Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Baltimore MD, USA
Posts: 717

Those wacky guys at the Palm Be Cool site had a good idea.

The Visor's I/R port is located at an unfortunate place. Sometimes you have to dislocate your wrist to get it aimed at another Visor or Palm.

So this fellow found a little folding mirror at the "100 yen shop". (i.e., the dollar store) He didn't even bother to attach it. He just holds it at a 45 degree angle so the beam goes directly ahead.
http://www.fureai.or.jp/~mori-t/b02...ror/mirror.html

Registered: Dec 2000
Location:
Posts: 64

Even cooler would be an infra-red port that "pops" open. It could hinge at the bottom and therefore point forward when open. If it was smart, it would automatically prompt you if you want to start beaming the file/record you are viewing.

This could also switch on the beam receive option in the preferences so you don't have to eat your batteries scanning the IR port all the time, just when you pop it open.

Kamalot

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

quote:

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Originally posted by kamalot
Even cooler would be an infra-red port that "pops" open. It could hinge at the bottom and therefore point forward when open

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God bless America, my home sweet home...

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: bright side of the moon.
Posts: 996

i was thinking of this once. For those that surf wirelessly via an IR link to their cell phone, I was thinking of taking a Visor cover and a small, cheap cell phone holder. Then crazy-glue the cell phone holder to the Visor hard cover so that the IR port on the phone is along the same line as the IR port on the Visor. Next, find one of these 'cheap, little mirrors' and attach it to your creation so that the mirror reflects the IR beam 180 degrees from your Visor to your phone.

Now you just pop your cell phone into the holder and snap the visor lid/cell holder onto the back of your visor and Voila! you don't have to hold both devices. Single handed operation!

I know, a little confusing, but i don't have a scanner to post a sketch and i haven't really drawn this on the computer yet.

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Ever feel like the train left while you were busy reading the paper?

Stealth-Mod.

Registered: Sep 2000
Location:
Posts: 117

a little off topic, but...

I should probably start another post for this, since it is slightly off topic, but that last response reminded me of an oft-day-dreamed idea I had:

I want my Minstrel-enabled Prism to act as a router for any device I attach to it so that I can use the wireless IP capabilities on anything I want (including PCs). This would be really sweet at places (especially places of work) where the firewall restrictions are prohibitive. Sure it's slow--but it's one way to get out without being at the mercy of local network security. I don't know what the best connector would be--probably the standard USB cradle or I suppose MarkSpace serial cables would do. Basically some software would run on the Prism that would receive packets over the serial or USB cable and pass them to the TCP/IP stack on the Prism to be transmitted over the CDPD network, likewise it would take packets from the CDPD network and pass it down the serial or USB cable back to the PC which would then treat it as a USB connected NIC or something.

Possibly another approach would be to somehow build a Springboard to Serial adapter and write all the drivers on the PC side. Oh well--just a thought.

Last edited by zelchenko on 02-16-2001 at 04:40 AM

Registered: Jun 2000
Location:
Posts: 11

Patents!

Becareful not to say too much about your "ideas" or *someone* may rush to patent them and then no one would be able to make the simple modifications without paying a crazy fee to the patent holder...





(just kidding)