[clug] linux-friendly mobile/pda

[Alex Satrapa]

On 1 Dec 2006, at 11:00, Robert (Bob) Edwards wrote:

> I'll go out and look at what a Treo 650 costs in Canberra
> and may end up with a simple GSM phone and a seperate PDA
> (although I liked one respondent's observation that carrying
> two power adaptors around the place is a pain - might opt
> for something I can charge from my USB port).

You can get USB chargers for most makes of phone and PDA - just ask  
at any shop where mobile phones are sold. They'll have half a dozen  
chargers of different flavours for each device you think you might  
end up using. USB dongles with switchable plugs (so one charger can  
fit many phones), car chargers with switchable plugs, wall warts with  
switchable plugs...

IMHO, use a proper calendar application for your appointments (eg:  
Korganizer). Use a phone for making phone calls. Use your tiny laptop  
for viewing appointments on the road. Use the Bluetooth connectivity  
between laptop and phone for sending/receiving SMS, with your laptop  
keyboard providing a proper interface. With Bluetooth, you can even  
get your address book program to tell the phone to dial a particular  
number, so no more transcription errors due to fat fingers!

Since you're going to pull over to the side of the road and stop your  
car before making a call anyway, you'll just flip open your laptop,  
check the appointment and get the calendar to tell the phone to dial  
your contact.

My ancient Palm V is still hanging around doing service as an  
electronic nagging device, but I'm starting to get frustrated with  
four devices singing at me every time I have an appointment (phone,  
Palm V, iPod, computer). So that's one argument against the multiple  
separate devices, unless you can manage to find a dumb-ish phone that  
does bluetooth (for syncing contact list and handling SMS) but not  
alarms. The only reason I keep my Palm V hanging around is for Titrax  
(a time tracking program). If I could find something similar for my  
phone, the Palm would end up being retired (or given away to some  
deserving soul).

Don't forget that an iPod can serve as a contact list and electronic  
nagging device too. And it even functions as an external hard drive!  
The only catch being that an iPod is a read-only "PDA" so you'll  
create new appointments on your laptop.

Horses for courses, I guess. Hopefully this has added something more  
than the SLUG thread (which from my reading was more about the  
licence your PDA O/S is distributed under, than about PDAs themselves;)

The short version: unless you absolutely have to edit stuff on the  
fly, use a phone with PDA feature (it's practically impossible to get  
a phone that isn't a calendar/address book these days anyway).

Alex