[TriLUG] Linux PDAs

[Ilan Volow]

On Monday, December 8, 2003, at 12:32  PM, Michael Thompson wrote:

> Anyone here use a Sharp Zaurus 5600?  From what I've been reading this
> looks like the PDA that I want.  Does anyone have any personal
> experience with Linux based PDAs they could share?  I like the Zaurus
> because of the built-in keyboard, the wireless CF expansion, and I hear
> you can install an ssh client, etc...  I may opt for a standard PDA  
> w/ir
> keyboard if there are any other good ones that are Linux based.  (Oh
> yeah, the 400MHz XScale proc. looks nice too!)
>
> TIA!
>
> --mike
>
>


As a student of human factors, one of the pieces of technology that  
interests me the most are PDA's, because there's all  these design  
constraints you have to work around, and when someone does this really  
well, it's really impressive. In pursuing this interest, I've owned  
several different brands of PDA's (Various Palms, Agenda VR3, Zaurus  
5500).

Palm works so well because they did stuff like designing the user  
interface before they ever started writing the code (or designing the  
hardware). ( see  
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,32010,00.html )What Jeff  
Hawkins did was counter to the Unix Philosophy, which is why it worked  
so well.

In general, Linux programmers are really bad at designing user  
interfaces. This hurts on a desktop when you budget several hours to  
sit down in excellent lighting conditions with a 17" monitor and  
full-size mouse and keyboard. It kills when you unexpectedly bump into  
an attractive person in a dark bar and you're standing up and you have  
just 20 seconds to get down her phone number on a 320x240 pixel screen  
using tiny and difficult-to-control writing instruments and/or  
keyboards. Trolltech, the folks who make the Qtopia GUI that the Zaurus  
runs, in no way took these design constraints seriously. Qtopia has  
widgets that consume massive quantities of precious screen real-estate  
with stuff like borders and shadows, and in many cases your typical PDA  
application like the Zaurus datebook requires 2-3 times the number  
stylus taps the Palm requires to perform the same task. Finally, the  
handwriting recognition on a Zaurus really stinks. It's far easier to  
write far more more accurately far faster on a Palm.

Sharp, the Zaurus hardware folks, are just as guilty of making the  
Zaurus suck as a PDA as Trolltech are. These dimwits put the power  
button for the Zaurus on the *outside* of the PDA. It's not protected  
by anything (the button is actually raised), and more than once I've  
taken my Zaurus out of my pocket only to find it's already running  
(other times I take it out and find the battery is already dead). There  
actually is a visor/shield on the Zaurus that comes down to protect the  
screen, but the people at Sharp didn't even think of extending it to  
cover the power button (which should have been recessed as well). My  
1998 PalmPilot, in all of it's 8mhz processor 512k RAM glory, had a  
visor that went down over a recessed power button. Yet a 2003 era  
Zaurus with a 400mhz processor and 64M of RAM doesn't. Dammit that's  
sobering.

I really wish that both Trolltech and Sharp had read this document  
before designing the first circuit or writing the first line of code:  
http://www.palmos.com/dev/support/docs/zenofpalm/ 
Enlightenment.html#971128 This should considered the Fine Manual for  
mobile computing design.

As to suggestions of what to buy, if you want a PDA that lets you take  
down appointments, e-mails, and phone numbers without hassle, get a  
Palm. I've got a Palm Tungsten T2, and other than the fact I have to  
slide the damn thing open every time I want to write something, it  
really does kick ass. It's real easy to add important dates and contact  
info. My T2 effortlessly syncs dates and contact info over BlueTooth  
with iSync on my laptop and with my cellphone. Anyone calls me, I  
simply add their number on the phone and it shows up next time I sync  
on the computer. I get a VCard in an e-mail and add it to Address Book,  
the name and numbers are in my Palm and on my cell phone.

To end this e-mail on a positive note, the one thing the Zaurus has  
going for it is it really is a mobile linux computer, having access to  
just about all the things a full-size desktop computer running linux  
has. I wrote a Python program using the Python Qt bindings to keep  
track of what I eat and store the info in xml for later retrieval. It  
was an order of magnitude easier than trying to develop something for  
PalmOS. If half the time I didn't pull the Zaurus out of my pocket to  
find the damn thing dead because the power button had been accidently  
hit, that program I wrote would have been very useful.


--Ilan

--
Ilan Volow
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!