[Tfug] Tablets

[Bexley Hall]

Hi John,

--- On Mon, 8/27/12, John Kiniston <johnkiniston at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Stop working" as in *break*?  Or, stop working as in
> having a dependence on a service that may not be eternally
> available?
> 
> The later, The devices rely on the
> servers to do, well everything. The apps are downloaded to
> the Chumby on boot and run locally but a lot of them are fed
> from the chumby.com backend servers (Well I read they are S3 based now)

OK.  So, anyone expecting to use it as a turn-key device would
be nervous, at this point.  Like a Windows-98 (exclusively) based
device in 2012...
   
> > I've got a Chumby One (3.5 Inch Cube) on my nightstand
> > as the worlds best alarm clock and radio.
> 
>> No, the world's best alarm clock is waking up when
>> your body wants you to do so -- no sooner!  ;-)
> 
> Wish I could do that, But as it is having a
> configurable alarm is great. 

Double-edged sword.  Sucks when you roll out of bed to discover
you've been there for 18 hours and have "blown" a day!  :-/

> > Inside they look like this: http://adafruit.com/products/278
> 
>> Ah, I've been reading these posts and web pages and confusing myself!
>> These are *different* devices!  E.g., the processor in the Insignia
>> device is more capable than this predecessor (?)
>> I see 450MHz, 64MB... then 800MHz, 128MB, etc.  OK, I think
>> I've got it sorted out, now  <:-(
> 
> Oh, Sorry!  I thought I specified that it was a
> family of devices, Yeah they vary.

Yes, I just lost track of where the discussion shifted from one
to the other, etc.  I need to pay more attention to detail  :-(

>> Unless they've done something brain-damaged in the driver, that
>> should still give you several thousand points on each of the
>> X and Y axis and a reasonably quick update rate.  Can't see
>> how that would be a real problem (?)  I will have to try to relocate
>> the "complaint" I found previously and see if there was any more detail
>> available.
> 
> I've never had any problems with mine for what it's worth. 

I suspect you probably just use "taps" to interact with it?
Like making selections, pushing buttons, etc.

I.e., you aren't trying to "drag" something across the screen
(think drag-n-drop or moving a slider up/down, left/right)

> I watched some Youtube video's on mine back
> when I got it, They played OK, Never tried anything else as
> my One has the 3.5 inch 320x240 display so it's not
> really suited for Video. 

Understood.  The bigger device obviously has more horsepower
(and a more respectable display size/resolution).  I want to
be able to stream video from things like "FrontDoorCamera"
to this display in real time (get rid of the stupid little
peep hole, etc.).  So, I'm not really expecting to use it
in a more traditional "media player" sort of application
(where you sit and watch for long periods of time).  OTOH,
I'm not keen on ungodly slow frame rates and herky-jerky
motion, etc.!

--don