[TriLUG] Maybe OT: PDAs

Thunder Bear thunderbear at yonderway.com
Tue Sep 3 12:11:41 EDT 2002


I use an old Palm V.

Graffiti is cumbersome, and I find myself using the on-screen keyboard
too often.  Also it is sometimes awkward switching between proper
printing and graffiti if you don't mind yourself.

The 2MB of memory in the Palm V is more than enough for me.  I've got a
substantial subset of the Linux Documentation Project in there, among
other things.  So unless you know for a fact you are going to be running
an app that is a memory hog, don't focus on which one has more memory.

The Palm V does sync with Linux under Gnome just fine, but KDE was a
different story.  I've not been happy at all with how well integrated
Palm & Linux are, and this is one area where Windows punches Linux'
clock (sorry, but true).

I've found since I got a notebook computer, my need for a PDA is greatly
diminished.  I keep contacts in there, and swap contact information with
other PDA users.  I also keep my GPG fingerprint in there to beam to
people.  However the majority of the time I use my PDA for tracking time
spent at client sites to make it easier to generate invoices at the end
of the week.  This is one area where the notebook would be too
cumbersome.

The Palm V was bought for cheap on eBay.  For the price of a new PDA, I
wouldn't bother looking at new ones.  Just look at the old ones.  Plenty
of executives & toy geeks out there are upgrading to the latest &
greatest, leaving a perfectly good older model behind for someone else
to snatch up on eBay.

If I were to do things differently, I would look for a USB cradle or
model that comes with a USB cradle since serial is so slow, and requires
a wall wart.  That's about my only regret, if you can call it that.

Supposedly the palm will work really well with my OSX notebook if I get
a USB cradle, but I haven't tried that yet.  I think I will though since
the Linux integration is pretty bad.

On Tue, 2002-09-03 at 11:50, Douglas Kojetin wrote:
> Hi All-
> 
> This might be a bit off topic, but I'll throw in an "on topic" question 
> at the end!
> 
> I'm looking into getting a PDA, and wanted to get some advice from 
> people on the list (who might have one).
> 
> I was thinking of getting one of the following:
> 
> Handspring Treo 90
> Handspring Visor Pro
> Palm m500
> Palm m515
> Sony CLIE PEG-T615C
> 
> 1) Any comments on the thumb-board vs. Graffiti?
> 
> 2) Anyone know which of the above can by sync-ed into Linux?
> 
> 3) How long have you had one?  I'm afraid I may stop using it after 
> awhile -- which would be a waste of money -- but I'm still tempted.
> 
> Any other suggestions/comments are welcome -- and if you feel it's too 
> OT, feel free to reply to me only.
> 
> Thanks!
> Doug
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
-=[*Thunder Bear*]=-

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