Finally made it to the linux meet after almost 2 months. The food at the meets never disappoints me 😉
Caught up with the usual gang there. jace was showing me some cool hacks with his Palm V and his phone with IR. Man now I really wanna have one of those baby’s. I mean come on.. its got ssh,LJ clients, games, and other cool apps. The offline browsers are cool, and reading on the palm actually is very pleasant unlike PC. I should seriously consider getting one of these. Need to look at other ones like ipaq, handspring and sony’s Clie.
I really prefer something that works on BSD/linux. I guess ipaq is the only one which does not run palm OS. Stuff like the new Palm’s and sony’s PDA’s cost as much as ipaq. what price did you buy it for anyway ?
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I want more details about the hacks you are talking of!! Jace are you reading this!!!
I would not recommend an iPAQ or similar Wince based unit for the simple reason that you are locked in – no flexibility at all. There are hundreds of free or extremely cheap PalmOS programs for every Wince based one, and Microsoft *just* hasn’t figured out what makes a handheld tick. Trying to cram a Windows desktop on a PDA is the most insane thing I have ever heard.
As for platforms – I am not so sure if I would prefer a Linux-based PDA at all.
Neither Windows nor Linux make very good PDA OSs – they simply weren’t designed for that. On the other hand, PalmOS was designed from ground up for PDA usage, and it shows: 75% of the handheld market runs PalmOS, the top 10 selling PDAs in the USA all run PalmOS, and I am sure Bill Gates secretly uses PalmOS as well – we *know* that Linus Torvalds uses it ;).
What is important is how well the PDA works *with* your desktop. And PalmOS shines there – I don’t know any OS (Linux, *BSD, Solaris, AIX, BeOS, MacOS, etc.) under which PalmOS-based PDAs are not supported. Wince based machines, however, can be used *only* with Windows.
As you must have guessed – I have been a PalmOS PDA user for a long time (coming close to 4 years, I think). I use Linux exclusively with my (current) Palm Vx, and even though I *do* use Windows at home occasionally, I don’t even have the Palm software installed on it 😉
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Someday, it’ll all be up here: http://jace.seacrow.com/tech/palm
For now, these apps: DateBk4, Progect, WordSmith, 2sky, AvantGo, Plucker, PalmLJ, TG SSH, PalmVNC, Handphone SMS (from the Palm mobile internet kit), Digger (yes, Digger), Gobble (PacMan clone), IMR Snake (Nokia Snake clone wannabe), MineHunt (minesweper clone), EasyCalc, Filez, Victor, BigClock, Word Complete, X-Master and hacks: AfterBurner, App/DA Launcher, ClockDA, ClipStringHack, Keyb+Graffiti, McPhling, PopupNames, Screenshot, TealGlance and TealEcho (conflicts with Word Complete, which is more useful).
All these should be available from PalmGear. About a half of them are freeware or open source.
As for platforms – I am not so sure if I would prefer a Linux-based PDA at all.
I second that, especially after seeing a Sharp Zaurus in action 😉
As for iPAQ, I’m sure that Linux on it will become more useable and popular in days to come — Jim Gettys, Keith Packard et al might just pull it off.
As for iPAQ, I’m sure that Linux on it will become more useable and popular in days to come — Jim Gettys, Keith Packard et al might just pull it off.
I doubt it. This is not a question of improving Linux (or Wince, for that matter) to work better on PDAs. This is a question of how well the OS was designed for the target to begin with. For example – most PalmOS PDAs work happily given 2 MB of RAM/ROM – but iPAQs running Wince or Linux need many many times more than that.
It is also a matter of interface. The first time I saw Wince, I laughed myself silly. Someone in Microsoft seriously thought that usability of a PDA depended on having the same UI as a Windows desktop. No wonder they don’t sell!
The Palm was designed around real-world usage – often one-handed. I often use my Palm Vx with just one hand, including switching it on, selecting the application, scrolling through data, etc.
Compare that to Wince’s way of doing things.
In a manner of speaking, I was scared that the new PalmOS 5 would head down the “more jazz” gutter. Thankfully, recent releases show that PalmSource may have a few screws loose, but when it comes to the “simplicity and usability before eyecandy”, they apparently realise that you don’t mess with a good thing. 😉
This is not a question of improving Linux (or Wince, for that matter) to work better on PDAs. This is a question of how well the OS was designed for the target to begin with.
I was not questioning that 😉 In fact, I completely agree with it. That’s why I said “…will become more useable and popular in days to come…”. More useable, because it feels really crude (for want of a better word) _now_. Popular, because of the general Linux momentum. It can never compete against PalmOS head-on. But the iPAQ-linux team might surprise us by providing a decent useability experience.
On a tangential note, IMHO, the US market share for handhelds, is going to be decided by the wireless connectivity factor. Palm/Handspring/Compaq all are eyeing those bulk/organisational orders for field jobs. Here in Bellevue, WA, where I stay, the city officials have recently adopted iPAQ (for the employees) for reducing paper work and faster turn-around time. (Well, no comments on whether a local corporate behemoth might have infuenced the decision ;-))
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Thanks – I was more interested in what you can do with an IR cell phone and Palm sitting here in India?
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Sending SMSes is pretty much the only thing I can do, given that I’m not willing to pay 400 a month just for enabling data access.
But with a data connection up, it’s PPP to the Internet at whatever speed your phone and provider agree on. The 6210 does 43.2kbps but most support only 9.6k.
I have VNC and SSH clients on my Palm. I used to have a POP3/IMAP/SMTP client too, but threw it away because it was bloated and I can’t use it yet.
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Any idea when GPRS is gonna be launched in Bangalore ?
Does your ipaq have GPRS support ??