A few weeks ago I came with an ingenious idea for entering textual data
on a hand-held device with touch-sensitive screen or
thumbboard/trackball, the kind that are too small for any sort of
regular keyboard, but the typical cell-phone text-message method of
using touch-tone telephone-number pad to code numbers and text by
repeated taps on same key followed by pause is horribly
user-unfriendly, and trying to handwrite or hand-print with finger or
stylus would be slow and painful.

Today I remembered my idea again, and decided to ask if anyone would
help me develop this invention, hence this post.

Of course my idea wouldn't be applicable to devices that have a
built-in keyboard, such as: Psion (the only one I could see mentionned
in newsgroups I searched with Google).

But perhaps myidea would be an good upgrade for smaller devices with no
room for any physical keyboard, such as: Fossil's FX2008 Wrist PDA,
Compaq's iPAQ Pocket PC 3950, PalmPilot w/Graffiti, Simputer, Sharp
SL-5000, PC-Ephone, ...

The Sharp Zaurus has a great builtin keyboard - which makes it really
easy to use on the move without a need for handwriting.

But generally, I am interested in innovative UI approaches for the
QuantumSTEP project to extend its area of use towards non-PDA (e.g.
phone) form factors. Please send a PM.

-- hns
Project Lead QuantumSTEP
http://www.quantum-step.com

In common usage, PM means Post Meridian (afternoon) or Phase Modulation.
I have no idea what you mean in this context.

In forum usage it means "Private Message" or "Private Mail"...

H> From: h...@computer.org
H> Please send a PM.

R> From: rem642b@Yahoo.Com (Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t)
R> In common usage, PM means Post Meridian (afternoon) or Phase Modulation.
R> I have no idea what you mean in this context.

H> From: h...@computer.org
H> In forum usage it means "Private Message" or "Private Mail"...

Ah, thanks for the explanation.

So how do I do that? I don't know your e-mail address.
Thursday evening Google Groups switched the last of their sites to
Broken Beta, which castrates your e-mail address, as I've quoted above,
so there's no longer any way to find out your e-mail address by looking
at what you posted to a newsgroup.
How about you connect to my Web site? Search regular Google for uh3t
and follow links to Contact Me, or just use the URL that I cited above
(unless Google Broken Beta Groups castrates my tinyurl too). Once you
get logged into my Web site, send me a short message telling me what
your e-mail address is. I'll have your actual IP number in my
HTTP-connection log, so if you try to JoeJob some innocent third party
by telling me his/her e-mail address instead of your own, tricking me
into sending e-mail to that third party, I'll use the IP number to
track down your sysadmin to file a complaint, so you have to be honest
about your e-mail address, OK?

By the way, I've been a victim of JoeJob attacks a lot lately.
Every week I receive several messages from MicroSoft telling me that
some message couldn't be delivered, some message that didn't come from
me. Apparently somebody forged my e-mail address in spam and the same
idiots who made MicroSucks InterCrap Exploiter (Trojan Roach Motel) are
too stupid to realize they're repeatedly JoeJobbing me, or just don't
care that I'll be sueing them $1000 for each of their stupid JoeJob
NDNs (Non-Delivery Notifications). By my estimate, MicroSoft already
owes me about a hundred thousand dollars per California anti-spam law.

Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t wrote:

Um, Robert--I think you may simply be seeing the effects of
one of the more prevalent viruses, which spoofs the "From"
address, inserting an address in the infected computer's
address book as the From address. You could be receiving
non-deliverable notices about messages that have your
address listed as the sender, but if there is an attachment,
you are actually most likely receiving an infected message
that was sent from an infected computer, without the
knowledge of the poor fool who probably opened a similar
message themself.

In other words, do not, under any circumstances, open the
attachment, which is supposedly the nondeliverable message.


--
Red Panda

Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t wrote:
I hadn't heard of that one, either.
That may be another reason to not use Google for newsgroups. I just
took a peek at Google groups and it apparently has a Reply to Author
function under Options. You might try that.

FYI, my newsreader shows the author as hns@computer.org, apparently a
valid address.

FWIW, the news server on my old ISP was taken down. My new ISP never
provided news. Teranews.com, which I used for several months is having
problems big time. Yesterday I signed up for Octanews, which appears to
be a winner. The price is very reasonable.

Thad

I tried that just now, to reply to *you* via your article.
It doesn't work. It shows me this form:
Word Verification:
Type the characters you see in the picture below.
If you can read this, you do not have images enabled. Please enable
images in order to proceed.
______________________________
characters are not case-sensitive
My only access to the net is VT100 text through Unix shell and lynx.
Google actively discriminates against disabled people in this way.