Ideal PDA Setup

Post by **caughtatwork** » 24 December 04 9:53 am

My Palm Vx is still a port stealing ho!
I have a USB mouse and a PS2 keyboard so they're OK, but when I want to plug in the GPSr to the COM port I still need to disable the hotsync before the GPSr is allowed to have the COM port.
Annoying but bearable.

swampgecko · Post by **swampgecko** » 24 December 04 10:07 am

I must be lucky then as both my GPS lead and Palm lead are continuely hooked up, and I can be loading both at the same time. com 1 for the palm and com 3 for the gps I think I have. It's usb ports I am running out of. Btween the scanner, the cameras and the wife's MP3 player and the recharge lead for the infra-red mouse and a few other things, i am continually swapping plugs.

Lt. Sniper · Post by **Lt. Sniper** » 24 December 04 2:02 pm

swampgecko wrote:I must be lucky then as both my GPS lead and Palm lead are continuely hooked up, and I can be loading both at the same time. com 1 for the palm and com 3 for the gps I think I have. It's usb ports I am running out of. Btween the scanner, the cameras and the wife's MP3 player and the recharge lead for the infra-red mouse and a few other things, i am continually swapping plugs.

I mean when you have to share the same port (ie. if your laptop only has 1 serial port) with 2 serial devices (one being a Palm + HotSync software)

I assumed Andrew doesnÃ‚â€™t have a desktop since heÃ‚â€™s using a USB==>Serial adapter to start with, majority of desktops would have 2 serial ports. If he has a desktop then I see no need for a USB==>Serial adaptor unless the 2 on his machine are already being used.

Aushiker · Post by **Aushiker** » 24 December 04 2:15 pm

Lt. Sniper wrote:I assumed Andrew doesn’t have a desktop since he’s using a USB==>Serial adapter to start with, majority of desktops would have 2 serial ports. If he has a desktop then I see no need for a USB==>Serial adaptor unless the 2 on his machine are already being used.

Correct. Using a laptop, IBM ThinkPad, without a serial port, hence the USB==>Serial adaptor.

Mind you, running out of USB ports too. Have four, but have some power hogs which don't like running off hubs. Do have a Belkin hub which is unstable so tend to swap one port when I need too, rather than use the hub.

I think I will pay the extra dollars and get a Palm that is USB configured rather than another serial device.

Once again, thanks for the feedback.

Andrew

Lt. Sniper · Post by **Lt. Sniper** » 24 December 04 2:22 pm

Heheh, just since swampgecko mentioned about his ports being used up,

I have 3 serial port, 2 onboard +1 from PCI addin card used by:
Nokia phone
Magellan Meridian Platinum GPS
20x4 char LCD (modded into case)

1 x Parallel Port for Play station controller adaptor

10 USB ports (6 x USB2 and 4 x USB1.1) which are being used by:
Canon printer
Canon scanner
Canon digital camera (PowerShot A75, broken since I dropped it while geocaching

)
Ipaq Cradle
Logitech Force feedback joystick
MS keyboard
MS mouse
Sandisk USB2 SD card reader/writer
USB flash memory stick to take to uni

2 x 10/100 Ethernet used by:
Home network
Brismesh Wireless network node AP (Wireless Mesh)

ATI Radeon 9600 video display for dual screen viewing (donÃ‚â€™t use it all the time, doesnÃ‚â€™t work with games very well, but great for java dev/site maintenance work for uni)
ADI Multiscan M700 (17")
Mitsubishi Diamondtron 1795dt (17")

6 channel surround sound through 3 ports take by the Logitech Z640 5.1 surround system

The only ports I donÃ‚â€™t use are 1 spare USB port and the 2 PS2 ports for keyboard and mouse

EDIT: There are 2 RCA outputs I made to use the digital Dolby output of my board but I donÃ‚â€™t have an external decoder to use it with so they are useless and there is a the TVout on the videocard which isnÃ‚â€™t used either
EDIT2: 3 x Firewire v1, none used

As you can imagine there are a lot of cables coming out the back of my computer

Lt. Sniper · Post by **Lt. Sniper** » 24 December 04 2:42 pm

Aushiker wrote:Correct. Using a laptop, IBM ThinkPad, without a serial port, hence the USB==>Serial adaptor.

Mind you, running out of USB ports too. Have four, but have some power hogs which don't like running off hubs. Do have a Belkin hub which is unstable so tend to swap one port when I need too, rather than use the hub.

I think I will pay the extra dollars and get a Palm that is USB configured rather than another serial device...

Andrew, why not use the Infrared on your laptop??

Get a palm with IR and you can HotSync over IR.

I know my dad syncs his PPC with his work lappy via IR and sometimes BlueTooth when he doesnt have the cable with him.

Aushiker · Post by **Aushiker** » 24 December 04 4:36 pm

Lt. Sniper wrote:Andrew, why not use the Infrared on your laptop??

Not sure I have infrared, but will investiage further. Can't see an obvious receiver/transmitter nor am familiar with any infrared software on the machine (work laptop).

Thanks for the idea, might be a go.

Andrew

Dooghan · Post by **Dooghan** » 24 December 04 9:15 pm

Aushiker wrote:
Lt. Sniper wrote:Andrew, why not use the Infrared on your laptop??

Not sure I have infrared, but will investiage further. Can't see an obvious receiver/transmitter nor am familiar with any infrared software on the machine (work laptop).

Thanks for the idea, might be a go.

Andrew

I had a play with the IR on the Bronze's laptop today that he sent to use over xmas. It worked well. I told ozi to use com4 as that was what the IR driver was using. Told the caching software on the palm to use IR. Put the palm in front of the IR port on the laptop and bang it was working. Took about 1min to setup. I did find it a lot slower them a cable but it was good enough to sent waypoint, routes and tracks to laptop.

Dooghan

Aushiker · Post by **Aushiker** » 04 January 05 1:57 pm

Hi

Still hunting for a PDA ... guess I am a tight arse

but there has been some seriously over the top bidding on ebay of late. Anyway Palm M505 looks interesting, but the reviews suggest the screen is not hot, at least compared to the Ipaq. Anyone have or played with a M505? Are the screens as bad as they reviews suggest?

Thanks
Andrew

Aushiker · Post by **Aushiker** » 14 January 05 3:00 pm

Hi

A little update. I have now purchased a new new (one week old) Palm Zire 21 from the USA and await is arrival. Assuming it arrives and I have no reason to doubt it, it was a good buy at $95.00 landed. Better than the last price on eBay.com.au of $150.00 +! BTW I went with the Zire as it is USB based unit rather than a serial port as my laptop don't have a serial.

Anyway, I am hanging out to get playing with my new toy

My thanks to everyone who contributed to the various threads. Your assistance has been most helpful.

Regards
Andrew

Aushiker · Post by **Aushiker** » 14 January 05 3:01 pm

Hi

A little update. I have now purchased a new new (one week old) Palm Zire 21 from the USA and await is arrival. Assuming it arrives and I have no reason to doubt it, it was a good buy at $95.00 landed. Better than the last price on eBay.com.au of $150.00 +! BTW I went with the Zire as it is USB based unit rather than a serial port as my laptop don't have a serial.

Anyway, I am hanging out to get playing with my new toy

My thanks to everyone who contributed to the various threads. Your assistance has been most helpful.

Regards
Andrew

GammaPiSigma · Post by **GammaPiSigma** » 14 January 05 4:24 pm

Aushiker wrote: My thanks to everyone who contributed to the various threads. Your assistance has been most helpful.
Regards
Andrew

I also want to thank the contributors to this thread. I managed to pick up a Zire 72 in Hong Kong last week and now it is up and running with cachemate ( well worth the US$8 ). And thanks to you Andrew for starting the thread the info has proven very useful.

Thanks, 
Mike.

Geof · Post by **Geof** » 12 November 05 9:58 pm

Have aquired a Palm IIIxe as used by some others here. Do I need to get the palm "desktop" software to go on the computer or do other geocaching programs take it's place for making the computer talk to the PDA?

Papa Bear_Left · Post by **Papa Bear_Left** » 13 November 05 1:13 am

Geof wrote:Have aquired a Palm IIIxe as used by some others here. Do I need to get the palm "desktop" software to go on the computer or do other geocaching programs take it's place for making the computer talk to the PDA?

You probably should regardless as you'll almost certainly want to put memos and addresses and such on the Palm anyway.

I suspect you'll need to install at least the Hotsync manager.

rhinogeo · Post by **rhinogeo** » 13 November 05 2:36 pm

Geof wrote:Have aquired a Palm IIIxe as used by some others here. Do I need to get the palm "desktop" software to go on the computer or do other geocaching programs take it's place for making the computer talk to the PDA?

You definitely need the PALM desktop software to hotsync. Take the plunge and buy Cachemate to export files to from GSAK. On the IIIxe you will be able to fit all the caches in Victoria on with room to spare