After using the new release on both my Galaxy Nexus and a Nexus 7 I have to agree with the claims. The emulator is feels like it is running at about 90% the speed of my Newton 2000u. the Screen reaction seems to be a little slower than the real thing but given time can only improve. I could see an Android tablet with Einstein replacing my beloved green machine one day.

There are still some things to fix in Einstein. Sound doesn’t work, there is no way to set data in or out, and the app menu needs to fix for 4.0+ devices. Regardless, I think we are closer to realizing Paul Guyot’s original idea for Einstein.

If you would like to run Einstein on your Android device, please check out My previous post here.

Einstien Update Announcement: [NTLK] New version of Einstein for Android
Einstein Project Page: http://code.google.com/p/einstein/

Written on Message Pad 2000u

Friends,
Do you surf the web on a mobile phone?
Do you find that experience too rich and interactive?
Do you wish for a simpler Internet experience while on the go?
What if I told you there was a way? A way to surf the Internet anywhere there is a cellular signal?
And do it from a Newton?

Introducing: WiFi Tether 3.1 Beta 11. Now with WiFi Tether you can turn your mobile phone into a mobile wifi hotspot and allow any wireless device to connect on the go.

How much would you be willing to pay for a product like this? $20? $50? $100? Now for an unlimited time you can have Wifi Tether 3.1 Beta 11 for the low price of $0.00. To prove how easy this product it I’m going to demonstrate on an Apple Newton 2000 MessagePad. Just watch:

1. Download WiFi Tether from http://code.google.com/p/android-wifi-tether/
2. Launch “WiFi Tether” from the apps drawer
   
   
3. On the Newton open the wifi slip set the SSID to “AndroidTether”
   
4. Open your favorite Internet application to bring up the connection slip
5. Use a Internet setup configured for DHCP
   
6. And connect to your desired Internet website/service

Here you can see the Newton connected to Google’s PDA formatted homepage using the Newt’sCape web browser. Nothing special except I downloaded the site over Verizon 3G.

Here you can see WiFi Tether showing that a device has connected wirelessly. The MAC address prefix belongs to Lucent Technologies who made the WaveLAN Turbo card I have.

And there you have it. A connected Newton or computer anywhere you go. Couldn’t be simpler.

Have fun.

About two years ago I wrote a wiki article detailing how to setup a Newton to use Jabber as an instant messaging client for Yahoo, MSN, AIM, etc… Unfortunately that wiki no longer exists and the Internet Archive never backed up the pages. So I pulled out the old document I typed up and have reposted it here. I hope somebody finds it useful.

Background Information:
What is NewtonIM?
NewtonIM is an instant messaging client built to use the jabber client protocol. It was originally written by Jake Bordens, but also received some upgrades from Paul Guyot in 2005. The software still has a few bugs, but it is one of the best IM clients for the Newton.

What is Jabber?
Jabber is an instant messaging protocol based on the standards created by the XMPP Standards Foundations. Being an open standard, anyone can take and build own servers or clients of their own. This has made jabber instant messaging popular for not only the open source community, but also large corporations. Google’s instant messaging system, GoogleTalk, is based on jabber technology and Apple integrated jabber support into their iChat program with the release of OS X 10.4 “Tiger”.

One of the features of jabber is the ability to create transport plugins for servers. The transport plugin allows the jabber server to talk to other IM networks, such as AIM, MSN, Yahoo, IRC, ICQ, and more. So, you could register your yahoo account with the jabber server and be able to talk to your contact through a jabber client. The best way to think of this setup is to imagine a multi-protocol IM client (like Trillian and Pidgin), but the server is doing the work of connecting to the different IM networks. The jabber client just connects to the jabber server and communicates to everyone through the transport plugins. Confused?

What you will need:
A Internet capable Newton (preferably a MP2000 or 2100)
A computer with a jabber instant messaging client. The Instructions below describe how to use Miranda IM for PC and Adium for Mac

Setting up NewtonIM:

1. Choosing a Jabber Server
   The first step in getting NewtonIM to work is picking a server to register a jabber account with. A nice list of servers to start with can be found here. While relatively simple, you have to remember that there are hundreds of jabber servers but not all of them support the transport plugins for other IM networks. You will have to spend time looking for a server that supports the network you want.For the example in this guide I’m going to use the server called jabber.hot-chilli.net, located in Germany. It has transports plugins for all major IM networks and allows plaintext passwords (a requirement since the Newton can’t handle SSL).
2. (Mac)Adium: Create an Account
   1. Open Adium and cancel the setup assistant
   2. Open Adium’s Prefenences and go to the Accounts tab
   3. Click on the Plus sign button in the bottom left hand corner and choose Jabber 1
   4. Enter a username followed by the @ symbol followed by the name of the server (does not have to be the same as your MSN, AIM, etc accounts)
   5. Enter a password (does not have to be the same as your MSN, AIM, etc accounts) 2
   6. Go back to the Account tab and click Register New Account
      1. When you click the Register New Account button a new window will appear asking for the XMPP server address. Enter your server address
      2. Click the Request New Account button
      3. Confirm your username and password
      4. Click the Register button
      5. Click OK and return to the Accounts tab in Preferences

• (MAC)Adium: Register a transport service
  1. Open Adium
  2. Open Preferences and go to the Accounts tab
  3. Right click on your jabber account and choose Discovery Browser
  4. Expand the drop down list
  5. Find the transport you want to register with. NOTE: you want to register with the ones listed as “gateways”
  6. Double-click on the transport name and enter your IM information
  7. Click the register button
  8. Authorize and add the contacts to your jabber list
  9. repeat steps e through h to add MSN, Yahoo, AIM, and other contacts to your jabber list. Once complete you should be able to talk to all your friends from the jabber client on your computer
• (PC)Miranda IM: Create an Account
  1. Download and install Miranda IM
  2. Open Miranda IM
  3. Name your profile and click the Create button (the name you choose doesn’t really matter)
  4. Click on the plus sign in the bottom left hand corner to start adding an account
  5. Enter a name for the account, set the protocol to JABBER and click the OK button
  6. Highlight the newly created account and being entering your account information
  7. Change the Type to Public XMPP Network
  8. Enter a username for your jabber account (does not have to be the same as your MSN, AIM, etc accounts)
  9. Change the Server field to your preferred server
  10. Enter a password (does not have to be the same as your MSN, AIM, etc accounts)
  11. Click the Register new user button and confirm your password (a dialog box will confirm your account registration
  12. Click the OK button to close the Account window
• (PC)Miranda IM: Register a Transport Service
  1. Open Miranda IM. If the Import wizard launches, just cancel it
  2. Click on the Status menu and choose Online
  3. Click on the Status menu Navigate down to your Jabber profile’s Services… option and choose Service Directory
  4. In the Service Directory, choose the transport you want to use, right-click on it, and choose Register
  5. Enter the name and password for your IM account, and click the Register button
  6. Close the Service directory window and go back to your contact list
  7. All of your contacts will have a blinking icon. Double-click on each contact and Authorize them
• Install NewtonIM
  1. Go to Jake’s website and download the NIM.pkg package (there is a copy on UNNA, but I believe it is an older version)
  2. Install the package by your preferred method
• Configure NewtonIM
  1. Open the NewtonIM application
  2. Enter your username for you jabber account without the @jabber… Leave the password field blank (there is a bug related to the password and username field)
  3. Enter your server address
  4. Set the resource to whatever you like
  5. Click on the “i” icon and choose Save Prefs
  6. Close and reopen Newton IM
  7. Enter your password and click the Connect button

If you are able to connect, all your contacts that were listed on your computer will now appear in the contact list on your Newton.

So what are you waiting for? Get out there and get to messaging from your Newton. I haven’t tested it, but since Facebook chat uses the jabber protocol then you could potentially use Newton IM to talk with friends there.

Have fun. -Tony

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I wish there was a way to use my Newton on my phone or tablet?” Well now you can. For all of those Newton Users who have an Android device, you can now run the Einstein emulator.

Let me give you a little backstory. Back in 2005 Paul Guyot, a well-known and respected Newton programmer, released the first public version of his Newton emulator called Einstein. The original concept was to come up with a solution to make the Newton operating system hardware independent and possibly license the OS from Apple (1). That was going to open the way for new hardware and therefore keep the Newton platform alive. Unfortunately the project never got past the emulator step, but Paul continued to working and was able to build Einstein to run on OS X, Windows, and a few Linux tablets like the Nokia 770/800. In 2007 Einstein was released as open source software so other programmers could join in and help bring Newton OS to new devices. Once such programmer was Matthias Melcher (2).

Since 2007 Matthias has continued to work on Einstein to improve its speed, reliability, and functionality. 2011 has been particularly exciting because Matthias ported Einstein over to the iOS platform giving users the potential to run Newton OS on their iPhones and iPads. Unfortunately Apple rejected Einstein from being released in the App store and the iOS port is no longer being developed (3).

Now Matthias is working on an Android port of Einstein (4). An early build is available for download, but a lot of work still needs to be done to optimize the speed and reliability. Running the emulator on a Droid 1 is slow, but good enough to show off to friends. I personally can’t wait to see what happens to Einstein in the near future as devices get faster. What are you waiting for? Go dump the ROM off your Newton and get to emulating.

Have fun,
Tony

http://code.google.com/p/einstein/
(1) http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=109452984605975&w=2
(2) http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=118396241728586&w=2
(3) http://marc.info/?l=newtontalk&m=129745881308428&w=2
(4) http://matthiasm.com/einstein.html

I am happy to report that Look It’s Another Blog is now compatible with mobile browsers. This is thanks to the WordPress Mobile Pack plugin, which provides a simplified theme along with some PHP scripting. WPMP has a list of browser user agents known to be used on mobile devices. If one of those browsers connects to this website then the mobile version will load. If you would like to view the full version of the site then not a problem. There is a link at the bottom of the page to switch back and forth. The website will remember your preference in the future.

For all of you out there who are surfing the web with an Apple Newton and the Netwscape browser, WPMP will choose the mobile version of the site for you. Currently I can not get Net Hopper to connect to Look It’s Another Blog. It doesn’t appear to like the fact Go Daddy is the host. Courier will load the full site. In testing it does not send a user agent to websites. Therefore, websites do not know what type of browser is connecting.

And in case you were curious, here are the user agents for Newtscape and Net Hopper.
Newt’s Cape/2.1e-2(NIE)
NetHopper/3.2 (Newton)

Disclaimer: The Newton does not support SSL or https. Basically this means that anything you type into the website (including your password) is sent as plain text over the Internet. Do this at your own risk.

What you will need:

• A Newton with Internet connectivity
• The Newtscape web browser

What you will do:

1. Open Newtscape
2. Enter the following address:
   http://www.skweezer.com/s.aspx/-/m~facebook~com/login.php?http
3. Once the web page loads then enter your account information. Note the warning saying, “Your password will be sent in plain text.”

It will take about 1 to 2 minutes for the page to completely load but once done you will be able to see your news feed. Have fun.

PS. If I could get NCX to take a screenshot then I would show you how great the site looks in green.

Posted from my Newton 2100.

Update: You may be wondering why you can’t connect to Facebook’s website directly from the Newton. Good question. I don’t have a good explanation as to why. I experienced issues when trying to connect through http://m.facebook.com/login.php?http. Both Net Hopper and Newtscape would load the page, but logging in fails. Of course, Courier cannot login because it doesn’t support forms. I haven’t tried Lunasuite.

The solution I came with for logging into Facebook was to use a website that could transcode the pages into more basic HTML. In the past I used Google’s GWT page combined with Net Hopper to view pages but about a year ago things changed. Google changed how GWT worked and since then I have not been able to get it to work on the Newton. After searching the web for mobile browser transcoders I learned about skweezer.com. Using its online transcoder I was able to login to Facebook using the Newton. Sure, loading pages is really slow, but it works. I consider that a success.

Anyway, below are the steps and settings I had to use to get application, nblog, working:

1. Go to http://www.unna.org/view.php?/internet/NBlog1.2
2. Download and install XML-RPC.pkg, nBlog.pkg, and nHTML.PKG

I’m using WordPress 3.0.1 as my CMS with everything setup and hosted at GoDaddy.com. Your settings may be slightly different.

Host: lookanotherblog.com
Path: /xmlrpc.php
Port: 80
Weblog API: MovableType

*Note: you will need to go into your Word Press configuration and enable the XML-RPC option under Settings > Writing.

I would like give a shout out and say thanks to Tony Kan and his blog, myapplenewton.blogspot.com. Tony posts regular information about the Newton and the community that surrounds it. He has managed to get nblog to work with Blogger in the past so I asked myself why couldn’t I get it to work with WordPress.