So I have to rely on either sharing an Internet connection with other people locally or using a 3G dongle. 3G dongles however are notoriously picky. They need a good connection to get anywhere near to broadband speeds otherwise its back to a slow speed GPRS connection.

So I had an idea…..

After reading a bit about various techniques for building ‘Woktennas’ for wifi reception, here. I found a likely candidate for a ‘Wok’ in a cheap and cheerful stainless steel metal cooking bowl.

The budget was about £5. And It had to be constructible using nothing but a Dremel and some Duct Tape . It also had to be lightweight, and try its very best not to look like a bowl!

Other than that, it’s pretty simple to build given a few hours. The Maplin USB connector I used has a metal plate in the back that can be removed, so in order to mount the USB socket you only have to drill a square hole and two holes for the screws. Reassemble the connector with the dish sandwiched in-between. The tripod mount is somewhat trickier so I will leave that up to the reader, I drilled two holes and used bolts to connect it but it isn’t perfect and could certainly be improved upon.

Note that I left the connector quite high in the dish rather than mounting it flush. This will mean that it hopefully will get better reception from the back of the dish. It seems to work so I am leaving it as it is, but feel free to mess about with varying distances and signal strength.

The Result

I am now getting a constant 3G signal when this weird contraption is pointed towards the transmitter.. I have plugged it into a Edimax 3G router and it supplies a solid wireless Internet connection wherever I am. Of course it needs a 3G transmitter in line of sight, but as I always seem to end up living in ‘marginal or spotty’ 3G areas, it works a treat.

Parts List

Metal cooking bowl – £1 From Poundland

Mini Tripod – £1 From, Yep Poundland

USB Panel Mount Socket – £4.18 from Maplin Electronics

Ooops. It looked a lot smaller in the picture on the auction.

I was going to use it to create a point to point wireless connection but I may have to use it for its obvious original use. Knocking satellites from orbit and frightening the neighbours.

But at long last, the sun came out.

Palm m500

Thank goodness for the endless march of technology, as it makes hugging the trailing edge so much easier for us tech laggards. I have used a wonderful palm as an eBook reader for many years now, however the wear and tear of everyday life has turned it from a solid companion to a slightly troublesome pal. Superglue and a homemade cable helped but I think that the inevitable progress of entropy cannot be ignored, so I suppose I need to upgrade.

And when I say upgrade, I mean upgrade like its 2001 baby! Frankly if it was good enough for Stanley Kubrick, It is good enough for me. Through the unregulated flea pit that is eBay I have bought a “New, Unused perfect condition Palm m500“. When I say new and unused, I suppose it was back in 2001 when it was shelved by Palm for obvious battery problems, thanks eBay seller! Thank goodness I have the correct screwdrivers and a will to tinker!

Reasons why I chose a palm m500.

It was the last palm to have a grayscale screen, and electroluminescent back-light. Much better to read off than a fuzzy TFT screen.

Palm m500 Backlight

The SD Card Reader. It takes up to a 1 GB card with a free upgrade from palm. I used to have 2MB. Wow. I have 1GB SD Cards floating around like dust motes in a Hollywood animated movie. It is also very simple to upload eBooks to the SD Card with a standard card reader, I have almost 200 eBooks on my m500 and I have filled  a mere 10 percent of the card.

User replaceable battery. The original batteries had a slew of problems, however after the purchase of a torx screwdriver it is very simple to fix. New Batteries cost about 10 euros with twice the capacity of the original.

It lasts for a week, with medium to heavy use.

Its got USB. Although its only about 4 times as fast as the serial connector (Suspicions of some technical bodgery abound, naughty palm company)

Its not all good though, I dislike the fact it cannot take AA batteries, call me an dreadful Luddite. And the so called ‘Universal Connector’ on the bottom was universal for only a few years.

And the touchscreen isn’t as sensitive. Coupled with with the obvious overhead of running the SD card reader it makes the palm feel a bit slow to respond to input.

But other than that, there is no way you can find a cheaper eBook reader, it was about 40 euros in total cost, and I have filled it with open source translation dictionaries, and far more.  Plucker works great with the added speed of the pseudo-usb and the case has a timeless look of style about it.

And here is the list of recommended software, for those of you who like that sort of thing. Like Me.

Weasel Reader

Plucker

Pordic

Noah Pro

And if you need to fill your palm with eBooks,  excellent Public Domain and Creative Commons licenced offerings can be downloaded from the Gutenberg Project and the fantastic website of author par-geekiness, Cory Doctorow.

Link

I think I have found my new passport photo, unfortunately the only effect on people so far is less ‘Awe and Admiration’ and more ‘Unstoppable Mirth and Laughter’.

A note for the reader, I am not constantly googling myself, I am a Librarian. We have some sort of radar (furtive glance). Yes some sort of magic book radar.

Palm IIIe

Sometimes you have to do it yourself. What with the Sony Reader being very expensive, proprietary and well, a little too Sony. The Amazon Kindle being mildly expensive, unavailable and blisteringly ugly, and all the others requiring substantial loans. The only real solution is to somehow create a more ‘down to earth’ E-Book reader.

Now don’t panic yet, as if you don’t there won’t be any need for screwdrivers or hammers, but you will need to find about 15 Pounds/25 Euros (Dollars, who knows?) . If you use an online recycling service like Freecycle you can often find the kit for free. or

For the E-Book reader I chose the venerable Palm Series, there is a lot of choice ranging from the hopeless to the amazing however look specifically for the Palm III Range. Any model is suitable, except for the Palm IIIc (It has a near unusable colour screen while the gray-scale palm screens make excellent E-Book readers).

I use a Palm IIIe, that although quite functional, lacks the upgradable memory of the rest of the Palm III range. I can fit about 8-10 E-Books on it.

Palm electroluminescent back-light

The earlier palms, although excellent in their own right lack a feature introduced in the Palm III range, an electroluminescent back-light. The back-light is very easy on the eyes in low light conditions, as it highlights the text rather than lighting up the screen itself. Modern PDA’s have full colour TFT screens, very nice for movies but awful for reading text. Another great feature about these Palms is that, as they are up to 8 years old now and can be picked up online for around 10 pounds or 15 euros, you won’t worry so much about losing it as it actually costs the same as a new hardback book!

Install the Palm software, for Windows or Mac. If you use Linux or some other thrilling operating system there’s plenty of options too. If you are like me and have been a happy Mac user for the past few years you will discover a problem, that there is a serious lack of serial ports on most modern Macs. That problem is easily solved with a USB Dongle from Keyspan. I got mine free from a nice lady who didn’t need it anymore, you might find one too (The nice lady and the dongle). Note the word dongle, I will probably try and sneak it in later as I like it so much.

Once you are now sitting with a Palm and with the software all set up, Read the manual and the instructions on how to transfer files to the Palm, because you will want to download Weasel Reader. You will find that like most Palm software it has been in constant development since the Palm first reared its pocket sized head on the scene, so now it is extremely stable and the best E-Book reader on the Palm by a long shot. Its also free thanks to Open Source and the GPL.

You now have a Palm here sitting, naked, its potential untapped. It may be feeling a mild sense of Ennui. You will need to put a book on it.

You can download books, free in the PalmDoc format that Weasel Reader uses from many excellent Websites (I recommend ManyBooks, They list the compatible files as ‘Doc’ Format). However creating E-Books from raw text files gives you the ability to make compatible E-Books from sites such as the Gutenberg Project as well as any documents on your computer you create. Try to remember that if you do save files from programs such as Word or Mac Write save them as .rtf (Rich Text Format) files or simple .txt files as it makes future conversion a whole lot simpler.

The program I use for conversion is the Mac application PorDiBle which is another piece of Open Source magic, however if you still nod your hat towards that Gates fellow, I believe that txt2palm will work just fine although its not as elegant a solution as PorDiBle. I ‘normally’ would recommend you buy a Mac but that may be somewhat outside your budget. Please do try read the manuals as even though they are very simple programs because they often have a lot of hidden extras (For instance PorDiBle converts a file to the Palm format by merely dragging the document onto the icon. Magic!). Again if you are using Linux or some aged UNIX operating system I suggest you consult your beard for the answers to file conversion.

Now sit back and consider, you have a perfectly functional E-Book reader in front of you, for a fraction of the cost of the more modern solutions. It may not play mp3s and browse the web but I hear that there are many solutions that do that Much Better. It will however function not just as an excellent E-Book reader but I have also heard (although don’t quote me on this) is is a passably decent PDA too. It keeps your contacts and schedule from your chosen scheduling application on your computer up to date and even beeps at you when you should be somewhere. It also has a battery life of up to a week of normal use, although heavy back-light use can cut into that somewhat.

I hope you, the reader find my digital musing useful and I would be very pleased to see the global demand for Palms skyrocket, however not just yet as I want to find a Palm IIIxe cheap. Here is a recommended reading list for those who like that sort of thing.

City at Worlds End by Edmond Hamilton

Overclocked by Cory Doctrow (in fact anything by him)

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court by Mark Twain

Full Revelations of a Professional Rat-Catcher by Ike Matthews (Not for the Squeamish but very entertaining)

Good Luck, and Happy Reading. Oh and before I forget, dongle.

Refreshing Sauerkrautsaft

Found in a Local Supermarket.  I am sure it’s very good for you, as shown by its prominent ‘Bio’ label.

But something about the existence of ‘Pickled Cabbage Juice’ disturbs me.

So what is the mystery? The Museum at Checkpoint Charlie claims it has the original for show, and if he had stolen it wouldn’t the German goverment ask nicely for its return?

An interesting piece of supporting evidence is the fact that our (Possible) cheeky criminal was interviewed in Stars and Stripes stating “I think the shack itself should be torn down,” “The signs should be kept, but the building isn’t really symbolic.” at or around the same date that the sign went missing.

So is he some sort of ‘Freelance Conservationist’ or is it just usual internet fluff?

Graffiti on the Berlin Wall

“Shortly before coming to see this, I found myself in an apoplectic rage because my american debit card wouldn’t work at the ATMs here. People died trying to cross this thing. Apparently, the other side was nothing but tourists”

All the way from the US just to write that, How strange.