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Hand Held Computers

Started by shopteacher, May 16, 2004, 06:13:08 AM

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shopteacher

  Anybody familiar with these hand held computers?  Like Palm Pilot and similar PDA's.  I'd like to load the forum calculators onto one and take it on the road when picking up logs. The log weight calculator would be real handy when trying to figure which logs to load.  Trying to load a small truck by guessing leaves to under-loading (wasting time and gas) or overloading (cracked frame or broken axle).  If I had the calculator I could punch in the specs and see which logs would be most efficient.
  I did talked to a fellow about this and he said the palm pilot using it own software and files, but that others use a Windows CE software.  He wasn't sure if you could load HTML into it and have it work or not. So I'm going to the best place I know for answers and comments.
Proud owner of a LT40HDSE25, Corley Circle mill, JD 450C, JD 8875, MF 1240E
Tilt Bed Truck  and well equipted wood shop.

Norm

Save your money teach and get a laptop, buy a good used one off of e-bay. I like the Sony's and IBM ones the best. Stay away from the dell and gateway ones. Get a cigarette charger as the batteries in them never last that long. The pda's are a joke.

ksu_chainsaw

i have used a palm pilot for farm use for the past 4 years, and have not had too many problems with them.  they do get tempermental at times, but usually it was because i had not cleaned it recently.  in our newer equipment, we use a dell pocket pc, and we have had nothing bad to say about it.  it is usually in the sprayer or combine, interfacing with the gps guidance system, and we have had no problems with it.  we accidently left the window open one night when it rained, and after it dried out, it still worked like a charm.  

the pocket pc's are easier to work with, as u can put a spreadsheet from office straight into it and use it, but the palm pilot has to have its own code written up.

hope u can find what u want

charles

shopteacher

Charles: Can you load a html file into that dell pc?
Norm: Thanks for the input, been thinking of getting an old lap top just to keep in the truck and run the calculators off of.  I think they threw some old laptops away at school. I'll have to check and see if any are still laying around.
Proud owner of a LT40HDSE25, Corley Circle mill, JD 450C, JD 8875, MF 1240E
Tilt Bed Truck  and well equipted wood shop.

DeepForest

       U r gonna be able to download html with a laptop ( dell, HP, Compaq etc) and also u r gonna have much more options with it than a palm.
        Palms, not all of them r going to allow u the use that u whant, and the one that r ... cost $$. Go for an nice laptop.
    

ksu_chainsaw

the dell pocket pc runs around $300, and comes with windows mobile, which includes internet explorer.  they also have ms word and excell, and an option for adobe reader.  we used a laptop for the farm for a while, but the pocket pc was a lot more rugged package, and had less chance for error.  not that i am against having a laptop, but look at what u are going to be using it for, and see which one fits better.

charles

DeepForest

 I :) kind of agree with ksu, u have to see what r u looking for and for what. :) :)
      I think laptops r more useful than pdas when u have to pick one or the other. ::) ::)a pocket pc It's like the ford explorer pick up ... its an inn between kind of thing ::) ::) ( the  good pdas  come with 400mhz processor, 64mb sdram, 48mb of memory, scroll that means u have to adquire an external key board, thats a pain in the neck, of course sonny has a nice ones but r big $$$ etc) As i said before more apliccations with a laptop, more useful. Once u have a laptop pdas r great!!! ;D ;D ;D

shopteacher

Actually all I'd like to do is put the forum calculators on it and wouldn't really care if it did anything else or not.  A  9.99 calculator would be fine if I could find one that would accept the HTML code and run it.  An old PPC would be fine as long as it run the code.
Proud owner of a LT40HDSE25, Corley Circle mill, JD 450C, JD 8875, MF 1240E
Tilt Bed Truck  and well equipted wood shop.

SwampDonkey

This is my Panasonic Hand Held PC with WinCE OS. It has embedded GPS in the CF slot on top and actual keyboard which allows you to use it as a datalogger. It is dust and moisture resistant and ruggedized for utility applications. Its a bit expensive for tote'n around the Toolbox website. You can get a wireless package for the unit as well. Its ports include serial, infrared, CF, SD, mic,headphone, speaker and AC jack. Has backlit screen and a battery that can run from 8-12 hrs depending on the use of the backlight. I'm not pushin the unit, I just use it. ;)




Pansonic Handheld displaying the forum toolbox in Windows Internet Explorer CE



I use this handheld in the bush to mark out thinning, locate cruise plots, measure roads, measure stands and measure areas for other silviculture or agricultural needs.

Sokkia also has a CF-GPS module for this unit
http://www.sokkia.com

A link to mobile GIS (ArcPad) from ESRI for handhelds
http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcpad/index.html

cheers
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Jeff

Hmmm, if they work o.k. there, and there was enough interest, I could do a set of them modified to a smaller format so they would fit the screens.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

SwampDonkey

That would be cool Jeff, maybe there would be some interest to persue it. Time will tell. Personally, I loaded the site onto the handheld just for demonstration purpose to the shopteacher. I have Visual CE on my unit with which I created a cruise/data logger database that is synced to my laptop. So, I just use Activesync to update the laptop database via Visual CE and then its just a matter of pushin buttons with the mouse to generate the cruise reports. Easy peasy and no paper tally sheets in the woods :)
 Screen shots are on my site

www.klondikekonsulting.com/Website/kruse.htm

and this pdf shows the database on the handheld PC
www.klondikekonsulting.com/Website/Klondike-InfoPackage.pdf

cheers
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Engineer

Probably out of most folks price range, but I've just bought a TDS Recon pocket PC and am awaiting delivery.  Specifically for surveying, but it's got Windows CE, is MILSPEC for dust, dirt and water resistance (you can completely submerge it and use it).  It will do everything you want it to as far as FF stuff.   My Recon is $2200, but that's with a $1000+ software package.  :o   I'll post my experiences with it here if anyone's interested.

Maybe try an iPaq.  They're supposed to be pretty good.

SwampDonkey

Engineer:

Using the Recon as a rover machine? with a base station for corrections? I'm not using my unit for survey grade, but its pretty accurate within 3 meters. As long as when I overlay my map over the aerial photograph and things line up, that's a plus. For silviculture it doesn't have to be spot on the mark. If you get Sokkia's GPS then you can multiply by 3. :D My unit is the same price range as the Recon, plus ArcPad software at $500 USD. Don't be taken in by the manufacturers' claim that you can get a GPS fix within 5 mins, sometimes its 2 or 3 hours on poor days. :D

These machines are too pricy for most the folks here, but I believe the IPaq as you say will do the trick with PocketPC OS. PocketPC has the most software I've seen on the web for a handheld.

My unit is WinCE/Strong Arm which is different, and is practicely identical to Trimble's XT except for the casing and keyboard and the GPS module. But, I have to deal with multipath. The way I've solved the issue is 1) I use position averaging, 2) I operate below PDOP 6, and 3) I zoom in on my work area and if the cursor is all over the place its time to do something else or wait longer at the positions. I would never do my layout in continuous mode, only static positioning. I've seen the maps from those GEO3 units from trimble and the edges are like the teeth on a bandsaw blade, they don't totally filter out the multipath.

I talked to a forest technician from a local sawmill that has the XT and he liked my model with the keyboard and stylus. He was having trouble with Activesync and I don't think its any fault of the unit, but Activesync is finicky at times. Once in awhile I have to work with my unit to get it to sync, then other times it works along like a song. I don't know if the Recon uses activesync or a proprietory connection. But, if its activesync, just beware that its a little finiky. Blame MicroSloth. ;)


cheers
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Engineer

No, Recon will be used strictly as a data collector for traditional (non-GPS) survey.  I hire out my GPS work to a surveyor who uses Trimble RTK units.  

Right now, I have an HP 48GX data collector, and it's getting somewhat archaic (and no longer made) - it's time for an upgrade.  The Windows Pocket PC platform is actually a bonus to me.  I can keep my phone book and addresses, as well as some basic programs, out in the field with me instead of having to run back to the office.  I'm looking into cell phone connectivity so I can connect the Recon to my cell for internet use in the field, but I know a lot less than I should about the technology.

Tillaway

We are moving towards the Allegros, also out of everbodys price range.  I have been using a Garmin Legend and DNR Garmin extension to import and export with ArcView.  It works, but boy those Garmins are prone to multipath and otherwise collect a lot of garbage positions.

I used to have a link to a source that had a free log scale program for a Palm.  It uses scribner though.  I'll see if I can did it up.

Added on edit.

Freebie here http://www.baxcode.com/logvol.htm
Making Tillamook Bay safe for bait; one salmon at a time.

SwampDonkey

I'm gettin off topic here a bit. ;)

I've used the Garmin GPS MAP 76, 2 years ago and it was pretty good. I used it with the DGPS corrections and we had good luck with it. Only thing is, it only can save 8 files, but it had 8 times the memory of the Trimble GEO3. I used the Garmin in conjunction with a GEO3 as a baseline for comparison and we had no significant differences in areas. I also used Minnesota's Dept of Nat Resources Garmin Track extension. You can also use it stand alone. There is also a Brazilian engineer with software to use with Garmin to make maps from your own data. Most those software packages limit you to the manufacturer's maps. It was a pain though dealing with the file transfers, we had to use trimble pathfinder to read in the shapefile from the extension in order to convert the shape to NB grid. With WGS 84 the grid is off by 10 degrees rotation in my area. Right now I use Maptitude GIS (www.caliper.com) which has bulit in file conversion and Aerial Photo rectification and I can scan and digitize paper maps and register them without having to hand digitize off the paper map. And a big plus I don't have to keep buying extensions for all the functions a forester needs. All for $500 USD. :)  A real promising GPS is the MobileMapper from Thales, but its a proprietary OS like Magellan. It does have its own mapping software, similar to any GIS type program. I still believe that a handheld GPS has to be something you can run non proprietary programs on, like a PocketPC.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Jeff

I wish we could find a company that we could work with us that could make us a little calculator that does what our forum calculators do. I am sure it would not take much of a chip to do the computing. I bet they could sell a ton of them.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

shopteacher

Proud owner of a LT40HDSE25, Corley Circle mill, JD 450C, JD 8875, MF 1240E
Tilt Bed Truck  and well equipted wood shop.

Tillaway

I have used the Trimble line, heck, I even have a Trimble certification.  I have also used CMT.  Currently I have been looking into the Thales Mobile Mapper.  If I get of the stick I think I have a real good chance at getting one.  The boss seems very open to the idea.

I have been looking at Manifold for a GIS program.  $245 windows based program.  Sounds like it was designed to be and ESRI killer.  More features without all the need for pesky extensions to actually make it useable.  Point and click GIS.
Making Tillamook Bay safe for bait; one salmon at a time.

rebocardo

> A  9.99 calculator would be fine if I could find one that
>  would accept the HTML code and run it.

Find a $100 lap top on E-BAY that you can pick up locally. If you live in an urban area you can find a Pent. i or ii laptop for well under $200.00.

Go to E-Bay and search for under 400 mhz.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=42206&item=3481659648&rd=1

I would get an IBM or HP for parts availability and Win98 or better already loaded so I would not have to chase my tail adding drivers and such.


SwampDonkey

ArcPad 8.0 recently was released, last week I think. Anyway, I installed it. It was a long download on dialup. :D



The icons have chanced a bit and a few other touches, just to confuse you for a few moments if you upgraded from 7.1.1. :D

Took me about, 10 minutes to figure out I had to replace my old projection files with the new ones in order for the software to transform from WGS_84 to NB grid when you activate the GPS. :D ::)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

SwampDonkey

ArcPad 10 has recently been released for PC and Windows Mobile 2005 or later devices equipped with GPS.

A fully functional evaluation copy can be grabbed here, times out after 20 minutes each session:

http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcpad/download.html
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

RichlandSawyer

Hey All,

  About a year and a half ago I purchased an Acer netbook. It has built in wireless and can be used with a 3G network. No CD or DVD ports but with USB flash drives its really not needed. The netbook is very small but still operates comparable to my desktop pc. I have found it's a nice compromise
between a large laptop and a handheld. In the city you cant swing a dead cat without hitting a retail business that has WiFi so I can pretty much park anywhere and check emails or look up info on the internet and if I someday need more internet access I can signup for one of the cellphone companys 3G plans. As I said earlier the screen is small buts its short and wide so I can read the forum on it just fine just have to scroll a lot. The best part is when the wife and kids want to go to the mall I can head for the food court get me a tall lemonade and a cinnabon and kick back and read Forestry Forum.

Richland Sawyer
Every log i open up, a board falls out!!!

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