OESF Portables Forum

General Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: Codefire on February 07, 2004, 08:48:27 am

Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: Codefire on February 07, 2004, 08:48:27 am
And how well does it do it? I was going to make it a poll but, I figured there would be many different responses.
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: nathanwms on February 07, 2004, 12:51:44 pm
Nearly everything!!

1. Document viewer (QPDF2, JustReader, Opie-Reader, Gutenbrowser, QPSword, Hancom Word)
2. Multi-media player - MP3, video (Sharp Media Player)
3. PIM
4. Note taker (IQNotes)
5. Offline web browser (JluckX)
6. Back-up alarm clock
7. Confidential data store - passwords, acct #s, etc (ZSafe & IQNotes)
8. Time killer (various games)
9. Web-PDA as soon as I get a wifi card

This thing is great!

Nate
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: VeeDubb on February 07, 2004, 01:50:20 pm
I\'m with nathan.  I use mine for just about everything.

Since I\'m done with college for now, I don\'t do so much note taking, but beyond that and the fact that I can\'t imagine any sane person using a pda to back up passwords, my list is just like nathan\'s.
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: slocaus on February 07, 2004, 02:31:49 pm
Thirded.    It\'s a portable linux computer!!  

E-mail, web browsing, scheduling, contacts, reading, image viewer, watch movies, listen to music, password storage, knowledge base for work and personal info (what oil filter fits the truck?), alarm clock, truck mileage recording, shopping list, checkbook, calculations, vnc to home computer, war walking....

I wear a size 11 shoe, what else ya wanna know?  
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: Sudonix on February 07, 2004, 02:33:23 pm
I use my SL5500 for:
1. Plotting/calculations of sorts(gnuplot).
2. Unit coversions(yeah, I happen to need that quite often, as I never remember any of those myself :)(zuc)
3. PIM(obviously)(mostly todolist). And unlike so many people I\'ve heard, I\'m quite satisfied with it(in Opie at least).
4. Playing oggs/mp3s - streaming as well as just stored somewhere.(mplayer)
5. Browsing - mostly at night :), with wifi(Symbol) and Opera.
6. Watching short movies/clips/etc.(mplayer)
7. Alarm clock, too - but not so often :) The default sound just doesn\'t wake me up sometimes :).
8. Making a palm owner jealous :) Making the same owner double jealous with the thumbpad uncovered ]:-)
9. Last, but not least - playing some games(eligo, sfcave, etc).

That\'s all I can think of so far...But in any case, I do use it very often and almost as laptop replacement(which I don\'t have mostly because of size issues - I can\'t really put it in my pocket, and I will not always have a bag of any kind...)

P.S. As far as password storing - the Zaurus is quite useful for that, but now I\'m keeping most of mine in kdewallet, where I actually need them.
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: bb on February 07, 2004, 03:04:11 pm
1. PIM
2. Document reading and editing away from home
3. Music
4. Web browsing (at home, with WiFi - we haven\'t got many hotspots in Denmark)

And as for the quality of those uses:
1. Not as good as I expected when I bought the device, but then again: sooner or later someone has got to issue the ultimate ROM for the C860, that contains a great PIM suite as well as other great programs and utilities
2. Excellent
3. Excellent
4. Good
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: panyo on February 07, 2004, 05:41:22 pm
I am still trying to make mine go, but my excuse for purchasing it was so I could use every spare minute to write my dissertation, regardless of whether I was near any of my computers.  This includes:
1. Taking notes in vim or (micro) emacs while in the library stacks
2. Writing or debuging statistical code while waiting for the bus
3. Listening to books and articles through flite while driving or walking
4. Using an external keyboard to do serious writing in my library study office.

Of these, all but number 4 seem to be working out.  For that to work, I will have to finish my quest of getting  Dvorak key layout working on an external keyboard, which has sent me into reading sourcecode and hunting for developer tools.
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: sriley on February 07, 2004, 05:43:59 pm
My C760 (running Cacko\'s Qtopia ROM) with NICs, CF and SD cards, etc replaces my laptop at work and at home, so the answer is:  Everything!

Verbose documents are more easily done on a full-size QWERTY, but the keypad is good enough with a little practice.
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: spaul on February 07, 2004, 05:49:00 pm
I guess I\'m the only Middle Age Demented (MAD) person here.  I use it to show films (minolta dimage Z-windoze media encoder-30fps-tkc video), and slide shows of kids (TX image).  Wireless web browsing (symbol card and opera7) and great Korg PIM.  I wish I could use it to get GPS real time spoken directions.  Also I wish Opera had a proxy server, as good as AvantGo that preformatted the pages for small screen (who needs high resolution postage stamp photos) greatly accelerating browsing.
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: slocaus on February 07, 2004, 05:58:35 pm
Quote
I guess I\'m the only Middle Age Demented (MAD) person here.
Don\'t be so sure youngster!  
I\'m on my second half century and just like tech toy tools.
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: fu-ga-zi on February 07, 2004, 07:17:53 pm
Yeah, all the above plus learning MySQL currently while commuting to work (people smile over that guy that sits there each morning with a 3 pound book on his lap and a little computer-like gadget of about 220 gramms)   8)
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: sstepak on February 07, 2004, 07:26:30 pm
I\'ve had this sl-5500 for a few weeks now....

I primarily play my mp3s on it when im driving, using a cassette adapter to hear it.

My wi-fi card in the CF slot is handy at one coffee shop here so far for the web, but im gonna rig a \"sniffer\" to get on open networks to surf.

Im going to set up wi fi in the house...would be nice to just pick it up an surf the web without any hookups for a change. I hate my basement LOL.
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: zmiq2 on February 09, 2004, 04:04:03 am
I have it just for emergency ssh into servers, web browsing from the sofa, and looking for open wifi nets on the walk !!
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: cwaig on February 09, 2004, 04:31:34 am
* Project Planning and note taking (IQNotes - my own custom build with added HTML export feature).
* Reading eBooks (JustReader)
* Browsing around the house (Opera+wifi)
* email and messaging on the move (mail&gaim + Bluetooth)
* Writing small apps on the fly (using my own ECMAScript interpreter)
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: n8a on February 09, 2004, 12:35:46 pm
i use my 5500 for the following:

- waste time
- have fun
- impress others

more specifically:

- using gps when driving (haicom gps device and zroadmap)
- listenting to music while working out/walking places (xmms + mplayer)
- web/email/im via wifi (SanDisk Connect) and bluetooth (Socket Bluetooth Rev. G + t610)
- pim: personal yahoo email, sync with lotus notes and t610 for todo, calendar, address book
- read articles: i usually spend 1-2 hours per week going to favorite sites and grabbing articles to read later and putting them on my cf card (i just grab them in text format, as i really don\'t mind viewing articles in the advanced text editor)
- games now and then - mostly spades and patience


- as i get better at mini-qwerty typing, i\'m sure that i\'ll do more emailing and writing, but it just isn\'t happening yet!

eventually, who knows?  the best part about this thing is that - besides the fact that i\'m typing this on my 5500 right now while in line - the possible uses are pretty endless due to the quality screen, keyboard, sd and cf slots.  the only debates with buying the next one will be the usual debates about buying computer equipment: am i buying in at a good time, or will prices on hardware drop soon?!?
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: RichS on February 09, 2004, 03:22:07 pm
I think I\'ll have to stand up for the \'old farts\' around here! How many of you remember NO computers?

I\'m still exploring my SL-5600 and loving it. I do use it for reading, catching up on usenet (slrn), web browsing a bit, re-learning bash & linux, playing some mp3\'s hosted on my wireless network, making a friend with a 5500 jealous ;-) and for now, trying to find all the software I need to make it a laptop replacement. Oh- and a few games ;-) Oh-2 and pestering a few people here with some dumb questions ;-)
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: rrashkin on February 09, 2004, 04:57:28 pm
I remember 1955.  There were computers around but they were pretty exotic.

I use my Z (SL5500, Sharp3.1) as a mobile computer.  I use very little of the PIM stuff; only the address book really.  I use Word and Sheet a lot.  I also use JEODE to run a lot of little apps I wrote to help me with my job (a HEX reader, LeastSquares linear fit, stuff like that).  If it weren\'t for my company\'s paranoid insistance on controlling all the devices on THEIR LAN, I wouldn\'t use a PC at all.
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: nasteratu on February 09, 2004, 06:43:15 pm
I love my zaurus, I use it mainly for
--time management pourposes (ie calender, to do list, alarm, syncing with Evolution rocks!)
--to quick check facts online w/ wifi
--read news when I get that /. itch during the middle of class
--to code up some quick programs in the middle of class to test(vim on a thumb keyboard is interesting =p)
-- games, rarely
Title: What do you use your Zaurus for?
Post by: derekp on February 09, 2004, 08:59:47 pm
I\'ve been searching for the ultimate use for my Zaurus, but so far the main use is as a geek-toy.  I\'ve been busy tweaking the heck out of it (speedup tricks, getting X to run on it, working with /home on SD, running dual-boot with OZ on my SD card and TKC in rom, etc.)
As for \"production\" apps:
1)  Biggest use, wireless web browsing (Opera)
2) Experimenting with organization tools (KO/pi, etc...), but this requires that I put in the effort to load info into the app first.
3) Put spreadsheets and word documents on it that people mail me and bring it to meetings, instead of printing them out
4) Games, esp. MAME (those classic arcade games that I wasted many a quarter on work perfectly with the Z\'s screen oriantation)
5) Time waster for meetings (see 3 & 4 above) :-)
6) Soon as I get a myth-tv server going, plan on porting the frontend to the Zaurus, and use it to whatch captured tv shows.  Also plan on downloading them to a CF card for the morning drive into work.