OESF Portables Forum
Everything Else => Europe User Groups => Zaurus Regional User Groups => Everything Else => Archived Forums => UK => Topic started by: charlie on June 10, 2003, 08:17:40 am
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Welcome to all Zaurus users in the UK.
Zaurus DevNet Forums are excellent but we need somewhere to discuss parochial issues such best priced accessories available in the UK.
Please post here any issues of National or International importance here.
Charlie
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So which pub shall we meet in?
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Whereabouts in the country are you Charlie?
I\'m in Swansea, or sometimes Bristol.
That was me with the pub request BTW.
Surely we can\'t be the only 2 Z users in the U.K.? Is anyone out there?
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Jez,
I\'m a denizen in the frozen North in Lancaster. So I\'m afraid it would be a bit of a long walk home.
I assume that it\'s because the community site is so good there hasn\'t been much interest in this but fingers crossed it may snowball. There are certainly some big UK contrbutors to the DevNet Forums.
Charlie
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Jez,
I\'m a denizen in the frozen North in Lancaster. So I\'m afraid it would be a bit of a long walk home.
I assume that it\'s because the community site is so good there hasn\'t been much interest in this but fingers crossed it may snowball. There are certainly some big UK contrbutors to the DevNet Forums.
Charlie
I\'m in harrogate (uk ), I\'ve done some stuff for the zaurus which
is on http://www.chrisc.tk (http://www.chrisc.tk)
let us know what u think...
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Hi! My name\'s Dave and I live in Banbury, but working in Milton Keynes. Nice to meet y\'all.
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Hi, I am living in Birminghame. I have ordered a SL-5500. Are they really good or are there better? Will I get an unbiased report?
:wink:
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Does anyone use this anymore?
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Does anyone use this anymore?
I\'m the moderator of this group (I know it looks like I\'m a guest).
I will look at this board as often as I can, normally weekdays, but don\'t be too disappointed if it takes me a couple of days to reply as I also have a life. Also this group is in it\'s early days and hopefully we can make it more used by trying to help each other.
I presume that the last two posts are from the same person but a name would be nice so that I can tell if I am now writing to disgruntled of Birmingham!
I have no background in computing but I will tell you what my experience is.
I bought a 5500 at Christmas after some research because I saw the Linux OS as a learning and playing opportunity and because of the large and growing amount of free software available.
It works fine as a pda without crashing. There are synchronisation issues but if you decide what has priority I have not encountered any problems. I have not used it\'s e-mail capabilities but there is lots of evidence on the devnet forum that it works well at this as well.
Upgrade to ROM 3.10 straight away. You can download it from the internet and I installed it from Windows with no problems but it will need a bit of playing with. Also put in the largest cf card you can afford as soon as possible so that you can store a lot of documents and programs.
To help you get started the unofficial Zaurus faq is a good place to begin.
There are lots of free games, I particularly reccommend nethack, freeciv and jack the uni-psychle. But there are lots more. They don\'t all work straight away and they don\'t all work at all, but playing in the Konsole trying to get things working is part of the fun. If you have any problems the Community is very, very helpful.
You will also want Portabase, Justreader and Opie-Reader for e-books.
I also reccomend I-Ching, Dash, Notez, Mileage Calculator, Sketches of Q, ZBedic and QT-Journal.
Solun is a marvellous free astronomy program.
In conclusion I have found it to be an excellent product with excellent free software and support but you have to put the time in to get the most out of it.
You can\'t get an unbiased report because as soon as you use something you form opinions about it.
Please let me know if you want to know anything else or feedback if you find this interesting.
Charlie.
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Surely we can\'t be the only 2 Z users in the U.K.? Is anyone out there?
There are more of us than you know
I think many post more frequently over at the DevNet forums (like me) or even http://forums.zaurus.co.uk (http://forums.zaurus.co.uk)
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I\'m a new convert to the Zaurus, in Guildford. Just invested in a 760 from shirtpocket.co.uk - reminds me more of a Psion than the pocket PC I had been using.
Hunting around for some good software now - anyone got any recommendations for 7x0 devices? There seems to be very little available at the mo...
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The Zaurus Software Index has the best collection of software. Much of it should work on the C760.
As a beginner, it\'s a good idea to look through the Unofficial Zaurus FAQ on this site.
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Hunting around for some good software now - anyone got any recommendations for 7x0 devices? There seems to be very little available at the mo...
SafeDee V2.0.0 has been optimised to run on the 7x0 devices as well as on
the 5x00 devices, take a look at http://www.bundu.com/zaurus.html (http://www.bundu.com/zaurus.html)
Clive
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Thanks Tumnus, I\'ve had a look at the software index and tried a few things. It would be useful to know which applications have been updated to run on the 7x0 series though - I\'ll start compiling my own list for now and post it when it grows.
Clivel, thanks for the SafeDee link - I needed an app for encrypted storage and will probably register this.
The only other apps I\'ve found useful so far are Explorer, Galery and Adress from the Kompany - would recommend them to other users.
Dern
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Another UK user - living in Aylesbury and working in Welwyn Garden City. A bit far to go to the pub, I\'m afraid.
Chris
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Sorry - I thought I was logged in.
Using 5500 with tkcROM - I keep coming back to this after trying various new OZ releases. It does seem to be reasonably stable.
Chris
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Moved to Cumbria now, less frozen but damper.
Charlie
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Another UK user - living near Manchester and working in Guildford/ Woking quite a bit.
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I\'m in the North East, \'working\' in Newcastle.
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Proud owner of C860 in Littlehampton. Also Linux newbie, what would be recommended reading ? thanks.
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And the worldwide home of IRK is actually the back bedroom of my house in Brighton
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Can some one put me out of my misery and tell me how I can get WiFi working on my Zaurus ? I have a C860, Senao CF 802.11b(Prism2/2.5/3). I plug it in and it flashes. From ifconfig i get lo and eth0 but no wlan0. What am I missing ?
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Moved to Cumbria now, less frozen but damper.
Charlie
As a Cumbrian I resent that comment on the groundds that its true.
Craig.
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I live in Cumbria, although I\'m not a Cumbrian, and it hasn\'t rained properly for days (mind you, it\'s not Summer yet).
I\'ve had my Zaurus for just over a year now. Former Palm user, wanted:
a) high powered PDA to play and work with;
non-M$ OS;
c) keyboard:
d) CF and SD.
I\'m not a developer, don\'t even work in IT (teacher - bah!), but I\'m very happy with my SL-5500. Even had good service/communication with Sharpserv when it packed up on me.
Just wish I could afford one of those lovely C7/8** machines.
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Hello UK ZUGgers!
I\'m Francis, living in York, will have a 860 next week, got 5500 at the moment, but that is going to my friend Dave, who will be among our clan soon.
Can\'t get to the pub either, but we should continue to encourage UK users to introduce themselves here and hopefully in the future organise something.
AVE ET VALE!
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Yet another new 5500 user, graduated from Psion 3c, so one of the requirements was a keyboard. I am a Linux newbie I\'m afraid but would dearly like to know more.
Living in Mid Wales.
Best wishes to all.
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Hi,
Introduced to the Zaurus when I was getting paid to buld ad hoc networks with them
Now given my 5500 to the GF and bought a 750. Living... all over really ) Changes week to week.
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Hi,
London based with a 5600 wot I can\'t get to sync at all at all.... <sniff>
Hamilton
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Heya all
London based too with a 5600, and having hell with bluetooth
Moon
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I\'ve not actually looked in here for ages, as it was a little dead.
It does seem a little busier now, but still no other Leeds users appeared.
Has anybody else noticed that 4 of the 6 top posters are from the UK?
I\'m not sure what that says about us brits
Peter.
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hee hee brits rule.. btw has there been a uk zug meet? the linux expo would make a good venue
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I had noticed that some Brits are particularly active although Tumnus seems to have slackened off. I was considering nominating Lardman for Greatest Living Englishman.
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Another UK user here. Living in Cheshire and frequently in woking on business or travelling in Europe
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Arriving late as usual...
Another UK user. I was pretty active in the Zaurus mailing lists when the 5500 appeared, but have drifted away somewhat since.
Based in Kent, work in London as a Programmer (unix, Sun, C++).
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Hello everyone, newbie Zaurus user here
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I\'m French but I\'m living in the UK (near Derby) as Java Developer.
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I just re-found my Sl-5500 after, probably, nearly a year without using it. I\'ve been using a Sony NX70V for a while, I\'d forgotten how \"special\" the Z is
From Swansea, I\'ve been using *nix for about 15 years, but quite superficially, not much admin stuff.
Its a shame that a lot of the old links seem to be down. I\'m really out of touch and no idea what the best ROM is right now...
I\'ve a lot of catching up to do!
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Hi
Another Uk user again in living in Cheshire and working there too. Had my Z 5500 over a year now and use it daily in my work and for play. Been using Linux about 9 years on and off but now a permanent fixture on all my pc\'s
Regards All
Colin
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I\'m another Colin originally from Cheshire , now living in Coventry (but wishing he was back in Cheshire).
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Well not one of the more active posting sites.
Almost a year and still no answer to which pub
I vote for somthing up North, proper beer up here.
Currently I am going through withdrawl from my Palm as I convert to the C-860, so beer would help lots.
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I\'m basied in Guildford (working in Mayfair, London) and am expecting my 5600 any day now!
I\'m a longtime Psion 5MX user and love the machines but am seriously bored now of the sync problems with any OS later than 95, not to mention Psion\'s insistence that there is no problem with Psiwin, or their useless screen ribbon cables..... so the 5600 warranted further investigation as it\'s a similar \"tweakers\" machine.
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Well not one of the more active posting sites.
Almost a year and still no answer to which pub
I vote for somthing up North, proper beer up here.
Currently I am going through withdrawl from my Palm as I convert to the C-860, so beer would help lots.
There are two of us in North Yorkshire I know of - York specifically, not beer drinkers though alas!
(BTW My Palm(Clie NX70V) withdrawal passed within 4 or 5 seconds of unwrapping my 5500. :-) I feel much better now LOL! Now I too have a C860 and the other Yorker is planning on getting one too in the next few months.)
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Hi all UK Zaurus Users,
I\'m another graduate from Psion, but only after my beautiful little revo packed up on me. Now I\'ve got a 750 but I\'ve only had it for a few hours so it\'s still charging up at the moment...
Btw, I\'m from Lancaster and feel that I should point out that today it\'s neither frozen nor remotely damp up here in the north!
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Totalnoob,
Living in Lancaster or did you manage to escape the curse like I have.
I agree, it is a beautiful little city with lots more going for it than many other places. It\'s a shame they closed our brewery though although George is trying to plug the gap with the micro in heysham.
Chas
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Another northerner here, only from the East coast (County Durham/Newcastle upon Tyne).
Boy, does the weather suck.
Any other Geordie Z users out there?
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Another UK user here, in Southampton/London (university/home). Previously had a Sony Clie T675... yuck... Been using linux on my desktop for a long while now, don\'t know what possessed me to buy a palm - Sold it to buy my 5500 - Loving every second that\'s passed since that decision
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There are two of us in North Yorkshire I know of - York specifically, not beer drinkers though alas!
Wot, you don\'t drink Beer! What do you drink?
I\'m from west yorks, and can make york in 30 mins in the car, or 15 mins on the bike (no plod reading this I hope)
Mind you a zug meet with only 2 People would still be a bit lame.
As I\'ve just gone back to my roots, and purchased a new motorbike, I am willing to go within 100 miles of Leeds. Any excuse to use it is good at the moment.
PS, It has to be a \"dry\" day as you can\'t get your knee down in the wet!
Peter
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Hi everyone, i\'m the proud owner of a SL5500 living in preston, lancashire. Its good to see other Z users in the uk.
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Here is another Southampton/London (but this time home/University) user.
Recently obtained a 5500 to play with Java API to Bluetooth.
Another UK user here, in Southampton/London (university/home). Previously had a Sony Clie T675... yuck... Been using linux on my desktop for a long while now, don\'t know what possessed me to buy a palm - Sold it to buy my 5500 - Loving every second that\'s passed since that decision
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Hello people. New owner of an 860 here, in S London.
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Hi All,
I'm soon to be joining the ranks of the UKZUG .. I've been looking for a 'decent' pda for a while, and job dictates I have something very soon, which I can network and SSH into remote servers.
Open Source is the big upside !
I'm dithering between the 5xxx, 6xxx and the 860, although it seems most users are upgrading to the 860.
Any advice on a good model ?
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Um...I'm another British zaurus owner, but living in Japan at the moment. Recently bought an 860 (for comfortably under 300 quid at current exchange rates) and am gradually getting to grips with it...a bit of a linux newbie, although I have always had a unix environment at work.
Anyway, it's lots of fun to play with, but I'm surprised at how slow and clunky it seems compared to my previous pda, a psion revo. And I'm still looking for a to-do list/scheduler anything like as good as Mentor...
James
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Yeah, I'm based in London (north), but travel through the centre regularly, and work a lot on the se coast, as well in the s.west.
I bit the bullet and ordered the 860 through shirtpocket this morning, ordered a bluetooth and WiFi module with it.
Will be moving to Reading next month, so wondered what developments there were on a gathering ??
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Hi I am in Leeds.
Have a look at this
http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2004/prog...ategories.shtml (http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2004/programme/categories.shtml)
Simon.
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Hi I am in Leeds.
Have a look at this
http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2004/prog...ategories.shtml (http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2004/programme/categories.shtml)
Simon.
Typical, right on my doorstep too, and I can't go.
hmmph.
Thanks for the headsup anyway, and welcome to the zug.
Peter
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Thanks for posting. I'm replying from a wireless connection in a pub at paddington station !!
Got the C860 two days ago and am over the moon with it.
Poer drain on the wireless card is harsh, but the device rocks. I don't know if I can get Opera running on the original sharp rom. But apache is set up.
I need som advice on setting up adevelopment environment so I can compile basiv unix progs. But I feel so happy to be amongst a good zaurus group
Couldn't make the linux doo up norf,but hope all that go, have fun.
ket.
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"Poer drain on the wireless card is harsh"
[Damn those small keyboards :-] What flavour of wireless card do you have - the Shirtpocket Socket one? I think the newer Socket ones have lower consumption - about 20mA in standby (which is the usual state). But they are about twice the price.
Isn't it about time Shirtpocket removed the note that they have not tried them with the Zaurus?
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Hello!
Another C860 user here, from the East Hampshire area. Got mine from ShirtPocket in May, have loved it ever since - especially the wireless! (Symbol Spectrum, works fine with Cacko QT 1.21, power drain not too bad).
Looks like there's a fair few Psion refugees here, so I wonder if anyone else is still going through withdrawl symptoms from Palmtop Money like me, and if so what they're doing about it?
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I am also trying to migrate from a Psion, struggling in a few areas:-
Route Finder/GPS (TomTom)
Vacation Tracking (VacTrac5)
Finances (JABC)
They do a Java version for the Zaurus but it does not work on the Zaurus C series, not sure why. Anyone fancy trying to get it to work, downloads at www.freepoc.de/software.php.
Mike
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[SNIP]
Finances (JABC)
They do a Java version for the Zaurus but it does not work on the Zaurus C series, not sure why. Anyone fancy trying to get it to work, downloads at www.freepoc.de/software.php.
[SNIP]
Hmm, Well I've tried it now, and I can get it to start....
But there's something wonky in the implementation, somewhere, because it can't write any files (you get series of java.io.* messages when creating your first file). Then, you can't quit the app because every attempt causes it to try to start closing it's transaction files, which don't exist because it can't write to disk...
So there's a very limited sense of the word "working" if I say I can get it working on a C860....
This is with the Jeode JVM on top of Cacko 1.21b...
And it's the single most complex install I've done on the Z, with various unpackings and file movements and all sorts. Definitely a case of having to RTFM first.
(I've heard reports from other people who've tried JABP that's it's both limited AND buggy anyway, to the extent that it's not a viable proposition at the minute. But that's hearsay.)
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henley_regatta:
What about opie-checkbook? You can get the sharp rom version, which works well on Cacko 1.21b, from http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/stable/sharprom/ (http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/stable/sharprom/)
You need libopie1, and I think that's all.
Remember to switch off screen magnification ...
Mike.
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henley_regatta:
What about opie-checkbook?
Mike.
Mike,
Thanks for the recommendation. I wasn't aware of opie-checkbook.
Having tried it, I'm reasonably sure you've never used Handheld's Money on the Psion
It's a fairly minimal application, although it does do Exactly What It Says On the Tin. And it's better than nothing; I've already accepted that I'll not be living with my accounts on the Zaurus itself and I've migrated to GnuCash on my home box. opie-checkbook might be "just enough" finances management to cover me when I'm out and about.
And since it produces text output files, I'm in with a fighting chance of writing something that can translate between Opie-Checkbook and Gnucash for sync. That's much closer to my programming experience than writing GUI apps from scratch, anyway!
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I used to use Psions - the first one was an XP I think (calculator-style, 2-line by 16-character display, 32k RAM!) in the late 80s. I then graduated to an LZ64 (4-line by 24 character, 64k RAM) and used the XP to do things like control a large map display full of LEDs.
Then it was a 3a, which had at least one new display cable and was then pronounced a writeoff because of a corroding PCB. Then a 5, which is ever so clever but really a bit too fragile, and has a very poor display.
And then two Palm Vxs (lost the first when I was mugged).
And now a C860, with pdaXrom. Hmmm!
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Hi all!
I have had an SL-5500 for a while now, running OZ. I am a computer/linux geek, and was very happy to find that there was a linux pda out there. I nearly bought a palm! I am teaching myself c++ (amongst other things) and hope to expand this to Z development ASAP.
I live in Tavistock, Devon! Is EVERYONE else up north??? I would love to go to a zug meeting, but I don't have a car, and won't be able to get one for a few years yet, so the furthest I could get myself is Exeter (and that's pushing it- especially as the driver will have nothing to do during the meeting).
Maybe I could go to a meeting near Manchester... that would have to be VERY well timed, so I doubt it.
Simon
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Apex tickets on the train are surprisingly cheap, as are National Express tickets. Public transport does exist, you know
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lol- i'd forgotten.
no, seriously I had!
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Thought I'd introduce myself after reading this forum for nearly 2 years!
Ian, aged 38, living in Lancaster (seems to be a minor hotbed for Zaurus users), working nr Warrington.
Own a C750 with original Sharp ROM, converted to English. Main reason for sticking with the Sharp ROM is that I'm learning Japanese, though very slowly.
The Z is my working PDA, so I'm not too experimental with it. Love the zautrix PIM stuff. Also looking for a decent GPS solution. qpegps is nice but a bit limited and not being developed very actively. This has led me on to X/Qt - got an old familiar version of gpsdrive running okay but the newer version required so many new libraries that I gave up. Now I'm trying X/Qt & debian with the latest gpsdrive & encountering a few problems with portrait mode. Oh well ...
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That makes three of us in the Lancaster area. I think a pint is called for. Unfortunately I can only do Saturday lunchtimes.
Chas
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I used to live in Lancaster, if that counts?!
Now in Nottingham
Cheers
Marc
PS Am importing and converting C860s and C3000s. PM or Email me for details...
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Well I'm up for a pint of something, though I don't like beer (no, I'm not originally from the south). Any other interest from fellow Lancastrians, Prestonians or Cumbrians?
Though the thought of a bunch of people sat round a pub table with associated Zaurii strikes me as a bit bizarre.
Ian
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Hey cool! A UK only zaurus forum!
From Wincanton. Will be From Exeter on the 23rd sept.
5600, Universal, AU5005. . All the others blew up.
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UK user here, from Nottingham. Good to see you all.
I've got a C1000, it works pretty well although my sitecom CF wireless card doesn't work, which is quite annoying. Does anyone know where to get a better CF wifi card, preferably for not too much cash...
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Only just noticed this thread. I'm from Bournemouth but work in Harlow. Soon moving to Redhill (London) (I hope).