Yet another change to the Elonex ONE website

http://www.elonexone.co.uk has changed completely again!

You can now order the Elonex ONE(+), the Elonex ONEt(+) and the Webbook (Linux or XP).

The ONEt price has gone up to £119 for the 1GB model or £129 for the 2GB Plus - a more sensible price difference - and the Linux Webbook is available for £199 - there's no mention of shipping charges and I haven't got as far as the checkout to see if it's still £10 or it's now free.

The fact that all the models are offered for sale, plus some ex-demo and B-grade stock clearance items, may indicate that the latest shipments have been received (or are about to be received) from China/Taiwan and that Elonex actually think they now have more stock than orders!

Do continue to keep our poll up to date with your orders and receipts...

Elonex ONE Website changed completely

There's been a sudden and complete change to http://www.elonexone.co.uk - gone is any mention of the original Elonex ONE (with its removable keyboard) - also gone is any mention of the ONE Union website. Instead the ONEt and ONEt+ are available at the original ONE prices of £99 and £119 + £10 postage.

As I've commented before, I don't think the extra 1 GigaByte of Flash memory is worth £20 - I think you would be much better off buying the plain ONEt and spending the £20 on one or more SD cards - if you have problems with the ONEt and need to "recover" the original installation you'll need an SD card as that's the only place you can install a Recovery image from - with a bit of shopping around you can also get a 4 GigaByte SD card for under £20.

There's confirmation on the Maplin website that 4 GigaBytes is the maximum supported SD or USB memory size. Maplin have the ONEt+ equivalent "minibook" available at £139.99 including postage, plus some "B grade stock" at £119.99 - with the advantage that these machines are in stock now rather than having to wait until Christmas.

So, will the original ONE or a variant reappear later at a lower price or from a different supplier? Or are we now limited to the ONEt(+)? I would like to see the ONE back again, for its 486 compatibility, range of available software and 256 MegaByte RAM...

Firefox addons for the Elonex ONEt

I've been checking out the recommendation from Leven2e in our email group that Firefox addons can be installed in the Bon Echo browser on the Elonex ONEt - despite the unusual processor in the ONEt.

The first recommendation is MediaPlayerConnectivity - this creates a connection between sound and video links on a web page and the Xine media player on the ONEt - so you can click on a web link and result in Xine being launched to play the music or video - I'm listening to the radio over the web courtesy of this addon at the moment.

The best way to load an addon into the ONEt is to browse to the appropriate Firefox addons page, for example by clicking on the appropriate link in this blog then click on the link to Download the addon - after a while Bon Echo will bring up another window where you click on Install, watch the progress bar as the file is downloaded and installed, then click on Restart Bon Echo - then typically the addon will lauch a preferences window where you can make any settings changes that you need.

MediaPlayerConnectivity automatically detects and sets up the links to Xine. Leven2e recommends a couple of web pages listing suitable radio stations: http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/mp3.asp and http://www.radiofeeds.co.uk/wmp.asp - I certainly found that a lot of general web pages were "too clever" - telling me that the browser was incompatible without giving me chance to see the links to the appropriate media...

Another useful addon (for me at least) is the British English Dictionary - through it I discovered that the ONEt already had an American English dictionary installed - when you are typing words into a web page (e.g. composing an email on webmail) any mis-spelled words will be underlined in red, right clicking on them gives a choice of words you might have meant and the chance under a Languages sub-menu to change your language to "English/United Kingdom".

Adblock Plus is very good at stripping distracting ads from web pages, you can subscribe to a list of known advertising sites which means that most adverts are removed automatically and if any slip through you can right-click on the image and add that site to your blocked list too.

Leven2e suggests a few other addons which I haven't quite got into yet:
Video DownloadHelper promises much, but the video conversion program it offers couldn't be enabled on my ONEt.
Locator launches Google Maps for an address you have selected on the screen - but I find Google Maps very hard to use on the ONEt because it is obviously designed for a much bigger computer screen.
Firefly offers to turn Bon Echo into a file browser - but it already is in that you can type "file:///" into the standard Bon Echo address bar and look round all the system files on the computer without needing any other browser - the Firefly file copy and rename functions may be useful, I'll see.
Facebook Toolbar is one I haven't investigated.

But, all-in-all, it's good news that the ONEt runs much more software than I ever expected when I learned that the processor was not Intel X86 compatible.

New Elonex ONEt kernel released...

Elonex are now offering a separate download for the ONEt kernel file "uImage" if you follow the links on: http://www.elonex.com/support/products/lnxonet.shtm - and the instructions there indicate that Fn+Shift+F1 are used to update what they are calling the "Master Boot Record" but elsewhere is called the kernel.

For example: http://194.150.201.35/cnmlifestyle/downloads.htm indicates that the V66 version of the kernel includes support for a 3G modem driver and improved USB printer handling... there are also files to download for gFTP (if you ever need to use File Transfer Protocol to load or save files) plus some of the usual games and programs found elsewhere.

Elonex also now have a ONEt home page at: http://www.elonex.com/landingonet.html

It looks there's more things to play with...

Meanwhile for Elonex ONE(+) owners things seem to have gone quiet - maybe interest or news will pick up once the next batch of ONE(+)s start being delivered?

Elonex ONE and ONEt software comparison

I'm gradually working my way through various tests on my Elonex ONEt (evenings and weekends) and putting the results up on the "Software Comparison" page.

Some things are good, others not so good.

For example, the ONEt works well in combination with my old still camera - which is 3.2 megapixels and stores photos on an SD card - the SD card slot on the ONEt works fine and I can view my photos nicely and show slideshows to the family - fine for showing off my photos to someone who doesn't have a computer. The ONEt Media Player also plays the 320 by 240 pixel movies (QuickTime .MOV file type) that the still camera records quite well.

But, it's not up to playing the 640 by 480 pixel .MPG video files I can get off my video camera.

Printer setup turned out to be relatively easy, just fire up the CUPS Printer Manager, select "Add Printer" - from the "Devices" drop down menu select the Network Printer on my home network that CUPS had already identified (it told me its IP address and name in case I had more than 1 network printer) - the tricky bit was selecting the driver on the next screen - it turns out that oldest is best, selecting an "old" HP Deskjet driver for my "new" HP Officejet worked fine - adjust the parameters for A4 paper and 600 dpi (the best the driver would do) and we're away with something usable at least.

One disappointment is that there's no Samba Client (network browser) so I can't copy files from the shared drives on other PCs on my home network - I can see this being a problem in a classroom situation where the teacher has the project work stored on a shared drive on the teacher's PC and students are supposed to copy the start files from the shared drive and put results back there when they have finished. The original Elonex ONE manual clearly shows a Network browser in action...

So, the ONE does definitely have more/better/newer software than the ONEt (except for the Internet Browser where Saramao is more cut-down than Bon Echo) - the ONE has Java, Network browsing (as we've just said), built-in games, a younger child's drawing package, built-in programming software, better WiFi support (according to reports, though neither is perfect) - but the ONE is heavier and the attempt to produce a tablet PC means the ONE has to have a supporting strut to hold the screen up and the tablet support software is obviously not perfect from comments on our email group - as usual, you take your pick and decide which combination is best for you...

Ed

xterm, root and games on the Elonex ONEt

In case you missed my earlier aside, there's xterm, a patch to give access to root, three games, a Contact Manager and a text editor at: http://www.littlelinuxlaptop.com/software.htm with the hope of more to follow

"grumpyoldman64" has told us about a WiFi patch at: http://www.maplin.co.uk/media/A98HX_WiFi_Patch.zip which improved his signal level and a Dutch based group discussing the software in detail: http://projects.kwaak.net/twiki/bin/view/Epc700/WebHome

Though there is a hint at: http://www.elonex.co.uk/support/products/lnxonet.shtm that one of the 4 automatic software updates is that missing WiFi patch - and the fact that automatic updates appear to work suggests that you don't need Little Linux Laptop's automatic update patch.

The Elonex Support page also includes a link to the manual and to the relevant restore images for the ONEt and ONEt+ - which I suspect are more up to date than the Trendtac EPC700 image offered at the Little Linux Laptop site.

And, as you gathered it looks like deliveries of the ONEt and ONEt+ have started and support pages have appeared.

The ONEunion hasn't appeared yet (and schools did start back a fortnight ago here in Scotland) and my personal ONEt hasn't arrived yet, but it does look as if we are making progress.

Elonex ONE Support page updated

The ONE Support page at http://www.elonex.com/support/products/lnxone.shtm has improved since I last looked there in that the link to the ONE Recovery image now works: http://www.elonexsupport.com/one/onerecovery.zip and the Download Manual button connects to the correct manual: http://www.elonexone.co.uk/downloads/oneusermanual.pdf

Looking at the manual also gives hints that the software has been updated compared to the Aware laptop manual that I've been working from up to now. There's even a clue that there might be a drop-down menu to change WiFi protocol from WEP to WPA or WPA2? So, if anyone has managed to get WPA working on the ONE can you let me know?

There are also a couple of new FAQs:

Q. Why can't I view some webpages?
A. As The ONE can't view some parts of some webpages as it does not have Flash 9 (for example you can't view Youtube videos) but sometimes you can't view some content because Java or Flash are disabled in your settings.
To enable Java and Flash open the internet and click the Settings button (the spanner and screwdriver icon in the top right corner). Under Content Options change the Java and Flash options to Enabled, then press Apply. You need to close your internet browser and then reopen it for the changes to take effect.

That's good news, the ONE appears to have Flash and Java, you just need to enable them? Again I'd be grateful if someone could let me know the versions of Java and Flash on the machine.

Q. Why can't I connect to the internet?
A. To be honest if you are reading this page then you have no problems connecting to the internet (!!) but if you have a friend who has problems then please get them to call our support number (0871 90 296 90).
The ONE has experienced some problems connecting to BT Home Hub and Sky Broadband. There is a software update for this so please phone us for more information.

I don't like the answer to this question - I'm sure most ONE owners will either have their own bigger computer or know someone (teacher or parent) who has - why can't Elonex put the answer on the web instead of promoting their Premium Rate telephone number? So, if you know the answer to this question, please let me know so we can distribute the answer as widely as possible.

Or more ONEt delays?

I did warn everyone when posting my first blog entry that the arrival of the Elonex ONE had a lot of similarities with the launch of the Sinclair Spectrum and BBC microcomputer and other machines from the 1980s. To have three 28 day delays in delivery was not unusual then, and I'm not too surprised that it's starting to look a bit that way again... Apologies if I called "time" too early from the hints I'd been seeing that the ONEt was on the way.

If it's any consolation, I've found a good little website at http://www.littlelinuxlaptop.com - the Elonex ONEt (or something very similar) has been on sale in the Netherlands for some time by Trendtac http://www.trendtac.nl/ and the two sites already contain a lot of useful stuff, like a recovery image, a patch to get automatic updates to work, a patch to get to root xterm and a few games.

The Trendtac site is in Dutch so you may want to translate it using http://translate.google.com - the Dutch to English result is at: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.trendtac.nl%2F&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=nl&tl=en

The site does have 320 megabytes of source code to download, released under the Open Source licence, and a cross compiler - so we prospective ONEt owners could take a bit of a lead by getting any programs we need compiled in advance of getting a machine...?

Elonex ONEt's on the way?

There's a forum post at: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1113971 that implies that one customer has received an email saying his ONEt is on the way - there's no votes in our poll yet indicating any ONEt's being received - but we are now into the "last week in August" which is when the delay email said they would be delivered...

The delay has given us chance to think over the features of the various machines - and as always there's swings and roundabouts:
The advantage of the plain ONE is definitely its price, the 486 compatible processor means that it's likely that Elonex (or more likely some third party) will eventually bring the software more up to date, either by producing updated files for the installed "Linos" operating system, or by producing a version of "Puppy Linux" for the machine - and the spare internal USB port means that adding bluetooth or a bigger flash drive should be easy;
The main advantage of the ONE+ is the 256 megabytes of RAM, it might even be possible to port xUbuntu for this machine;
The ONEt may have a better input device with its touchpad, it's certainly lighter in weight, its MIPS processor has advantages and disadvantages - it's harder to port software for it, but equally it will be harder to write viruses and spyware for it - and the installed software while it may be based on older variants than those on the ONE may well include better video support;
And, the ONEt+... is probably for those with a little bit of extra money to spare...

So, we wait to be able to check these guesses out.

xterm on the Elonex ONE

Three of the members of our Google Group have pooled their ideas and come up with a way to get the "xterm" terminal console onto the ONE's menu.

This is probably going to be a very useful thing to do, as I can imagine that lots of other Elonex ONE tips are going to start: "open up xterm and type the following commands..."

Anyway this is what you have to do to get xterm on your menu:

Pop up the virtual keyboard with alt-tab and hover over the xkbd logo.

Hold down the left button and select 'manual' and miraculously xterm will appear, running as "root".

type: cd /home/user
type: vi .icewm/menu

..then you're in the menu file. Find a suitable location for your menu entry, and type a line that says:

prog "xterm" xterm /bin/sh -c "xterm"

Make sure it lines up like the other lines, then save and close the file. (If '-c' doesn't work, try '-x' instead.)

Now hit the "One" button and see your new menu option.

Jealousy sets in

It's becoming fairly obvious to those of us who fell for the "free-upgrade" to the ONEt that deliveries of the Elonex ONE are already well under way - the votes on the right show that clearly - and one of our regulars "peterg" has even had time to receive a ONE, have the original machine suffer a hardware failure and get a replacement machine, as detailed in his blog:
http://www.mildewhall.com/BigBlogTCSearch.php?searchfor=Elonex%20One - he has also set up an Elonex ONE page at: http://www.mildewhall.com/ElonexONE/ - these both look as if they are going to be useful pages to visit in future.

Meanwhile, 3 Elonex ONEs have already been sold on http://www.ebay.co.uk (generally for just under the Elonex price) and there are two more currently on offer...

Can't wait to get my hands on a ONEt and join in...

Where are we now?

The aim of this blog is to discuss using the Elonex ONE family of computers. So, while it's interesting to follow the problems of scheduling delivery of several hundred thousand computers in a way that keeps the maximum number of customers happy (?), I thought it was time to bring together what we know so far about the machines.

I have therefore created two tables: http://groups.google.com/group/elonexone/web/hardware-comparison
and http://groups.google.com/group/elonexone/web/software-comparison
to list what we know and what we suspect.

On the hardware front we know quite a bit - it seems that predecessors of the Elonex ONE and ONEt have existed for some time under different names - that they are produced by two different manufacturers, but they have very similar specifications.

On the software front we know a lot less - software is relatively easy to change and while there is some information on the predecessor machines, we cannot guarantee that the same software will be preloaded on the ONE and ONEt as was loaded on the predecessors.

Let's emphasise a consequence of that - we cannot guarantee that the same software will be on the ONEt as there is on the ONE! The ONE appears to use a processor that is compatible with an earlier Intel machine, making it that little bit easier to find compatible software than the ONEt that appears to use a "reduced instruction set" processor. This may make the available software on the ONEt more restricted and make it harder to get the very latest version.

Human memory is a funny thing - I was looking at the Elonex Accessories page: http://www.elonex.dslshop.co.uk/index.asp?page=accessories to check that the printer they show is really an HP Deskjet (sensible because HP do make Linux drivers available for their printers) - and I think the "speakers" have totally changed their design since the last time I looked - can anyone else confirm this? If so, it's another example of the complications that can follow when you try to order a very large number of anything...

Email received from Elonex - ONEt delayed until end of August

As you gather, I was one of those people who opted to upgrade to the
"ONEt" model, and today I've received a delay email from Elonex as
follows:

Demand for the ONEt free upgrade and accessories has exceeded our
estimations, with the majority of customers ordering a range of
accessories, including the indispensible wristVAULTs. As a result we
are experiencing a delay on deliveries. The official launch of the
ONEt is 1st September however Pre-orders, of which you are one, will
receive their order in the last week of August, ahead of this product
launch.

We sincerely apologise for this delay and for any inconvenience
caused. We would therefore like to offer you the following options:
• Continue with your order as it currently is (no action is
required by you)
• We are able to temporarily refund your order and re process the
payment when your order is dispatched (please call 0870 240 1060)
• If you would like to cancel your order (please call 0870 240 1060
or email us here)

Please accept our sincerest apologies, your order is of the utmost
importance to us and we are putting every effort into speeding up all
deliveries.

Best Regards

Elonex

"Does What" have recevied a "One"!

The first review of the Elonex One as received by a user is on the web
at:

http://www.doeswhat.com/2008/08/01/elonex-one-un-boxed-first-look-review/

The review includes a 4 minute flash video showing everything from
opening the box to getting the word processor on the screen and typing
their first document.

Elonex One on the way for some?

At least one user reports receiving an email that their Elonex One has
been sent out:

http://www.doeswhat.com/2008/07/31/elonex-one-finally-dispatched/

Other links that you might find useful are:

About the OneT: http://www.elonexone.co.uk/onet.html

Listing available accessories: http://www.elonex.dslshop.co.uk/index.asp?page=accessories

A discussion that seems to prove that the Elonex OneT+ only has 128M
of RAM: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/07/09/elonex_unveils_second_scc/comments/

(Which is disappointing to those of us who have paid £20 extra for
what turns out to be just 1Gb of extra flash memory - no Bluetooth and
no extra RAM.)

There are also various other Elonex One unofficial sites appearing,
including: http://elonexone.org.uk/

Please let us know if you come across any other useful sites.

Which machine will arrive first?

With the announcement of a "free upgrade" to the Elonex OneT that has greeted most of us when we were asked to confirm and pay for our order, the question arises - which machines will arrive first?!

Does the offer of the OneT mean the One has been delayed?

So the competition is on - please let us know which machine you ordered by clicking on the "poll" on the right. And when your machine arrives, please come back here and tell us by voting in the second poll.

Please also feel free to add comments to the blog about your machine once it arrives.

(All comments will be moderated - please keep to the subject of this blog...)

Home computer delays seem familiar?

The story so far of the Elonex One reminds me of the days of the Sinclair Spectrum and BBC Micro.

I remember sending off my cheque for a Sinclair Spectrum 48 and receiving a postcard in return announcing that the machine would be delivered in 28 days - only to be followed 28 days later by another postcard saying that it would actually arrive within the following 28 days - repeated until eventually the long awaited introduction to computing did finally arrive.