fwiw: my personal use of the Ben I purchased a Nanonote several months ago and use it everyday at work. I am a teacher and use it to collect and calculate grades as I teach. I have set up a database using sqlite3 and use scripts to input grades as I circulate around the room looking at student work.
I had used a Sharp Zaurus before getting the Ben. The Z was great but was larger than I would have liked. It didn't fit into my pocket easily and was heavy. The Ben is a great size and weight. The Ben is also faster than the Z. The Ben keyboard is not quite as nice, though I am not sure how much of that judgement is because I have not used it as much as the Z. But separate number keys were nice and it seemed that the pressure required per keystroke was better suited to quick typing on the Z. I am very happy with the Nanonote, both because of its functionality (size, weight, keyboard) and because it is open source. I am a big fan of open source. I would definitely suggest the Nanonote for anyone who has on-the-go data entry needs and is familiar with linux. I do not know how large of a market there is for people like me. It would be nice to see the sales build. George On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:17:28 -0600 [email protected] wrote: > My vote is for office and productivity applications. I have long wanted > to see Abiword adapted for the Ben. Also, good gui text editors like > Geany and gtkedit would be good, as well as an djvu/epub/any reader like > FBreader. Maybe even an SVG editor too. > > > On Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:31:19 -0500, Ernest Kugel wrote: > > Hi, looking at the Nanonote sales, not saying I'm disappointed, but, > > this thing should be selling way more. The device is great, so this > > could be purely a marketing problem. One marketing problem is that > > the > > nanonote is universal - you can use it for almost anything. This is > > great practically, but is not a very well defined marketing message. > > I > > know some will say that the nanonote's message is one of open source > > and open hardware - I will agree that that is a vision, but hardly a > > marketing message for a specific product (from most users > > perspective). > > > > Maybe some focus on specific functionality could really boost the > > sales? For instance, we could choose to focus a bit on gaming, and > > porting more half-decent, higher-graphic arcades like the supertux we > > have now. If we have 5 - 10 "good" games we could put gaming as part > > of the marketing message. Or, we can focus on porting bits from > > different office suites, and make sure we have a good word/sheet > > processor. We can then tell our less tech-savvy potential costumers > > what they can expect from this device (play simple arcade games, edit > > basic documents on the go), much like Apple goes through great paint > > to state the obvious fact you can watch a movie and surf the web on > > an > > iPad. > > > > The greatest obstacle right now to any such focused marketing message > > is the fact the Nanonote *software* is a random collection of > > whatever > > we could port. I love this fact, there is nothing wrong with that, > > but > > as a marketing massage, "a random collection of whatever we could > > port" will send less tech-savvy users away screaming. If we could > > decide on a functionality (i.e. - gaming) and then focus all our > > joint > > efforts on building that functionality in (i.e. porting a few more > > supertux-like games), we could then add that to our marketing message > > (i.e. "The NanoNote - A Great Gaming Device!) and move on, until we > > have something like "The Nanonote - A Great Device for Gaming, Office > > apps, and Making Espresso IN YOUR POCKET!" or whatever. If we have > > that, ladies and gentlemen, I can start pushing the thing without > > diving into complicated explanations about the advantages of Open > > Source. Open Source is and should be our main commitment, but we > > should do everything we can to make sure Open Source is accompanied > > by > > the best message it will sell with. > > > > Maybe we already have enough bits to sharpen our functionality > > message with current software? If not, which functionality should we > > focus on, and how could we get a few people to hammer on a project > > until its done instead of focusing solely on random bits? > > > > Ernest Kugel > > > > > > On 11/23/2011 12:00 PM, [email protected] > > wrote: > >> Send discussion mailing list submissions to > >> [email protected] > >> > >> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > >> http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion > >> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > >> [email protected] > >> > >> You can reach the person managing the list at > >> [email protected] > >> > >> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > >> than "Re: Contents of discussion digest..." > >> > >> > >> Today's Topics: > >> > >> 1. Re: Nanonote sales to date? (Wolfgang Spraul) > >> 2. Re: New OpenWrt Release: stable 2011-11-13 (Xiangfu Liu) > >> 3. Re: New OpenWrt Release: stable 2011-11-13 (David Kuehling) > >> 4. Re: New OpenWrt Release: stable 2011-11-13 (Wolfgang Spraul) > >> 5. Re: New OpenWrt Release: stable 2011-11-13 (David Kuehling) > >> 6. Re: New OpenWrt Release: stable 2011-11-13 (Wolfgang Spraul) > >> 7. Re: New OpenWrt Release: stable 2011-11-13 (David Kuehling) > >> > >> > >> > >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >> > >> Message: 1 > >> Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 08:19:17 +0000 > >> From: Wolfgang Spraul<[email protected]> > >> Subject: Re: Nanonote sales to date? > >> To: "English Qi Hardware mailing list - support, developers, use > >> cases > >> and fun"<[email protected]> > >> Message-ID:<[email protected]> > >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > >> > >>> A thought occurred to me- are there still 1500 or so Nanonotes in > >>> circulation? I am wondering how many precious Nano's are floating > >>> across the globe. > >> Yes, sales are slow (5-10 / month) so it's still around 1300. > >> And yes, they are precious :-) I think I will move to the next level > >> of using mine, and move my irc/jabber and email to it (networked via > >> my notebook). That should be fun! :-) > >> > >>> By the way, come xmas time I am ordering another to cast my vote > >>> for > >>> non-intel and for Freedom as a sustainable future! Hats off to Qi! > >> Definitely. I should write up some thoughts for the next steps in > >> another mail, I'm just hopelessly behind the new news, so that > >> first... > >> http://en.qi-hardware.com/wiki/Qi_Hardware_2011-11-20 > >> > >> Thanks a lot for the Christmas gift! > >> Wolfgang > >> > >> > >> > >> ------------------------------ > >> > >> Message: 2 > >> Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:19:06 +0800 > >> From: Xiangfu Liu<[email protected]> > >> Subject: Re: New OpenWrt Release: stable 2011-11-13 > >> To: [email protected] > >> Cc: "English Qi Hardware mailing list - support, developers, use > >> cases > >> and fun"<[email protected]> > >> Message-ID:<[email protected]> > >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed > >> > >> On 11/23/2011 04:02 PM, [email protected] wrote: > >>> OK I left listener on for about 15 minutes and conversed with my > >>> brother and it picked up everything. Thanks for the 'aplay' tip and > >>> what an interesting program to hack with! > >> cool. > >> > >> > >> > >> ------------------------------ > >> > >> Message: 3 > >> Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 09:27:59 +0100 > >> From: David Kuehling<[email protected]> > >> Subject: Re: New OpenWrt Release: stable 2011-11-13 > >> To: "English Qi Hardware mailing list - support\, developers\, use > >> cases and fun"<[email protected]> > >> Message-ID:<[email protected]> > >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >> > >>>>>>> "cenobyte" == cenobyte<[email protected]> writes: > >>> I forgot to mention a tip I have found useful for making ogv > >>> videos. I > >>> use ffmpeg2theora to convert clips I save from Youtube or what have > >>> you to Nano size. I pass along the -x 320 -y 240 options as well as > >>> the -sameq. Make sure not to use the ffmpeg syntax of -s 320x240, > >>> that > >>> won't get you far. I have been experimenting with ripped DVD's and > >>> have converted one to size, but it is off sync (it was encoded off > >>> sync, not played back off sync). I have tried passing the --sync > >>> option along but so far no luck, the program will not begin > >>> encoding. > >> ffmpeg2theora seems to have some problems with syncing against mpeg > >> streams. As a workaround, you could use mencoder (i.e. the one that > >> ships with mplayer) to first transcode to a losslessly compressed > >> .avi > >> file, then feed that .avi into ffmpeg2theora. Mencoder's sync > >> handling > >> is superb. The resulting .avi file will have no per-frame > >> timestamps so > >> ffmpeg2theora conversion won't introduce audio desync. > >> > >> mencoder -oac pcm -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=huffyuv:vstrict=-1 \ > >> -o intermediate.avi > >> > >> (maybe you'd want mencoder to already do the scaling: > >> -vf scale=320:240) > >> > >> cheers, > >> > >> David > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Qi Hardware Discussion List > > Mail to list (members only): [email protected] > > Subscribe or Unsubscribe: > > http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion > > > _______________________________________________ > Qi Hardware Discussion List > Mail to list (members only): [email protected] > Subscribe or Unsubscribe: > http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion > -- George Palen <[email protected]> _______________________________________________ Qi Hardware Discussion List Mail to list (members only): [email protected] Subscribe or Unsubscribe: http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion
