gornzilla@gmail.com (Dave Smith) wrote in
news:4bbfd31f.0407292244.1d0e39d9@posting.google.c om:

> Hi,
>
> I leave in 2 months to ride a small motorcycle round the world. I
> need something that runs off AA batteries to check email, update my
> travel journal, and download sites like slashdot, news & travel sites.
> I *think* a Psion 5mx is best, but I've never paid attention to PDAs.
>
> Any info would be great. I should buy something soon to figure out
> how to use it.
>
> --Dave
>

Pro's of MX5:
- solid
- AA batteries
- simple but great apps (word processor, email, browser, spreadsheet,
calendar)
- great keyboard!
- infrared for file transfer to PC.

Contra's:
- all apps use proprietary file format. You can convert the files to e.g.
MS Office formats, but you need to install the conversion software on the
PC. That is great for your own PC, but how to do that on e.g. Internet
cafe PC's?
- the MX5 browser in quite old and will have trouble displaying all the
latest on the web. Also it is s--l--o--w
- the screen is too small for me to use for anything but minimal web
browsing (web pages usually do not shrink to the mx5 size)
- email works great with text-only, but lousy when you attach files
(receiver connot read Psion file attachments)
- you'll need an international ISP to connect to the internet.
- monochrome screen.

Possbible workarounds:
- get the Symbian freeware text editor, use that to keep your travel
diary, and use the infrared port to transfer this to PC where you can
publish it on the Web. If you only want to keep your travel diary to
yourself, the stand word app on the mx5 is great.
- use if possible Internet Cafe's to keep up-to-date

I think I would prefer the mx5 over an iPaq for such a trip, mainly
because of the screen orientation and the great keyboard. iPaqs and Palms
also need synch/conversion software.

Enjoy the trip!
Fred

Fred Wiersma wrote:
> gornzilla@gmail.com (Dave Smith) wrote in
> news:4bbfd31f.0407292244.1d0e39d9@posting.google.c om:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I leave in 2 months to ride a small motorcycle round the world. I
>> need something that runs off AA batteries to check email, update my
>> travel journal, and download sites like slashdot, news & travel
>> sites. I *think* a Psion 5mx is best, but I've never
> Contra's:
> - all apps use proprietary file format. You can convert the files to
> e.g. MS Office formats, but you need to install the conversion
> software on the PC. That is great for your own PC, but how to do that
> on e.g. Internet cafe PC's?
> - the MX5 browser in quite old and will have trouble displaying all
> the latest on the web. Also it is s--l--o--w
> - the screen is too small for me to use for anything but minimal web
> browsing (web pages usually do not shrink to the mx5 size)
> - email works great with text-only, but lousy when you attach files
> (receiver connot read Psion file attachments)
> - you'll need an international ISP to connect to the internet.

Hi,
You find AA batteries everywhere in the world and they last for months!
No need for a PC, (not even of Symbian free Editor and free MSword
reader):
All the apps can export in .txt (word, jotter) or can "print" to file
via general printer ex. agenda
If you need more cnvs have a look at
Neuon nConvert
and look for
mbmview (for pictures) from pscience5 site.
I never had pb with attached files ! ... nor with malware.
Jack

"Jack" wrote in message
news:410a2b87$0$18704$626a14ce@news.free.fr...
> Fred Wiersma wrote:
> > gornzilla@gmail.com (Dave Smith) wrote in
> > news:4bbfd31f.0407292244.1d0e39d9@posting.google.c om:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I leave in 2 months to ride a small motorcycle round the world. I
> >> need something that runs off AA batteries to check email, update my
> >> travel journal, and download sites like slashdot, news & travel
> >> sites. I *think* a Psion 5mx is best, but I've never
> > Contra's:
> > - all apps use proprietary file format. You can convert the files to
> > e.g. MS Office formats, but you need to install the conversion
> > software on the PC. That is great for your own PC, but how to do that
> > on e.g. Internet cafe PC's?
> > - the MX5 browser in quite old and will have trouble displaying all
> > the latest on the web. Also it is s--l--o--w
> > - the screen is too small for me to use for anything but minimal web
> > browsing (web pages usually do not shrink to the mx5 size)
> > - email works great with text-only, but lousy when you attach files
> > (receiver connot read Psion file attachments)
> > - you'll need an international ISP to connect to the internet.
>
> Hi,
> You find AA batteries everywhere in the world and they last for months!
> No need for a PC, (not even of Symbian free Editor and free MSword
> reader):
> All the apps can export in .txt (word, jotter) or can "print" to file
> via general printer ex. agenda
> If you need more cnvs have a look at
> Neuon nConvert
> and look for
> mbmview (for pictures) from pscience5 site.
> I never had pb with attached files ! ... nor with malware.
> Jack
>

Just expect the screen to be unviewable when it gets too hot- it happens in
the UK so you'll need to keep it cool.

AlanS wrote:
> > All the apps can export in .txt (word, jotter) or can "print" to file
> > via general printer ex. agenda

Exporting text from Word can be done. But it is not ergonomic (submenus etc).

When you use the text editor, files are saved as text by default, no need for
menu convolutions and having to specify the file name when editing an existing file.

Also, with a file stored as text, from Word, you need to create an new empty
document and then go through the menus to include your text file.

When travelling you don't want to start fiddling with these things.


A series 3mx might actually be better suited for you. While much older and
keyboard-only (no tyouch screen) the screen is more readable despite beiung oe
much lesse quality (bigger and fewer dots). But its software is more amenable
to standalone opetation.

Its web browser however is worse than that of the series 5 (doesn't even send
the Host: tag in the httop request, so when you get to a multi-homed web
server, it can't know which site to serve).

On the other hand, the email software is fairly good in terms of attachements
(choise of mime or uuencode).

The 3mx uses proprietary memory cards, so that is a big drawback compared to
series 5.


There are no perfect PDAs anymore unfortunatly.

Traveling with proprietary CF cards wouldn't be worth it. I plan on
bring a bunch of CF cards for my Canon A70 camera & an mp3 player
(haven't figured that one out yet, either). I'd like to use the same
type of CF cards. One less thing to worry about.

If I can move a .txt document, that'd be great. I'll have a travel
journey up and I'll be dumping text & pictures onto my site with
movable type.

Psions can take RSS feeds, can't they? News, slashdot,
horizonsunlimited (motorcycle world travel site) all have RSS feeds.
Pictures don't matter that much, I'm just after the text.

I've been looking for a 5mx and had one offered at $200. A 5 was
offered at $140. What's the difference, and what's a good price to
pay? I did some research on old Psions but I'm lost. I asked on
slashdot but the story has been pending for 24 hours now.

--Dave

Dave Smith wrote:
>
> Psions can take RSS feeds, can't they? News, slashdot,
> horizonsunlimited (motorcycle world travel site) all have RSS feeds.
> Pictures don't matter that much, I'm just after the text.

http://www.bloglines.com/mobile

Online RSS reader which works wonderfully in both Opera or the STNC Psion WebBrowser. You can import an OPML file from your desktop RSS Reader

> I've been looking for a 5mx and had one offered at $200. A 5 was
> offered at $140. What's the difference, and what's a good price to
> pay? I did some research on old Psions but I'm lost. I asked on
> slashdot but the story has been pending for 24 hours now.

Go for the 5mx - faster, more reliable, much better on the internet for Email and the speed is needed for Web.

-- Ewan Spence
-- FreEPOC / www.freepoc.org
-- All About Symbian / www.allaboutsymbian.com

Thanks, Ewan. Hopefully Paul Wright (from psionflexi) will be getting
a 5mx in for sale soon. He said he'd sell it to me direct instead of
putting it on eBay.

--Dave

In article <4bbfd31f.0407310548.35dda271@posting.google.com>,
gornzilla@gmail.com (Dave Smith) writes:
>If I can move a .txt document, that'd be great. I'll have a travel
>journey up and I'll be dumping text & pictures onto my site with
>movable type.

I use text files also on psion, a trick is to use one of the syntaxes to
"naturally" enhance the text. I use TWiki syntax
( http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/TextFormattingRules )
but I think movable type has such a syntax.

I use (micro)emacs on the psion for text notetaking, but you can just use
any text editor

I began writing a psion word->xml/xhtml utility that may be useful for
some people, I'll see if I can package it for release it (it is in ...
lisp :-).

--
Colas Nahaboo, Webcore, ILOG Sophia Antipolis, http://colas.nahaboo.net

Colas Nahaboo wrote:
....
> to "naturally" enhance the text. I use TWiki syntax
> ( http://twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/TWiki/TextFormattingRules )

Interesting

> I began writing a psion word->xml/xhtml utility that may be useful for
> some people, I'll see if I can package it for release it (it is in ...
lisp :-).

Freewate Mynotes3.04 crom freepoc.de & shareware nConvert do convert
many formats to .Html.

Jack


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