Paperless Caching for Macs

[+kurchian]

I'm ready to take the step into paperless caching for Macs. I've read as much as I can on here and I'd appreciate hearing from people on a few unanswered questions.

 

1. Palm or PockerPC - which is easiest for Macs?

2. If I am not going to use the PDA for anything else what model?

3. Color or black/white?

[+T F T C]

I use a Treo 650, which runs Palm's (antiquated) OS. On my Palm I use CacheMate to manage my geocaches. I use GeoJournal to convert caches into the Cachemate file. I use The Missing Sync to sync my phone with my Mac.

 

Here's my routine:

 

- Import geocaches into Gejournal http://www.geojournal.net

- Export caches from GeoJournal as a CacheMate PDB file

- Load CacheMate files into The Missing Sync

- Load CacheMate files into CacheMate on my Treo 650 via The Missing Sync

[Wintertime]

My old Palm Zire started acting up several weeks ago, so I ran over to Palm one day and bought their least expensive ($100) PDA, the Z22. I loaded CacheMate on it and it's working fine, although it isn't as fast as the Zire was. If all you want a PDA for is caching, the Z22 might do the trick for you.

 

Patty

[+zafwon]

kurchian -Us paperless Mac folks are a small group. Let us know what you come up with. Thanks!

[Jenningstanner]

If you have an intel mac then get paralles for mac and run windows. Then your options are unlimited.

[lewis82]

I'm ready to take the step into paperless caching for Macs. I've read as much as I can on here and I'd appreciate hearing from people on a few unanswered questions.

 

1. Palm or PockerPC - which is easiest for Macs?

[...]

 

I guess that PocketPCs just don't work with Macs. Or if they do, very little.

 

Microsoft just doesn't like Apple.

[+Miragee]

I'm ready to take the step into paperless caching for Macs. I've read as much as I can on here and I'd appreciate hearing from people on a few unanswered questions.

 

1. Palm or PockerPC - which is easiest for Macs?

2. If I am not going to use the PDA for anything else what model?

3. Color or black/white?

Check out the Palm m500 on eBay. You should be able to get one for $30.00, including the shipping. The monochrome screen is easy to see in bright sunlight, something that cannot be said for some of the color models.

[+salmondan]

I went the Palm m500 ebay route/ good price for something that gets knocked about out in the field.

I use MacCMConvert to convert my queries and cachemate on the palm.

 

I'm ready to take the step into paperless caching for Macs. I've read as much as I can on here and I'd appreciate hearing from people on a few unanswered questions.

 

1. Palm or PockerPC - which is easiest for Macs?

2. If I am not going to use the PDA for anything else what model?

3. Color or black/white?

Check out the Palm m500 on eBay. You should be able to get one for $30.00, including the shipping. The monochrome screen is easy to see in bright sunlight, something that cannot be said for some of the color models.

[+blairt]

I'm ready to take the step into paperless caching for Macs. I've read as much as I can on here and I'd appreciate hearing from people on a few unanswered questions.

 

1. Palm or PockerPC - which is easiest for Macs?

...

 

In past life pursuits I developed applications for the Palm platform and this left me with a few Palm III, Palm V, and Palm Vx units. I have used all of the above Palm devices successfully with CacheMate. I prefer the Palm Vx because it has 8MB of memory and a titanium case, but the Palm III and Palm V will do nicely. The Palm Desktop application still runs great on Mac OS 9.x - 10.4.x (I haven't upgraded to 10.5 yet ), so syncing up to the older Palm units is not a problem. You can get the older Palm units on eBay for less than $20.00. If you go this route you may need a serial to USB connector. The Palm Vx models shipped with one, but the Palm V and Palm III did not.

 

I use CacheMate and MacCmConvert for my paperless caching software.

 

The steps I use to get caches onto my Palm are...

1. Download a GPX file.

2. Convert the GPX file using MacCmConvert (Freeware).

3. Sync up the palm.

[+T F T C]

If you have an intel mac then get paralles for mac and run windows. Then your options are unlimited.

 

...but you still need to purchase a copy of Windows. Ouch. And then you need to deal with Windows. Double ouch.

[+admo1972]

If you have an intel mac then get paralles for mac and run windows. Then your options are unlimited.

 

...but you still need to purchase a copy of Windows. Ouch. And then you need to deal with Windows. Double ouch.

 

Once I got my Mac Pro, I had XP Professional bought and installed within a week. I believe I was able to buy XP Pro for about $110. I only boot into XP directly, never Parallels (tried the beta, thought it was cool, but shutting down and booting into XP takes only ablout 50 seconds to a minute on the Mac Pro, a small price to pay for a significant performance boost).

[+phat.bak]

I'm ready to take the step into paperless caching for Macs. I've read as much as I can on here and I'd appreciate hearing from people on a few unanswered questions.

 

1. Palm or PockerPC - which is easiest for Macs?

2. If I am not going to use the PDA for anything else what model?

3. Color or black/white?

 

I have a webpage that I created when I couldn't find info on how to do this some time back. I still do paperless caching using this method. There are new programs out there that MIGHT be a better choice, but if it ain't broke - I ain't changing.

Paperless Caching on a Mac

I am interested in looking at GSAK using VPC, but ... maybe next week, or the next, I've got to go caching (paperless, of course).

[+kurchian]

OK, these replies are helpful.

 

It's clear that I will get a Palm.

 

Now I am trying to decide on a few details:

 

a. memory/storage - how important is this? For example the Z22 is mentioned here and that has 32MB. Is that enough and what impact does that have on operation?

 

b. processor - the Z22 has 200MHz. The older and cheaper Palms have less. I'd appreciate comments on speed.

 

c. color or black & white - I'd appreciate comments on this.

[+shacker]

If you have an iPod, don't forget gpx2ipod!

[+tabulator32]

If you have an iPod, don't forget gpx2ipod!

 

The MacCaching application also allows sending data to your ipod.

[southpawaz]

OK, these replies are helpful.

 

a. memory/storage - how important is this? For example the Z22 is mentioned here and that has 32MB. Is that enough and what impact does that have on operation?

 

b. processor - the Z22 has 200MHz. The older and cheaper Palms have less. I'd appreciate comments on speed.

 

c. color or black & white - I'd appreciate comments on this.

 

I just went through the same process of figuring out what to get. I ended up going with with a Z22. If you are going to use it just for paperless caching, then really all you're doing is managing a small database of text which is probably not going to tax a PDA's processor or memory. I got the Z22 mostly because it was readily available new or used (EBay) at a price point that worked for me.

[+kurchian]

In a Florida Caching web page I read that there is some advantage in an old PDA because the old PDA's have RS232 interfaces instead of the newer USB interface.

 

http://65.34.18.106/content.php?article.15

Here is the relevant passage pasted directly from the Florida Caching page:

"Something else (besides price) that make s older Palm III's attractive for caching is that they use a RS232 serial interface to "talk" to your PC (as opposed to news models that have a USB interface). Why is this a good thing? Well, CacheMate has a plug-in that allows you to send waypoints from your PDA to Magellan GPSs (more on this later). For Garmin users, as best I know there is also a Garmin plug-in for CacheMate. I don't own a Garmin so this really isn't my area of knowledge, but I do know that there are Palm apps (and cables) that can let your Palm and Garmin GPS transfer information."

 

I don't understand. Why is this an advantage?

[+T F T C]

So you can send waypoints to your GPS from your Palm, as opposed to your PC. I can see this as a time-saving device - if you have little time to prepare for a geocaching trip you can load the waypoints onto your palm from your computer, then grab your gps and load the waypoints onto your gps in the car.

[+kurchian]

So you can send waypoints to your GPS from your Palm, as opposed to your PC. I can see this as a time-saving device - if you have little time to prepare for a geocaching trip you can load the waypoints onto your palm from your computer, then grab your gps and load the waypoints onto your gps in the car.

 

I can readily understand this advantage. But why can't you do the same if the PDA has USB?

[robertlipe]

Because USB is a host/device communication and most PDAs are devices and not hosts. Connecting two devices together doesn't work.

 

There are a few PDAs with USB interfaces that can do host mode but I've never seen anyone implement Garmin protocol drivers for those PDAs. Explorist might come closer to working as it's "just" a disk drive and that may work; copying a file to explorist shouldn't be terribly challenging.

 

The reality, though, is the intersecting set of all the needed pieces for that to work is very small.