@

"The Sharp Zaurus Linux PDA - Making Bill WinCE!"

After years of faithful service by my Palm IIIX it was time to upgrade. I'd been ready to upgrade for some time but I had no interest in using a Windows device, as lovely as the iPaq looked, running something that suffered the normal MS Bloat in its apps was not something that fired me up. I looked around at the Palm offerings but alas the once great leaders of the Palm top industry had lost the plot and not moved with the times, the best hope for them was the Sony Clie device, but still it just didn't feel like progress. I plodded on with my palm until quite by accident I stumbled across the Sharp Zaurus, stunning looking machine, and running Linux too. This was last week (mid-May 2002), coincidentally just a few days after the official launch in the UK. I bought it from dabs.com, A bit pricey at £450, I feel sure it will drop to £399 in the near future, but the appeal was to great and my money was soon in their bank account, it turned up the very next day.....

So what now? Well these pages will be used to keep records of anything that might be useful to others, any software I produce and any "hardware" I build or adapt. You'll also find a small but no doubt growing list of questions I need answered, if you can help please let me know.

Software

ResumeGuard

Here is my first Zaurus software project. I got fed up with the bug in Qtopia that means that an alarm for an event disables the apm suspecnd and thus runs your battery flat unless you intervene. Reume Guard prevents this and accidental turning on as well, by requiring the user to click on a dialogue box within a configurable time limit or the Zaurus will suspend itself.

The package is currently at version 0.1, it does everything it claims to and has been tested by me but needs field testing just in case it doesn't work or inteferes with other apps.

you can download it from my zaurus feed

I will also upload it to the main feeds and the ZSI in due course.

ResumeGuard maual

Hopefully useful tips

1. Internet access via the cradle and USB port (Windows) (for Linux see someone elses solution)
2. Detecting resume on a standard SL5500
3. Using SmartMedia with the Zaurus.
4. A Portable hard drive for the Zaurus?

Help needed

1. I want to build a device that will sit on the I/O port. I need to source the serial connector part, (not the expensive serial cable itself as I will be chopping it apart). The part number is listed on the Sharp developer website and helpfully points you to the manufacturer, however I have had no luck finding anywhere in the UK that can supply me with one or two of these for my experiments. Any ideas?
2. This has annoyed me a few times now. When an alarm goes off the calendar app pops up, turns on the backlight beeps (if that is what you wanted), fine you say. The trouble is that the bugger doesn't go back to sleep again but sits there sucking the life from your battery, potentially leaving you with a lifeless brick when you need it most and can't get to a power source. So the question is what is the calendar app doing in response to an alarm that somehow overrides the power off settings?
   This is still an open question, I have now created ResumeGuard to deal with this but I would like to know why it occurs nonetheless. I am convinced it is a bug and it should be fixed.

If you have any questions or suggestions about stuff on this page then please let me know.