+James & Sheryl Posted May 22, 2003 Share Posted May 22, 2003 Don't yet have a PDA but am considering one. Have read all the discussions I could find and still have questions. Help would be appreciated. I have downloaded Watcher and Mobilereader to my computer, and love the way they work. When you use a PDA do you download Watcher to it, and does it work the same way? Or do you use Watcher on your computer and then download the results to the PDA. Does it matter which operating system you have on your PDA, and is one better than the other. Is this like the beta vs vhs, or Miscrsoft vs Mac? Which seems to be the eventual winner? It seems that all the discussions on this Pocket Query, Pda are posted by and for people who already have a PDA and basically are technically savy. What I and many others need is a real basic primer. Much thanks will go out to someone who can explain this in simple language, and point me in the right direction. JAMES SKRENTNER Link to comment
+Quetzalteco Posted May 22, 2003 Share Posted May 22, 2003 There are two schools to the PDA world - the Pocket PC and the Palm. I have used both and I prefer the Pocket PC, but that is not to say that Palm is not good. In fact it is better in some areas, it's just not my preference. I use Watcher and MS MapPoint on the PC and on the Pocket PC, I use something called GPXView and Pocket Streets on the Pocket PC. I solution is good and it allows be to have a minimum of conversions - I only need one (ExpertGPX or similar) to convert from GPX to CSV for MapPoint and also to download to the GPS. Here's a link with the tools that I have used in the past: http://www.sonomarin.net/geocaching/ Good luck... /cw aka : Chris Williams Caching in the North Bay and beyond... sonomarin.net Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted May 22, 2003 Share Posted May 22, 2003 Watcher is not yet a PDA program and the world is a sadder place for it. However GPXview does a good job with a GPX file on a pocket PC so you can go paperless. Once you are used to it GPXview is better than Mobi, and Mobi is better than paper. ===================== Wherever you go there you are. Link to comment
+parkrrrr Posted May 22, 2003 Share Posted May 22, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Renegade Knight:Mobi is better than paper. I dunno. It's so hard to wipe with Mobi. It seems to put more #$@& on than there was to start with. Link to comment
+Stunod Posted May 22, 2003 Share Posted May 22, 2003 If you get a Palm PDA, I would recommend gpx2html to create web pages from your pocket query, and then Plucker to put those pages on your PDA. Works great for me, and you avoid the Mobipocket #$@& that Fuzzy referred to. "Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand." Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted May 22, 2003 Share Posted May 22, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Warm Fuzzies - Fuzzy: quote:Originally posted by Renegade Knight:Mobi is better than paper. I dunno. It's so hard to wipe with Mobi. It seems to put more #$@& on than there was to start with. http://216.202.195.127/warm.gif WFF just gave a great version of what most people think of Mobi! ===================== Wherever you go there you are. Link to comment
+ClayJar Posted May 22, 2003 Share Posted May 22, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Renegade Knight:Watcher is not yet a PDA program and the world is a sadder place for it. Hehe... true, perhaps, but I certainly have more time this way. [[[ ClayJar Networks ]]] Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System Link to comment
+HartClimbs Posted May 22, 2003 Share Posted May 22, 2003 Sounds like you're well on your way - I'd suggest downloading Plucker (I think it's www.plucker.org). It provides a VERY easy way to get webpages onto your palm. Also, I'd second the recommendation made already for GPX2HTML or Spinner. I take the .gpx files sent to me from my pocketqueries, then just drag and drop them into Spinner (I used to use GPX2HTML - it's a great utility but I like Spinner's capabilites to change waypoint names and symbols). They, just go into Plucker - select UPDATE CHANNEL (which rebuilds all the pages for use on the palm from the output from Spinner), Hotsync, and voila! I keep info on the nearest 500 caches on my Palm Vx. It's a big help having it stashed in the bottom of my pack when needed. Lastly - I also use Watcher (brilliant pgm!) to edit the pocketquery output and store 'subsets' (ie. if I'm caching in a particular area - I make a 'mini-.gpx' file using the Watcher filters and run it through the same process above). Watcher's also brilliant for planning cache outings and reading logs while offline. As others have said, it's PC-based (so I only use it on my laptop), but it makes geocaching that much more enjoyable! Some great offerings out there - good luck and I hope this helps! - HartClimbs There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. - Ken Olsen, President, Digital Equipment, 1977 Link to comment
+Mopar Posted May 22, 2003 Share Posted May 22, 2003 Just one more opinion. You can find older PalmPilots out there pretty cheap. Often under $25 used. These are perfect for geocaching because PDAs in general aren't very rugged. If you break a nice new $400 PDA, you're gonna cry. If ya break a $10 PDA from ebay, so what? The downside is they are slower and have less memory then the newer models. I use Fuzzy's GPX to PalmDoc converter and cspotrun. Both programs are free. The result isn't quite as pretty as say Spinner+Plucker, but the file size is MUCH smaller, and loads a lot faster. Acceptable tradeoffs for an older PalmPilot. Tae-Kwon-Leap is not a path to a door, but a road leading forever towards the horizon. Link to comment
+Geo-Ferrets Posted May 22, 2003 Share Posted May 22, 2003 quote:Originally posted by ClayJar: quote:Originally posted by Renegade Knight:Watcher is not yet a PDA program and the world is a sadder place for it. Hehe... true, perhaps, but I certainly have more time this way. Ok, ok. But what about a BSD or Linux version? Link to comment
+ClayJar Posted May 23, 2003 Share Posted May 23, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Geo-Ferrets:Ok, ok. But what about a BSD or Linux version? Hmmm... well, it's written in VB, some C, javascript, MSXML, IE, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree. In order to port it to *nix, I'd have to do a complete rewrite. That said, a Watcher-like program for *nix would be quite nice, indeed. It would just require a completely different paradigm. Perhaps one way of doing it would be to use a SQL backend and a web interface, coupled with whichever language(s) you care to use in the middle. As long as it was internal and not on a public node, it should be fine. It's just a completely different problem than I'm working with. (If anyone wants to do something like this, I'll do what I can to help, but my code is, for the most part, a straightforward implementation of the visible features. Still, the GCID code or whatever might be useful.) [[[ ClayJar Networks ]]] Home of Watcher downloads, Official Geocaching Chat, and the Geocache Rating System Link to comment
+James & Sheryl Posted May 23, 2003 Author Share Posted May 23, 2003 Thanks for all the help looks like I will try to find a pda running pocket pc and try gpxview. How much memory should I look for??? And Clayjar since everyone thinks watcher is better than sliced bread is there any plans to write it for pocket pc?? From all I've read it looks like this would be the perfect solution to most pda geocachers. JAMES Link to comment
+Geo-Ferrets Posted May 23, 2003 Share Posted May 23, 2003 quote:Originally posted by ClayJar:Hmmm... well, it's written in VB, some C, javascript, MSXML, IE, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree. In order to port it to *nix, I'd have to do a complete rewrite. Yeah, I know. And it requires IE. (sigh) But hey... If ya rewrote it using a cross-platform libraries for the GUI, XML, etc., then you'd have one set of code that could be compiled on a variety of platforms. Wouldn't that be infinitely better? (Doncha just love how easily I spend your spare time?) Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted May 23, 2003 Share Posted May 23, 2003 Soooo...Maybe I'm all washed up here, my programing days ended in college with Fortran and Basic. But all languages seem to eventuall spill into machine languane/binary which the CPU processes and spits out binary/machine language results which in turn are converted by magical programming means into something that makes sence like "The cache is 22' that way". So haven't they ever perfected a means to capture the program translated into the CPU's language and spit it back up (decompile?) into any language that programmers use? Sort of put in Javascript and come back with Two Turtle Doves? ===================== Wherever you go there you are. Link to comment
Recommended Posts