Going Paperless

[+Haffy]

Hey all,I am interested in going paperless this spring or summer and was wondering if I could get some info on the subject from anyone in here who has done this. ie: what PDA is used,(i would like to get a color one) what software is used etc,etc thanks in advance haffy6

[+Imajika]

I use a cheapo Palm Zire 21. I get a pocket query sent to me in .gpx format. I open the query in Cachemate (using cmconvert) and send the waypoints to my PDA.

 

I then open the same query in EasyGPS and send the waypoints to my GPS.

 

Voila!

 

Paperless!

 

I know you'll have more questions though. Please feel free to email me or post more questions here.

 

Good luck!

[+Renegade Knight]

The first decision you have to make is Palm or PocketPC. The software varies but both do the job.

[Swagger]

The first decision you have to make is Palm or PocketPC. The software varies but both do the job.

Whatcha doin'? Trying to start a religion war?

 

Of course, everyone knows that PalmOS is better.

[+NightPilot]

There are a number of threads on the forum that discuss this subject in excruciating detail. A search should give you several hours of reading pleasure.

[+NevaP]

Help. I am trying to go paperless and I have hit the the tech wall. I have been slogging through forum posts on the subject and I'm more confused than ever.

 

I intended to get a Palm/Os PDA but when I ran across a special offer on Dell last week I bought an Axim3 which I find is a pocket PC format. Well, I've figured out how to turn the durn thing on and get the battery charged and set the clock and I even moved a file over from Word and opened it.

 

I downloaded Mobipocket Reader which will open my PQs OK but everybody seems to hate it. But I can't figure out which of the many programs people seem to like will run on the Pocket PC and which are only for Palm.

 

Can someone explain in plain english, comprehensible to a confused senior citizen, which progams I can use for the pocket PC and which will only work on the Palm.

 

Thanks

NevaLP

[+flask]

neva, i'm going to suggest to you what worked for me:

 

go to the hardware software forum and do a search. then, when you have a good idea of what information you're still missing, or what those guys have to say but you do not understand, post your question.

 

be as specific as possible about what you have and what steps you have already taken, as well as what software you have or are familiar with.

 

the better you are at explaining what you need, the better those guys will be able to help you. be warned ahead of time that some of them wil be snooty. don't take it personal. some of them will have the information you need and will be able to speak your language.

 

not me, though. while i think i may speak your language, i do not have the information you need. i didn't have the information *I* needed, but i got really good at asking and now i can at least run my own equipment.

[+Alan2]

 

Can someone explain in plain english, comprehensible to a confused senior citizen, which progams I can use for the pocket PC and which will only work on the Palm.

 

Thanks

NevaLP 

I don't know about Palm, but with my Pocket PC (PPC) I use the following:

 

Pocket Queries ($30 annually) from geocaching.com to download all the caches in my area including waypoint data and the web pages for the caches.

 

GSAK (free) for managing data of those caches on your PCand creating all the waypoints to load into my Vista, create waypoints for my topo mapping program (National Geographic TOPO) and waypoints into Garmin's Mapsource. GSAK can create waypoints automatically for most GPS programs.

 

GSAK is also loaded through GPXSonar (free) into the PPC for paperless caching and review of all the caches of what you see on the web pages of geocaching.com. Forget mobipocket.

 

One other thing I do is to have Mapopolis auto-navigation that allows me to navigate where ever I'm driving. gpxtomaplet (free) creates overlays of the the cache waypoints created by GSAK so that the caches appear on the auto-navigation page so you can go from cache to cache and more importantly get a view of what caches are in any area including you current area.

 

That's it.

 

Good luck

 

Alan

Edited March 24, 2004 by Alan2

[+Perrin]

I'm going to try and save you some trouble since I had all the same questions just a few weeks ago.

 

I got a Palm Zire71 and I am really enjoying it.

 

If you think you are going to want to have maps, I guess I would suggest getting a Pocket PC though. The Mapopolis program seems to be a lot better for the PPC than for the Palm.

 

Here's the thread I started on Going Paperless: A lot of good info here.

 

Here is one on Mapping Software

 

Here is another mapping one

 

This should get you going.

 

I did discover that you apparently need to have cachemate and mapopolis when using a PalmOS if you want to have a map that you can put cache waypoints on.

 

Good luck! Its really great when you finally get it figured out.

 

Finally check this here is a great site for a step by step for getting set up.