can run a full-blown linux/moblin I think. I really don't fancy Android on a tablet.

Yeah, don't think it hasn't tempted me. But at the moment I can find other things to distract me, so I'm not in a huge rush.

What are your reasons for running CyanogenMod on your Sensation?

 

Also, what battery life are you getting?

I'm undecided on my view about patents since I'm currently working in two areas.

 

One dedicated to making stuff for filing patents and the other purely for publication.

 

I much prefer the latter since I don't think the former will benefit me in terms of the patent(s) being licensed and making me £££, if it does then great but I don't enjoy it as much. I like doing research and having the chance to publish and let the world know about it, even if it isn't really of much interest to most of the scientific community, but that's the case with most research areas.

The problem is specifically with software patents, not patents in general (although I do think they last too long).

Someone who invents something should (if we're operating under capitalism) have that idea protected for a while both to reward them for their effort/insight and to protect any investment they made into developing it - they should (as they were originally intended) encourage creativity.

The (biggest) problem with software patents is that they allow for the patenting of ridiculously trivial things. They stifle, rather than promote, creativity and competition. Things like using a regular expression to retrieve data from the net and then present it in another form are patented... that's just one example of the hundreds of thousands of these things. I mean you've written code so you understand what a ridiculously trivial and general thing that is? Another example is Apple patented the idea of sliding something on a touchscreen to unlock it. A lot of this stuff has 'prior art' meaning it already exists out in the world and can't be patented because it's in the public domain (a good example being sorting algorithms which have appeared in text books for over 30 years). But when the patent's already been granted then proving it's in the public domain means a court battle with whichever rich company owns the patent.

So anyone who wants to code something now, something which does anything worth doing, is going to be infringing on hundreds of patents. And if your thing gets at all successful then the best that can happen is that the holders of those hundreds of patents will come demanding royalties. The worst is that, if you infringe on their business at all, they'll just shut you down with lawsuits.

Big businesses like MS and IBM are buying up companies, not because they want their products or tech but simply because they want their patents because they're an excellent way for big companies to make money and stamp out any competition.

And those massive companies will generally cross-license with eachother. Meaning they sign agreements that they can each use the other's patents with immunity. They don't want a patent war and these companies are generally not in direct competition with eachother, so they double up their portfolios.

Then endpoint of all of this is, of course, that only MS, IBM and Apple will be able to write software.

Aye, software/tech patents have gone too far in terms of the vagueness and how generic they are. What I've experienced so far in the patent world is a case of claiming the world and hoping the patent office don't cut too much of the ridiculous stuff out.

 

Some of the things claimed in the things I've been involved with really are just ideas/possibilities, and it will only be a case of proving these things /if/ the patent office cares enough or if there is a challenge on filing. Otherwise these things stand no matter how vague they are. It's something I've had to accept with patent work, so so bloody vague and claiming everything.

Because I prefer it to Sense and it literally does fly on the Sensation.

I haven't really tested the battery, not even on Sense. I've almost always got a charger or PC/laptop and USB cable to hand and often have my phone plugged in or syncing / tethered