Making more use of my PDA

Sunshine Toledo · Post by **Sunshine Toledo** » 12 January 07 10:48 am

With all this discussion about PDA's and having had one now for 4 months (an HP Jornada 568 that I bought on Ebay for $68- colour, lots of memory, easy to use and download onto) I don't think I make enough use of it.
What I do now is to download (Pocket Query) a copy of the nearest 300 caches to my house or where I am caching into GSAK and then onto the PDA. I also download all the Spoilers for these caches. I use these to look at when caching if there is a need like not being able to find a cache and need to go back and refer to the web page again.
Ah! I do use the voice recorder in it to talk about the cache when I have found it so I can go back to the web and log the find later. That saves having to write anything. I just press a button and speak.
What else can I use it for - for caching that is? Can I download maps of any sort so I can use them in the field or anything else that could be useful?

Dik: · Post by **Dik:** » 12 January 07 1:22 pm

Not sure about Qld, but in SA & Victoria many of the Park Notes for national parks, forests etc. are available as PDF downloads. They contain maps, recomended walks, nature notes etc. I keep them on my PDA.

I also keep scans of segments of topo maps on my PDA for viewing in the field.

You can download a PDA PDF viewer from the Adobe site.

ian-and-penny · Post by **ian-and-penny** » 12 January 07 2:57 pm

If you can get hold of some decent maps, Oziexplorer is a must for both Desktop & PDA.

Ian

PS if anybody has some Qld maps could they please PM Me?

Mr Router · Post by **Mr Router** » 12 January 07 4:08 pm

Dik: wrote:I also keep scans of segments of topo maps on my PDA for viewing in the field.

We have all NSW 1 in 100 & 1 in 25 topos, the1 in 100 topo plus ubd street maps of Tassie in ours(just over 1.3gb) on the pda .
You should never leave home without your pocket PC

Zytheran · Post by **Zytheran** » 12 January 07 4:10 pm

$68??! Damn!

Just bought my replacement Jornada for $120..$2 more than the last one a year ago.

Other things. Ok, we have html versions of the caches covered and someone mentioned pdf files.

What else is on mine:
Some Scanned in 1:50000 topo maps of places I go in jpg format.
A pile of images showing semaphore flags, morse code and braile and any other coding systems caches might have. They are dragged into the My Documents directory.
Any doc and Excel files related to caching.
Bus timetables in pdf format.
List of cachers mobile phone numbers for the 'phone a friend' days.
A list of possible ideas for caches I think of at random times.
Some working notes for particularly evil caches that take a lot of thinking.
Plus I now use the calender as a diary rather than a paper one.

Papa Bear_Left · Post by **Papa Bear_Left** » 12 January 07 5:02 pm

Plus a few more occasionally useful things:
(I won't give specific programs since mine are all PalmOS progs)

-Tide times calculator/database
-Either program or Excel formulae for projecting waypoints, calculating distance between points, etc.
-BASIC (or Forth or c or language of choice) for doing simple tasks in the field. (Adding up the "A=1, B=2.." types, doing ROTn, Vignere codes, etc., etc.)
-text files with details of your own caches (endpoints, any calculations, etc. Useful when maintaining multis!) and found multis and puzzles (in case you want to re-visit to drop off/retrieve a TB or swaggy)

(I agree with most of Zytheran's resources, BTW. People have been either impressed or pitying at my collection of information of possible caching interest!)

Sunshine Toledo · Post by **Sunshine Toledo** » 12 January 07 7:00 pm

Some great ideas there that I will follow up. I certainly will try and get phone a friend numbers. I might have to check with some of them first. That is one of my greatest annoyances; standing at a site and needing to verify I am at the right place, facing the right direction or looking at the right altitude. A PDF program from Adobe would be useful. I have Excel. That comes with it.
Maps of Qld I need as I live here and obviously will do most of my caching here. Has anyone got any???? Tide times, yes, I was about 2 hours too late today for a cache as I had to walk about 1km out to sea to a cache but the tide was coming in already.

Team Red Roo · Post by **Team Red Roo** » 12 January 07 10:19 pm

Bear_Left wrote:-Tide times calculator/database

Can you suggest one of these for Windows Mobile 2003 SE on a Toshiba e800 (Intel PXA263).

Wayne

zactyl · Post by **zactyl** » 13 January 07 1:16 am

Google has some suggestions

http://www.tideplot.force9.co.uk/downloads.htm
Not sure how good an evaluation you can give it with data from the first 6 months of last year though!

Freeware program here:
http://www.tucows.com/preview/34687

Map Monkey · Post by **Map Monkey** » 13 January 07 8:01 am

For tidal graphs for PPC's i tend to use the freeware program, ctide

The other program i find useful is OziExplorerCE, as Ian-and-Penny recommended

mm

JackHenry · Post by **JackHenry** » 13 January 07 2:59 pm

For the PPC (Windows 2003)

Calc98 Version 5.67 from Flow Simulations www.flowsim.com

It's a calculatior that has a TON of conversion units, a list of constants, Periodic table and Particle information. Many number formats including fractions, feet/inches & Roman Numerals. Time & Angle calculations etc

DateCalc Ver 1.1 for date calculations.

Ephemeris Ver 1.0 by Jonathan Sachs for Sun & Moon rise/set times and angles

Plus the GPS stuff. Beeline, Cachemate, GPSGate & OziCE etc

I've found more uses for it than what I bought it for. I spend a lot of time in coffee shops reading novels in eBook format.

Mr Router · Post by **Mr Router** » 13 January 07 3:28 pm

JackHenry wrote:For the PPC (Windows 2003)

Plus the GPS stuff. Beeline, Cachemate, GPSGate & OziCE etc

One slight slip off the rails

guess which one

JackHenry · Post by **JackHenry** » 13 January 07 3:43 pm

I give up.

Mr Router · Post by **Mr Router** » 13 January 07 4:07 pm

JackHenry wrote: I give up.

Native palmware

Mr Router · Post by **Mr Router** » 13 January 07 4:08 pm

JackHenry wrote: I give up.

Native palmware