Treo 650 Has Memory Issue
There's no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.
Here are a few questions about computers I've received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about a problem with the new Treo 650 smart phone, and about uninstalling Internet Explorer.
If you have a question, send it to me at
mossberg@wsj.com, and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg's Mailbox.
Because of the volume of e-mail I receive, I can't routinely answer individual questions by e-mail, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.
Q: I know you recommended the new Treo 650 smart phone. But I am reading on the Internet that it has much less memory than the older Treo 600. Is this true?
A: Yes and no. The new Treo 650 has the same 32 megabytes of internal memory as its predecessor, the Treo 600. And about the same portion of that memory, roughly 23 megabytes, is available to users to store programs and data, like contacts, calendar entries and e-mail. However, its manufacturer, palmOne, changed the way the new Treo manages that memory. And the result, for some users, is that the same set of programs and data that fit into memory on the older model no longer fit on the 650.
PalmOne made the memory change for a very good reason: to implement a welcome new feature that protects your data when the battery dies. But the unintended consequence was that very small data entries, like a name and phone number, now occupy more memory than they did in the past. As a result, address books, calendars and other things take up more room. This downside, which wasn't disclosed by the company when it introduced the 650, has touched off a wave of criticism from Treo power users, who discovered the problem only when they bought the new model and tried to copy over their programs and files.
The company believes most users won't be severely affected, and there may be some truth to that. On my new Treo 650 , which I bought last week, I have been able to store about 1,200 contacts, a couple of months worth of calendar entries, and 200 or so e-mails at a time, and still have a few megabytes of free memory, even though I also have several add-on programs installed. This is partly because I keep large files, like photos, video clips and songs, on an optional memory expansion card -- a so-called SD card, like the ones in many digital cameras -- so they don't take up room in the device's internal memory.
However, users with data-hungry programs like travel, language and diet databases, popular on the Treo, may not be so lucky. Not all of these programs and their files can be stored on, or run from, memory cards. I believe palmOne should have informed users about the new memory scheme, and should have doubled the standard memory on the Treo 650 to compensate, especially since memory is cheap. The company should also have made it much easier to store common data on memory cards.
PalmOne has issued a statement promising to develop a patch for the Treo 650 that will compact data automatically so more of it can fit in memory, even under the new system. But that could take months, and might not restore all of the lost storage capacity. Meanwhile, the company is offering a free 128-megabyte memory card to users who request one. Details on how to get this free card will be posted on the company's Web site next month, palmOne says.
I still believe the Treo 650 is a welcome improvement over the already very good Treo 600, and that it is the best combination phone, organizer and e-mail device on the market. But, if I had known about this memory issue when I reviewed the 650 in October, I'd have warned power users to hold off on upgrading until the company had a fix.
Q: You have recommended "dumping" the Internet Explorer Web browser, for security reasons, and using the Mozilla Firefox browser instead. Does this mean I should uninstall Internet Explorer? How would I do that?
A: Because Internet Explorer is deeply integrated into Windows, you can't entirely uninstall it. All you can do is remove the icons that launch it as a separate program. The underlying guts of the program will remain on your PC, because Windows needs them to perform certain functions other than Web browsing.
However, I don't recommend that you even remove the icons for Internet Explorer. When I said people should "dump" Internet Explorer, I meant they should stop using it as their main tool for surfing the Web, not that they should expunge it. It's still useful to have around as a backup browser, because there are some Web sites that were tailored specifically for Internet Explorer, and don't follow common Web standards. These sites don't work well in Firefox, and you will need Internet Explorer to access them. The two browsers can co-exist just fine on your PC, even if you designate Firefox as your default browser.
Treo 650的内存问题
在我们大多数人拥有的大件电器中，再没有什么比个人电脑更令人费解、更变幻莫测的了。每个人或许都有些关于电脑的问题，而《莫博士信箱》将为您提供帮助。
本周我将回答有关新的Treo 650智能电话以及Firefox网络浏览器的问题。
问：我知道你曾推荐过新的Treo 650智能电话。但我在互联网上看有文章说它的内存容量要低于老的Treo 600，这是真的吗？
答：是、也不是。新的Treo 650的内存和老的Treo 600一样，都是32兆，用户可以使用其中的约23兆来存储程序以及合同、日历和电子邮件等数据。不过Treo的制造者palmOne修改了新的Treo的存储方式，对于部分用户来说，一些能在老的Treo上使用的程序和数据无法再在新的Treo上使用。
PalmOne做出这样的调整有其充分的理由，它为的是加入一项受用户欢迎的新功能，这项功能可以在电池没电时保护Treo内的数据。不过由此产生的一个意想不到的后果就是一些像通讯录、日程安排等很小的文件现在要占据更多的内存。该公司在最初发布650时并没有披露这项不足，因此招致了许多Treo用户的指责，这些用户在购买了新款的Treo、并试图开始复制程序和文件时才发现了这一问题。
该公司认为，多数用户并不会受到严重的影响，事实可能的确如此。我上周买的Treo 650一次能存1,200条通讯录、几个月的日程安排以及200来封电子邮件，甚至在我装入了一些附加程序后，还有剩余的内存空间。部分原因可能是我将一些像照片、视频、音乐等较大的文件存在选装的内存扩展卡中，因此它们不会占据Treo的内存空间。
不过，如果用户要使用占用大量空间的程序，比如在Treo用户中很流行的旅游、语言和饮食数据库，可能就会遇到一些麻烦。不是所有的这些程序都能在内存扩展卡中存储或是运行。我认为，palmOne应该将新的存储结构告知用户，而且既然内存现在很便宜，公司还应该将新的Treo 650的内存增加一倍。另外，公司应让将一般数据存在内存扩展卡上变得更容易。
PalmOne已经发表了一份声明，承诺为Treo 650开发一套补丁程序，能自动压缩数据，使得新的Treo能存入更多的数据。不过开发这一程序可能需要几个月的时间，并且还有可能无法恢复到原来的存储水平。同时公司还为提出要求的用户免费提供一个128兆的内存卡。palmOne称，有关获取该免费内存卡的具体安排，公司将会在下月公布在公司网站上。
我仍然认为Treo 650比起已经不错的Treo 600仍有令人满意的改进之处，它是目前市场上最好的一种集电话、事务管理器和电子邮件系统为一体的设备。不过如果我在10月份评论650时就知道它的内存问题，我会建议读者们在该公司解决好这个问题后再购买新款的Treo。
问：你建议读者们出于安全的考虑，放弃使用Internet Explorer网络浏览器，转而使用Mozilla的Firefox网络浏览器。这是否意味著我应卸载Internet Explorer？我应该怎样卸载呢？
答：由于Internet Explorer被整合到Windows操作系统的深层部分，你无法完全将其卸载。你所能做的就是移除它的图标。Internet Explorer一些基本的内容仍会保留在你的电脑里，因为Windows需要这些东西来执行除网络浏览之外的其他功能。
不过，即使能够移除我也不建议你去做。我说的让大家放弃使用Internet Explorer，意思是应停止使用它来作为主要的网络浏览工具，而不是应将它删除。将它作为一个后备的网络浏览器仍是十分有用的，原因是有部分网站是特别为Internet Explorer设计的，Firefox无法很好的浏览，因而需要使用Internet Explorer。电脑内同时安装这两种浏览器没有任何问题，即便是你将Firefox设为了电脑默认的浏览器。
