Sharp Zaurus SL-C760 Handheld

First how to get one. I was lucky if you like, and picked mine up while in Japan in reality it was second hand but you wouldn't know it. For the sake of weight for the flight home I got rid of the manuals! not alot of use, although I get bye in Japanese its still just difficult.

So what you get...
1 PDA
1 Stylus
1 Japanese style power adapter very compact and nice if you have a 120V supply
1 Manual Japanese

what you'd like to get: OR need to buy
Case
spare stylus
screen cover (plasticy thing)

Get from Argos (UK) maplin etc (usa)
A nice power supply – it takes a standard adapter etc, the Japanese adapter can then be left for your holidays to Japan. Do not use a European adapter plug – fire! The transformer is for 120V not … the UK juice!



You can get one in from these guys if your not in Japan for the price you'll also get a semi conversion to English as well!!! –

http://www.dynamism.com/zaurus/

I'm not going to cover conversion although I will say if your going to convert from Japanese to English it is supprisingly easy. Having said that there are two schools of thought, one which leaves the Language setting of linux as Ja (japan) and one which changes it to English. Id suggest the more difficult leaving it in Ja – I have tried both and my opinion is more functions are available to you in a functional state if you leave it in Ja.

I said I wouldn't say much but must just cover this, if you do go the En route all the help files stop working (although they are in Japanese) plus your stylus can play up!

I can dig out my notes on conversion if people would really like them but you should be able to find most things on the net – although I don't think somebodies got round to putting it all in one place (its all part of the fun)

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A LINUX NUT – I'm defiantly not.

Well you already know why I bought it, because it linux – with samba (to mount PC drives so you can work with there files)

Once conversion is over you have a nice looking and very useful design. Anyone can read the specifications so I wont write what it can do rather discuss the naff bits and things I like. You'll get the idea.

Its calendar is nice with many multiple views, year, month, week , day… adding notes is fairly quick and you can tell it it's a regular repeat (every Tuesday) (or every year). A feature I use a lot is to block book whole periods not just hours but days even weeks all at once very quickly. Integration is not apparent between programs as you realize entries of peoples birthdays are not put on the calendar (abit naff but I'm sure the community will come up with a simple script to fix this – I should do it but its just time!! You know)

This is one of the other things… this platform is ment to be linux why not use standard database file formats.. That way you could back your address book and calendar up to the PC or linux and look at it in case of disaster. This has been one task solved by the community and you can now use a script to convert your database files to CSV files (excel will open these).

Address book, you need to work a tiny bit harder to get your lists in alphabetical order. I do this by putting the job title entry field in as the first letter of the name, why? You can't actually sort by first or surname, this is a Japanese thing…. I suppose if your Japanese your happy to have all your English friends in one area (you probably wouldn't be sorting them!)

These are my main grips, you might be able to tell. But you can see clearly why they are like they are, because you are using a Japanese piece of software made to look English. If you couldn't put up with this simply rermove the software and install your own… you can pay small fees or just get some free versions from the software download sites http://zsi2.stonekeep.com/index.php?v=l&n=100
LOTS OF SOFTWARE!!

now the good stuff


Find this on another PDA I feel its rare….

Both SD and compact flash slots that you can use at the same time. Most PDAs will just go for SD or CF.

With the CF I use one of – wireless card, standard Ethernet socket, or a modem.
The SD I have a 128 MB card in which is like your harddrive – you can put software on it and lots of files.

Other software bits I like, I normally carry a film round with me on an SD card incase I get bored ( I wont say you'll see it all because of battery life). But you can listen to MP3s quite easily, and the battery life, although not upto Lord of the rings is good for two days hard use.

The screen is clear but get yourself a screen protector as a priority, because you will scratch it.

So your using your organiser, you have it converted and now need to back up the PDA…. You can use a PC in-fact that's the only place the software is designed for.
It says its only good for Japanese XP it lies it does install! Down load a patch for the back up program, this will convert it to English!! Otherwise its hard – although a little tip the first window says turn off all software on the PDA!! This is all that's really required.

Think I've covered quite a bit, If you want to get a good PDA that always has that faff factor (but only if you want) get this. You might end up running a web server from your pocket through a wireless connection! lol.
Enjoy and get started here:

http://www.zaurus.com/dev/board/index.php?s=db9f57f72bb151f5ece4246c8588f6aa&act=idx