[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Bob Russell

Any discussion about e-book reading devices brings preconceptions about context, especially when discussing dedicated e-ink devices versus smart phones and PDAs. Everyone uses their devices differently, and therefore considers feature trade offs from a slightly unique perspective. As a result, it seems to be relevant to briefly describe how I use my Treo 700p PalmOS smart phone.

I don't use a Treo. My device isn't a smartphone. It's a Tapwave Zodiac 2 PDA. Tapwave was formed by a couple of former Palm execs who were trying to craft a device that was a combination hand held gaming device and Palm OS PDA. It uses a 200mhz Motorola iMX CPU with 128MB of RAM, and has a 320x480 screen with virtual DIA. The screen is driven by an ATI W4200 graphics chip with on board memory, and the device also has Yamaha stereo sound with (tiny) stereo speakers on the device. Bluetooth is built-in. It has two SD card slots, and one is SDIO, so you can plug in a Wifi SD card. I use a Sandisk 256MB+Wifi card (no longer made) that provides Wifi and 256MB of external storage. I have two 2GB SD cards installed, but I also have a transplanted copy of the FAT32 driver implemented in the Palm LifeDrive, so I can go to 4GB cards when needed.

A complete list of everything on the device would take way too long, so I'll just hit some high spots. (Most things that can live on a card do on my device, and there are about 400 total apps and utilities.) With a few exceptions, everything I use is freeware, and open source if possible.

My PDA serves four main purposes. First, it's a traditional PDA, with PIM functions. I use the built-in applacation databases, but use enhanced third-pary front ends. Second, it's an ebook reader and general reference on everything. Third, it's a programming and systems admin reference and tool. Fourth, it's a games and entertainment device.

One of the first things I did when I started using PDAs was to look for an alternative to the default launcher. The one I settled on was Bozidar Benc's Launcher III, which was freeware back then, and I stuck with it through the change to LauncherX and shareware status. LX provides a tabbed interface and an assortment of features that map well to how I work. It looks like this:



The screenshot shows the Main tab, where apps used regularly live. Thay are all in RAM for fast access. Pretty much everything else lives on an expansion card. One reason I like Launcher X is card support. All other Palm launchers only see programs on the card in the /Palm/Launcher directory. Launcher X lets me define up to 31 additional directories it can look in, letting me arrange my card as I prefer.

Taking the stuff in the screenshot:

Address Book The stock Palm address book application. I sync with Outlook, and my Outlook Contacts folder is the basis of the Address Book.

Big Clock A free, open source clock/reminder application that is still the best I've found. The author seems to have disappeared, and it has a couple of bugs that bite under OS5, but I found a fixed version that is usable on the Zodiac.

Calc The stock PalmOS calculator. There are a number of others available, and I have several, but this does the basics well.

DB Pilot-DB, a free, open source DBMS for Palm devices. It has support for links between databases and a script facility to do things like calculated fields. It also has plugins that let it use devices in JFile3 and Mobile-DB format, and databases can live on a card.

Documents Documents to Go, one of the few actual conmmercial packages I use. I got it in the first place to handle Excel spreadsheets. IT also does Word documents, Powerpoint presentations, JPGs, and PDFs, but I don't use it for that.

KsDatebook A freeware Japanese app that serves as an enhanced interface to the built-in Datebook database.

KsTodo A freeware enhanced interface to the Todo database, by the aothor of KsDatebook.

LionDoc LionDoc is a free, open source Palm "doc" viewer based on the source code of Bill Claggett's old CSpotRun program. It adds support for documents on a card and documents in zText format.

MoePaintA freeware paint program fior PalmOS from a Japanese author, with a surprising amount of features.

nWeb Novarra's web browser for Pam OS device in a version for the Zodiac. Another of the few commercial apps I use.

PalmFiction A free, open source text viewer from a Russian programmer. PalmFiction handles Palm "doc" files, zText files, and plain ASCII text files and RTF files stored on a car. (RTF files are displayed as plain text.)

PalmPDF A free, open source PDF viewer for Palm OS based on a port of the XPDF library.

Photos The screenshot is out of date. The Photos app is a built-in on the Zodiac. I've replaced it with GRXView Lite in the link. GRXView is a freeware JPG viewer, based on the author's shareware viewer product that also handles GIF, BMP, and TIFF files.

Plucker A free, open source offline HTML viewer. I use the Plucker Desktop0 to convert HTML formatted documents to Plucker format. Plucker is my primary ebook reader, wityh about 2,800 volumes in Plucker format on a card in my device.

Progect A free, open source project management program for Palm devices.

PsMemo A freeware app from a Japanese programmer providing an enhanced Memopad interface. (I also use PsLink, a freeware Palm "wiki" app from the same author)

SnapperMail Probably the most capable email application for Palm devices. Another commercial app.

TCPMP The Core Pocket Media Player, a free, open source cross-platform media player. It handles AVIs, MPGs, MP3 and Ogg audio files, and more. A Palm version plugin provides support for the Zodiac video chip.

WordSmith Blue Nomad software's word processing application for Palm OS. It views and edits Palm memos and doc files, and converted RTF files from a desktop. It's still the best application I've found for creating documents on a Palm device, and provides excellent support for my folding keyboard. the last commercial app I run.

There's a great deal more, including eReader and MobiReader for ebooks in those formats, an OS 5 hack manager, a boatload of Desk Accessories, file management apps, Palm telnet, SSH, FTP, and Samba clients, on-board versions of the C and Pascal programming languages, and a batch of games, including a Palm port of Nethack, but this is long enough for one post.

URLs to most of the above are embedded in the underlined names. Folks with questions are welcome to ask.
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Dennis