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Great Zaurus Apps Review

Posted by timothy on from the including-lots-of-gpl-ones dept.

Tong writes "PDA Buyer's Guide published a round up review that lists some eseential Zaurus applications. This review will help new users who just bought a Zaurus PDA to get started and find the apps that make it fun to use their Zaurii. Here is the link to the review."

16 comments

  1. Could we get an editor to proofread please? by Tim_F · · Score: 0, Troll

    Eseential?
    Zaurii?

    Come on people...

    1. Re:Could we get an editor to proofread please? by ichimunki · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why was this modded down? While I'm fine with a typo here and there, "Zaurii"? Please. First of all, this ought to be "Zauri" if we're going to pretend that Latin style plurals are actually appropriate usage in an Anglo-Saxon language. Of course, it doesn't make a difference. If you even have one of these things it's obviously because you're too geeky for your own good and whatever you call it really won't matter, because the only peole who will know what you're talking about in the first place are other geeks.

      Which reminds me. I need to get my Zaurus listed on eBay. These things would be a lot more useful if they could wake from sleep a little faster, like the Palm/Visor type systems do. Plus, the battery life is ridiculous.

      --
      I do not have a signature
    2. Re:Could we get an editor to proofread please? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      English is a mixture of Anglo-Saxon and Norman French. So Latin usage is completely appropriate in English, or we'd all be calling televisions "far-seers" like the Germans do (fernseher auf Deutsch...). So Zauri is fine by me, and English people who think they're pure Anglo Saxon are deluding themselves - at the very least, the close proximity of France, Scandinavia and Ireland means that the average english person, even the racist white-supremacist bigoted "anglo saxon" dickhead, will be a Anglo-Saxon-Celtic-French-Norseman mix.

  2. no WebDAV client for PDAs by stonebeat.org · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have always looked for a WebDAV client for PDAs. Never found any. With such a wide ranges of PDAs and applications for them, one would think atleast one PDA would support WebDAV.

    --


    Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
  3. That's it, I'm sold... by torpor · · Score: 1

    ... time to E-Bay off the ol' Clie NX70V and work my way towards the Zaurus. These apps look great, and I'm sick of the Sony Proprietary Goose-Step madness ... the idea of being able to port my Linux apps -easily- to my pocketPDA is also great.

    So long PalmOS, hello Pocket Linux! Yay!

    (Anyone wanna trade for a C860? How about if I throw in some music gear?)

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
    1. Re:That's it, I'm sold... by ichimunki · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What's the start-up time (from sleep) like on the Clie? Does it work with the standard sync tools in Linux? I've got an SL-5500 I don't use anymore that I would gladly trade. But comparing the specs on these things, I'd think you were getting shorted.

      --
      I do not have a signature
    2. Re:That's it, I'm sold... by Blob+Pet · · Score: 3, Informative

      If price isn't an issue, hold off until the Zaurus 6000 comes out. It'll have more memory and a higher resolution screen. It'll probably cost a pretty penny though.

      If cost is an issue, Amazon's selling 5600s for less than 300 now. Interestingly, it's been rumored since January that some of the 5600s from Amazon have the PXA255 CPU which is faster than the PXA250 which originally came installed in the 5600. However, I just got mine a couple of weeks ago and it had the PXA250.

      Another thing to note is that Sharp's developer site has been down for at least a few weeks now. It's not clear when it'll come back up.

      --
      "...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
    3. Re:That's it, I'm sold... by torpor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Good to know ... and well, as a developer, I'm not so worried about having the latest and greatest, just a platform that will serve as a good test-bed for my apps.

      You think the SL-5500 is good enough for that? Frankly, I think Linux on PDA's is the wave of the future ... rumour has it that Sony is ditching PalmOS for its Clie's and moving to a custom Linux distro, anyway ...

      --
      ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
    4. Re:That's it, I'm sold... by Blob+Pet · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I haven't used the 5500, but it seems that many of the 3rd party Zaurus apps will run on the 5500. Thus, an educated guess is that the 5500 will suit your needs. However many zaurus reviewers have noted that the 5600 fixes a lot of the issues they had with the 5500.

      --
      "...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
  4. sensible security w/o sources by Gadzinka · · Score: 1

    Security: Password/Credit Card/PIN Mangement - SafeDee [...] Price: $14.95, a small price to pay in the interest of keeping sensitive data safe

    I always wonder who actually pays for pin/passwd managment shareware software, if they can't verify the storage method? I mean, those pins/passwords can lay there unencrypted, or base64 encoded for all you know.

    Robert
    (using GPL keyring on Palm OS)

    --
    Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
    1. Re:sensible security w/o sources by cgenman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Very few people can verify the security of security software. I can at least hack out a "hello world" program in 5 or 6 different languages, but I wouldn't have a clue how to verify the security of a GPL keyring app, nor would I have the inclination. Your app may be large enough that research institutions have done that work, but how many would bother to verify a memo pad application? or the security of a checkbook?

      In some ways, this is an honest question. Aside from saying "we use X plugin from RSA" or "the university of wisconsin has verified us," how can one person ensure the security of what they work with?

      --
      The ______ Agenda
    2. Re:sensible security w/o sources by Gadzinka · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In some ways, this is an honest question. Aside from saying "we use X plugin from RSA" or "the university of wisconsin has verified us," how can one person ensure the security of what they work with?

      This same question applies to other parts of our everyday life. For example, who can really verify books of state owned company, or the real flow of money in publicly paid projects?

      The only answer we've found so far is transparency. It's true, that not everyone can check it by himself, but on the other hand, when there's no transparency (in public finances or software programs) no one can check it.

      Robert

      --
      Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
  5. SafeDee looks like a subset of PortaBase (free) by obtuse · · Score: 2, Interesting

    SafeDee is neat, but I copied the functionality and appearance of SafeDee closely in about five minutes with Portabase . They're so close that I wonder if SafeDee isn't actually made from PortaBase, which includes Blowfish encryption, and even has the desktop ports that the reviewer wanted.

    My favorite add-on app for a PDA is a quick and dirty database. Having data at my fingertips all the time makes a PDA a work tool for me. If I need an inventory database, reference chart or somesuch, I've got it in a few minutes.

    --
    Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
  6. geeky? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're the one complainig about the use of a "Latin Style Plural"

    Dork.

  7. Re:SafeDee looks like a subset of PortaBase (free) by Jeremy+Bowman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think SafeDee was actually released a little before PortaBase, and several months before encryption support was added to PortaBase. Blowfish is a fairly common and simple algorithm, I doubt if there's any code in common between the apps in that respect (PortaBase uses an LGPL library called BeeCrypt in its encryption implementation, SafeDee probably uses a self-written implementation).

    PortaBase does have a lot of extra features, but I can imagine that if you just want a password manager, something simpler may be desired. On the other hand, being able to encrypt a custom data table containing a variety of data types and then sort and filter the results can be pretty useful too (which is why I implemented file encryption in PortaBase instead of just using a separate password management program).

    I have noticed a tendency to exclude PortaBase in reviews of Zaurus encryption software, I wonder if they just haven't noticed that it supports that...?