Slashdot Mirror

Or some such?

Tunneled through ssh?

Sharp Zaurus
tkcPhone
IPSECon Sharp Zaurus

I would imagine that you could get a SIP phone to compile for the Zaurus or some one that uses another VOIP protocl. As someone above suggested, connect it through an Asterisk server. I've got a test one setup myself on an old PIII 500 w/ 256 MB RAM, a nic and a sound card working with software based SIP phones. Then, if you are near someplace with Ethernet, wireless access or have a phoneline handy, you can connect out.

Good luck with other PDA platforms. You might get this to work on a WinCE but I'd be afraid. I've never audited security on one of those. You'd be out of luck on a Palm until the next release of the Palm OS (they promise!) since the promise that that is when they'll let backgrounded apps run.

Ooops...I spoke to soon, there is a Windows version of Aethera. I'm gonna try it out right now!

Reports are sticky. I have used some web-based apps that use LaTeX templates to generate reports .. the server side makes it a PDF/PS file and pushes it to the client to print. However, still not as nice as an all inclusive package.

There are a few options .. Kexi is a KOffice database front end .. it appears to do tables, forms, reports, scripting, etc.. looks similar to Access. The first release, however, won't be out for one more month (atleast according to the website).

TheKompany has a commercial product called Rekall that appears to be similar..

Perhaps Adabas (comes with StarOffice) might be an option as well .. though I am not sure of its capabilities.

http://www.thekompany.com/embedded/devices/

Too bad Sharp decided not to sell these devices here in the US. The only way to get them now is from Dynamism or The Kompany.

But I saw one my local Sharp rep had and they are nice!

theKompany.com now carries these in the US. They're importing them. Here they are

Hey, while we're at it, I personally can't wait until Linux-based PDAs have the funding or intelligence to hire good UI and application designers, good enough to provide a robust, consistent and feature-filled suite of built-in applications.

PalmOS and PocketPC models certainly don't have the best suite of built-in software for PIM and other stuff, but it sure is good enough to fulfill the needs of most PDA users. With the Zaurus, since there really aren't any 3rd party options for a PIM replacement or supplement (beyond theKompany), a lot of users I've talked to give an excuse like "It's not a PDA... it's a PMT! [hahaha]" rather than write, track down, or gripe about the lack of decent software. Sharp, and to a lesser extent TrollTech really does *owe* us Zaurus users something a little better. We were willing to hedge our bets on the Zaurus, on Linux+Qtopia, and after almost 2 years, Sharp hasn't done all that much to improve the software experience of the Zaurus since the release of the SL-5000D...

Do your home work, tkcKapital now supports quicken inport/export and it works fine for me.

Adobe could not be cool with a long tradition of GNU tools using mangled names of products for their GNU "clones."

Just a few:
Linux ~= Unix - Unix was a mangled name for Multix, btw.
gawk ~= awk - There are so many similarly-named command-line utilities that Stallman had a hand in that I don't dare try to list them. I think most of them even kept the names of the original Unix programs with little/no hassle.
KOffice ~= M$ Office - This is the suite that KIllustrator/Kugar belongs to. Boy, "office" is a word about as worthy of trademark as "illustrator." Wait, was that Microsoft being tolerant of trademarks!? I think so. Adobe is more viscious that M$?
KWord ~= M$ Word - more from KOffice suite.
Kivio ~= M$ Visio - KOffice suite again.
mrproject ~= M$ Project
AbiWord ~= M$ Word
KTron ~= Tron (the movie) - KDE group again. Threw this package in there to show that even the MPAA and Disney are tolerant (but not in all cases). Then again, Tron 2.0 is coming up, so maybe attention will come back.

tkcRadio doesn't count then? Okay, so it's internet radio not normal AM/FM, but still, tkcRadio has been out for a while. [and yes, it's for the Zaurus, of course!]

You may want to try Data Architect from The Kompany for database modelling.

I do not have much experience using it, but the screenshots look very slick (a good judge for open source apps since the UI is generally the weakest link!)

The listed features include:
* Workspace/Project oriented environment
* ERD centric data modelling
* model panner ("birds eye view")
* quick find and naviagtion from output window
* model validation
* full documentation capabilities
* integrated Advanced SQL Editor with syntax highlighting
* SQL Project - a multi-platform (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux), multi-database, integrated development environment
* save/load SQL sessions
* integrated ODBC
* multi-platform (Linux, MS Windows and soon Mac OS X)
* multi-database (ODBC, MySQL, PostgreSQL, DB2 and InterBase/FireBird coming soon)
* open file format (XML)
* DBMS specific features such as data types and SQL syntax
* reverse engineer existing databases
* generate create-scripts
* print model
* print data dictionary
* liberal use of tool-tips to help Users
* integrated Team Diagram> (general purpose diagramming)
* supports table inheritance
* supports; table, view, domain, sequence, procedure

Supported databases are:
* generic using ODBC
* MySQL
* PostgreSQL
* DB2
* InterBase/FireBird (in testing)

It is not free as in beer, but the license agreement seems to indicate that you will get the source. It is reasonably priced at $39.95 for the download version and you will be supporting a great company.

And don't be surprised if you get an email back from the president of the company, Shawn Gordon. I sent an email yesterday to the support address and received a reply from him within a few minutes.

You may also want to look at their BlackAdder IDE. Screenshots here.

Regards,

Adi Gadwale.

You may want to try Data Architect from The Kompany for database modelling.

I do not have much experience using it, but the screenshots look very slick (a good judge for open source apps since the UI is generally the weakest link!)

The listed features include:
* Workspace/Project oriented environment
* ERD centric data modelling
* model panner ("birds eye view")
* quick find and naviagtion from output window
* model validation
* full documentation capabilities
* integrated Advanced SQL Editor with syntax highlighting
* SQL Project - a multi-platform (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux), multi-database, integrated development environment
* save/load SQL sessions
* integrated ODBC
* multi-platform (Linux, MS Windows and soon Mac OS X)
* multi-database (ODBC, MySQL, PostgreSQL, DB2 and InterBase/FireBird coming soon)
* open file format (XML)
* DBMS specific features such as data types and SQL syntax
* reverse engineer existing databases
* generate create-scripts
* print model
* print data dictionary
* liberal use of tool-tips to help Users
* integrated Team Diagram> (general purpose diagramming)
* supports table inheritance
* supports; table, view, domain, sequence, procedure

Supported databases are:
* generic using ODBC
* MySQL
* PostgreSQL
* DB2
* InterBase/FireBird (in testing)

It is not free as in beer, but the license agreement seems to indicate that you will get the source. It is reasonably priced at $39.95 for the download version and you will be supporting a great company.

And don't be surprised if you get an email back from the president of the company, Shawn Gordon. I sent an email yesterday to the support address and received a reply from him within a few minutes.

You may also want to look at their BlackAdder IDE. Screenshots here.

Regards,

Adi Gadwale.

You may want to try Data Architect from The Kompany for database modelling.

I do not have much experience using it, but the screenshots look very slick (a good judge for open source apps since the UI is generally the weakest link!)

The listed features include:
* Workspace/Project oriented environment
* ERD centric data modelling
* model panner ("birds eye view")
* quick find and naviagtion from output window
* model validation
* full documentation capabilities
* integrated Advanced SQL Editor with syntax highlighting
* SQL Project - a multi-platform (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux), multi-database, integrated development environment
* save/load SQL sessions
* integrated ODBC
* multi-platform (Linux, MS Windows and soon Mac OS X)
* multi-database (ODBC, MySQL, PostgreSQL, DB2 and InterBase/FireBird coming soon)
* open file format (XML)
* DBMS specific features such as data types and SQL syntax
* reverse engineer existing databases
* generate create-scripts
* print model
* print data dictionary
* liberal use of tool-tips to help Users
* integrated Team Diagram> (general purpose diagramming)
* supports table inheritance
* supports; table, view, domain, sequence, procedure

Supported databases are:
* generic using ODBC
* MySQL
* PostgreSQL
* DB2
* InterBase/FireBird (in testing)

It is not free as in beer, but the license agreement seems to indicate that you will get the source. It is reasonably priced at $39.95 for the download version and you will be supporting a great company.

And don't be surprised if you get an email back from the president of the company, Shawn Gordon. I sent an email yesterday to the support address and received a reply from him within a few minutes.

You may also want to look at their BlackAdder IDE. Screenshots here.

Regards,

Adi Gadwale.

You may want to try Data Architect from The Kompany for database modelling.

I do not have much experience using it, but the screenshots look very slick (a good judge for open source apps since the UI is generally the weakest link!)

The listed features include:
* Workspace/Project oriented environment
* ERD centric data modelling
* model panner ("birds eye view")
* quick find and naviagtion from output window
* model validation
* full documentation capabilities
* integrated Advanced SQL Editor with syntax highlighting
* SQL Project - a multi-platform (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux), multi-database, integrated development environment
* save/load SQL sessions
* integrated ODBC
* multi-platform (Linux, MS Windows and soon Mac OS X)
* multi-database (ODBC, MySQL, PostgreSQL, DB2 and InterBase/FireBird coming soon)
* open file format (XML)
* DBMS specific features such as data types and SQL syntax
* reverse engineer existing databases
* generate create-scripts
* print model
* print data dictionary
* liberal use of tool-tips to help Users
* integrated Team Diagram> (general purpose diagramming)
* supports table inheritance
* supports; table, view, domain, sequence, procedure

Supported databases are:
* generic using ODBC
* MySQL
* PostgreSQL
* DB2
* InterBase/FireBird (in testing)

It is not free as in beer, but the license agreement seems to indicate that you will get the source. It is reasonably priced at $39.95 for the download version and you will be supporting a great company.

And don't be surprised if you get an email back from the president of the company, Shawn Gordon. I sent an email yesterday to the support address and received a reply from him within a few minutes.

You may also want to look at their BlackAdder IDE. Screenshots here.

Regards,

Adi Gadwale.

MS Access can easily be replaced with Postgres and something like Data Architect and Rekall, both from TheKompany. Hell, there are some pretty decent OSS forms generators out there too which also help you get away from your Access habit.

A pity there are no KDE applications using gphoto.

tkcMail does non-latin1 languages.

While theKompany's server is down, here's a (very old) screenshot at my own site.

Rik

There is also Kapital from The Kompany. And gnucash, which is linked in other replies. And CrossOver Office, which supports Quicken.

So has anyone had good or bad online banking experience with any of these? I think all of them but gnucash are supposed to support it. I'd like to see a comparative review...

There is also Kapital from The Kompany. And gnucash, which is linked in other replies. And CrossOver Office, which supports Quicken.

So has anyone had good or bad online banking experience with any of these? I think all of them but gnucash are supposed to support it. I'd like to see a comparative review...

"However, yesterday she sent me an email wondering where the Access-like program is in Red Hat"

The most Access-like linux offering that I've seen is Rekall. Not free, though. But there are Linux and Windows versions (the Windows one seems a bit unstable yet). It has tables, queries, reports, forms, very similar to Access.

I picked up my Zaurus at Linuxworld in San Francisco last fall during Sharp's "half off" sale, and have been using it on a daily basis since then. I also own (and continue to use) a Palm IIIxe.

Battery life for me has been about 2 to 2.5 hours with full backlight on (it's got 5 different settings, including off. The darker you go, the longer it lasts). The screen is very reflective, so if you're outside (or sitting in a window seat on a plane) you can turn the backlight off and get as much as 4-5 hours out of it.

It seems to charge back up completely pretty quickly once you plug it in, though. And I normally leave it sitting in the cradle (a la Palm V) charging when I'm not holding it in my office, etc.

But the short battery life definitely sucks if you're truly mobile with it (I fly quite a bit for business). How I wish it took regular (rechargeable) AAA batteries like my Palm...

It uses embedded Linux as the underlying OS (uname shows "2.4.6-rmk1-np2-embedix").

There are a couple of free terminal apps you can install (including multi-tab Konsole) to get a shell while in GUI mode. Or I suppose you could kill the GUI and run at the command line... but who wants that in a PDA?

There are a couple of howtos for cross-compiling for, and native compiling on, the Z at docs.zaurus.com. I don't any of that myself (yet), though, so I can only say I've glanced at the docs and they seem fairly straightforward.

OpenZaurus is a ROM image replacement that gives you more access to the installed RAM, etc. I haven't run it myself, but I've seen lots of positive comments. One note: some/many commercial Zaurus app providers like theKompany only support official Sharp ROMs. If you load their stuff on OZ and it doesn't work, oh well. But the OZ developers seem to be interested in knowing about problems like that to make OZ better.

BTW, theKompany apps rock (IMO) compared to the built-in ones. Yes, they cost a couple of $$ each, but you get free upgrades for life.

For all it's shortcomings, I haven't found much I can't do with the Z that I do use the Palm IIIxe for. And the "wow" factor of listening to my OGG files while surfing wirelessly or writing something with the keyboard is right up there... I can't count the number of people next to me on flights who have said "what _is_ that thing?" :) The battery life could definitely be a problem though -- can't wait to try a 5600!

After using the Zaurus SL-5500 for a few months, I'm inclined to agree, though everyone has their own idea of what a "PDA" needs to be. Even the SL-5500 was a very capable device, and I wrote a favorable review for PocketAnywhere.com (a site I'm no longer affiliated with). The PIM software was weak, though I was optimistic that offerings from theKompany would soon fix that, if Sharp didn't themselves. It was very cool browsing the web with Opera over a wireless link, and fooling around with VNC.

So why'd I sell it and go back to using a Palm m505 after a few months? Mostly because the capabilities of the SL-5500 were things I really had no use for. If I needed to browse the web on a tiny screen, or needed VNC or other networking tools in a miniature package, I never would've let this thing out of my sight. As it was, though, it didn't do basic PIM functions nearly as well as Palm (even with theKompany's products), and --- this is the real killer --- was simply too big. If a PDA is too big, I don't carry it around, and if I don't carry it with me, it's useless.

Everyone's needs are different, and I hope that a variety of devices continue to be available to meet them. Sharp's an important player here. Not only are they selling one of the best handheld tools out there, but their presence is one more barrier to the erosion of choice we'd have if Palm or Microsoft monopolized the market.

Sounds like the open-source VOIPs are finally in for some serious usage.

Might I point your attention to: tkcPhone by theKompany.com? :^)

Sounds like the open-source VOIPs are finally in for some serious usage.

Might I point your attention to: tkcPhone by theKompany.com? :^)

I have FORTRAN, I have Pascal, now hurry up and finish my COBOL compiler!

Seriously, I started out programming for the Classic Mac OS in Pascal ages ago, but haven't touched it recently; with all the C, Java, etc. tools now available for OS X Pascal has been, quite correctly, left by the wayside. It feels kind of archaic to me now, and I gather I'm not alone ...

-- shayborg

Nice, but I already have a portable Ogg Vorbis player: tkcPlayer

Well I did. here is the link. Ms Office Professional. $519.00 from warehouse.com. It does not include project, nor project server, no visio, no MapPoint, or Publisher. All of those cost extra.

Let's do a quick calculation shall we.

Office Pro $519.00
Visio Professional $439.95
Publisher Deluxe 139.95

And sorry warehouse does not sell mappoint and insight does not publish their prices on it so let's presume that mappoint is actually free. What have totaled so far? Why it's over $1098.00.

I am glad you Mr Anonymous Coward posted that message. I now feel proud to have educated not only you but all other slashdot users on where they can get quality Ms products and how much they should expect to pay for it.

For those users who are interested in getting most of the functionality of Office for free or a fraction of the cost may I reccomend the following links.

Open office
KDE/Koffice
The Kompany
602 Office
IBM/Lotus
Corel

Please people don't get ripped off voluntarily it makes you look stupid. I am sure you can put that thousand dollars to better use right? Don't you kids need dentures or a collage education?

why is it seen as a bad thing to ANYBODY?

Grudges. KDE is based on Qt, which wasn't Software Libre when the first version of KDE was released. (Which is why GNOME was started.)

Also, as an example, I came in on the scene only five years ago, after Trolltech made Qt GPL. Oddly enough, I'm still annoyed at theKompany, because I installed Kivio on my laptop so I could build circuit diagrams on my laptop. Come to find out, I have to buy the electronic schematics before I can use them in Kivio. Granted, they have the right to charge for extraneous material(which these extra stencils are), but I find, as a (P)oor (C)ollege (S)tudent, that free as in Beer is really, really advantageous. So I'm annoyed. I was really looking forward to built-in Python scripting, and, IMO, Dia needs work before I can use it with much comfort.

For the complete set of electronics symbols, at an average of $6 per stencil set, I'd probably be paying out $60 this week. And if I wanted any other users on my laptop to be able to use those stencils, it's another $60 per person.

And, as a final answer to your question, I gaurantee you I'll get at least one down-mod for badmouthing either GNOME or KDE office components. (Though I might not get modded at all as this is a rather old article now.)

why is it seen as a bad thing to ANYBODY?

Grudges. KDE is based on Qt, which wasn't Software Libre when the first version of KDE was released. (Which is why GNOME was started.)

Also, as an example, I came in on the scene only five years ago, after Trolltech made Qt GPL. Oddly enough, I'm still annoyed at theKompany, because I installed Kivio on my laptop so I could build circuit diagrams on my laptop. Come to find out, I have to buy the electronic schematics before I can use them in Kivio. Granted, they have the right to charge for extraneous material(which these extra stencils are), but I find, as a (P)oor (C)ollege (S)tudent, that free as in Beer is really, really advantageous. So I'm annoyed. I was really looking forward to built-in Python scripting, and, IMO, Dia needs work before I can use it with much comfort.

For the complete set of electronics symbols, at an average of $6 per stencil set, I'd probably be paying out $60 this week. And if I wanted any other users on my laptop to be able to use those stencils, it's another $60 per person.

And, as a final answer to your question, I gaurantee you I'll get at least one down-mod for badmouthing either GNOME or KDE office components. (Though I might not get modded at all as this is a rather old article now.)

why is it seen as a bad thing to ANYBODY?

Grudges. KDE is based on Qt, which wasn't Software Libre when the first version of KDE was released. (Which is why GNOME was started.)

Also, as an example, I came in on the scene only five years ago, after Trolltech made Qt GPL. Oddly enough, I'm still annoyed at theKompany, because I installed Kivio on my laptop so I could build circuit diagrams on my laptop. Come to find out, I have to buy the electronic schematics before I can use them in Kivio. Granted, they have the right to charge for extraneous material(which these extra stencils are), but I find, as a (P)oor (C)ollege (S)tudent, that free as in Beer is really, really advantageous. So I'm annoyed. I was really looking forward to built-in Python scripting, and, IMO, Dia needs work before I can use it with much comfort.

For the complete set of electronics symbols, at an average of $6 per stencil set, I'd probably be paying out $60 this week. And if I wanted any other users on my laptop to be able to use those stencils, it's another $60 per person.

And, as a final answer to your question, I gaurantee you I'll get at least one down-mod for badmouthing either GNOME or KDE office components. (Though I might not get modded at all as this is a rather old article now.)

heh they forgot aetherea
which looks like a nice outlook clone

The tkcPhone product can do PDA-PDA (or PDA-any-VoIP-device) on a Sharp Zaurus. AFAIK the program doesn't support encryption directly, but there is IPSec for the Zaurus via FreeSWAN.

Very simple ... Sharp Zaurus with tkcPlayer

There is Kapital... but it's commercial...

Enter the Sharp Zaurus, using either the mplayer port, OpieMediaplayer2, or the commercial tkcVideo. Not exactly the screen size you're probably looking for, but hey, it works. Plus, the 640x480 zaurus is available in japan.

It should also be possible to save the email application that comes with the Zaurus to install on top of OZ. Better yet, just download Opie's mail app.

It should also be possible to save the email application that comes with the Zaurus to install on top of OZ. Better yet, just download Opie's mail app.

There isn't really a good alternative to Visio of the same quality of open office. I believe Visio is the only missing piece for me to switch completely to Linux, because there are a lot of Word docs with embedded Visio diagrams that cannot be correctly rendered by Open Office. I wish Open Office had a Visio replacement. Perhaps the OOo Chart project will grow up to be that missing component.

Another minor quip is that there is no PDF export from Open Office that correctly renders document links and references as PDF links the way Adobe PDFMaker does it. Maybe it will come in some future OOo versions, however it doesn't seem very likely to happen soon. The announced PDF export feature seems to be just another link to printing to PDF via ghostscript.

There are also some attempts related to the KDE project worth evaluating.

• Kivio - for all types of diagrams
• Umbrello - for UML

tkcOggRipper has just been released by theKompany. It rips cd's to ogg vorbis format.

From the website:

* Uses FreeDB (not CDDB) to retrieve track information
* Variables for file output naming
* Can create directories for the Album or not, uses the same variables
* Specify "Quality" or bit rate settings for ripping
* Easy to use and intuitive user interface

It was just released a day or two ago, so I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

Here is an example: aethera
From what I gather this product seems to include both a groupware server system and a client, just like the software being developed for the German government.

Of course, you would be correct in saying the German government has no reason to care about the ecomonics of an American company.

Looking at the road map Aethera is due for release any moment

I think most companies can handle StarOffice / OpenOffice(.org) and Linux's desktops. The thing holding back our place of work is the lack of anything which comes close to M$ Access / VB.
Kylix is slow, buggy, runs under wine and forces you to use Object Pascal (oh BABY!) or C++. Rekall looks interesting if basic. But honestly, most small to medium size businesses want to code in VB or something very similar.
Where are our database front-ends?

Is it too much to ask that the blurbs on Slashdot's frontpage should explain what a software package does, instead of just citing the name as if everyone should magically be familiar with them all?

What is Linux, can someone explain what is QT? And this MacOSX, I've never heard of it. Can you show a little consideration and explain every little detail? I am too lazy to google, or even click the handy link provided in the blurb.

Sheesh people. If you click the link for the Kompany, the product/project links for Kapital and Aethera are on the front page. You are literally two finger-flicks of the mouse away from the info you want. How can you be so lazy that you can't do your own clicking?

Is it too much to ask that the blurbs on Slashdot's frontpage should explain what a software package does, instead of just citing the name as if everyone should magically be familiar with them all?

What is Linux, can someone explain what is QT? And this MacOSX, I've never heard of it. Can you show a little consideration and explain every little detail? I am too lazy to google, or even click the handy link provided in the blurb.

Sheesh people. If you click the link for the Kompany, the product/project links for Kapital and Aethera are on the front page. You are literally two finger-flicks of the mouse away from the info you want. How can you be so lazy that you can't do your own clicking?

Is it too much to ask that the blurbs on Slashdot's frontpage should explain what a software package does, instead of just citing the name as if everyone should magically be familiar with them all?

What is Linux, can someone explain what is QT? And this MacOSX, I've never heard of it. Can you show a little consideration and explain every little detail? I am too lazy to google, or even click the handy link provided in the blurb.

Sheesh people. If you click the link for the Kompany, the product/project links for Kapital and Aethera are on the front page. You are literally two finger-flicks of the mouse away from the info you want. How can you be so lazy that you can't do your own clicking?

Blackadder has been in the works for quite a while......... Still waiting to see how it'll do as a Ruby IDE.

I'm glad to see that the Zaurus is getting some positive press. I've been working with one (developer version) since last November and it has come a long way. It still suffers from the OSS development process, i.e. there is some wicked cool stuff out there, but there are also gaping holes in functionality (like syncing).

Sharp has done a pretty good job, but it is companies like The Kompany that are really making the Zaurus a quality pda.

It hasn't been smooth, but it has been moving forward.

Not sure about Dreamweaver, but I have heard very good things about Quanta Gold, and it runs natively in Linux. (And no, I don't work for the Kompany !)

Why not give Kapital, put out by The Kompany, a try? Kapital is essentially a klone (pun intended) of Quicken for Linux. From what I read on their site, it has most of the features of Quicken, but no automatic online bank dowloads.

Why not give Kapital, put out by The Kompany, a try? Kapital is essentially a klone (pun intended) of Quicken for Linux. From what I read on their site, it has most of the features of Quicken, but no automatic online bank dowloads.