Georgia Geocachers Association - GGA Articles
Paperless Geocaching Part 3
"
Programs that get data into your Palm OS PDA"


Tool are available to sync data to your PDA. Two tools that work great to upload converted files detailed in Part 2 to your PDA are listed below.


Plucker
http://www.plkr.org

With Plucker, you can read any news or web pages you want on your Palm, at any time, simply by downloading the news from the Internet or your local system, converting it with Plucker, and sending it to your Palm with the Plucker desktop software or your normal Palm sync tools.

The good points about Plucker are that it is a computer based sync tool. That gives you the ability to sync to web pages on the Internet as well as files on your computer. There are no advertisements on the main page. "GPX Spinner" files do not disappear on a later sync (as with AvantGo) since they are stored on your computer by Plucker once they are "spidered" by the program. You can push the screen with the stylus and have other "tap screen" options. The only bad thing is that it is slightly more complicated, but easy to pick up and learn. Once you have the hang of it the program is very good to use. Plucker is available for Windows, Linux and Mac platforms.

Download Plucker here.
Explaination of Plucker's Desktop Interface is here.


These buttons create and configure channels.
Add a Channel Manually Button Add a channel manually.
Add a Channel Wizard Button Add a channel using the wizard.
Configure Existing Channels Button Configure an existing channel.
Delete Selected Channel Button Delete a channel from your list.

These buttons generate and create the file to be synced to your PDA. Once the Plucker engine generates the files they will be loaded automatically the next time you sync your PDA.
Update Selected Channels Button Generates information for selected channels.
Update All Channels Due Button Generates information for all channels that are due.
Update All Channels Button Generates information for all channels.

This button sets Plucker's options:
Preferences Button Preferences button.



Sunrise Desktop
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sunrisexp

Plucker has had a problem lately with not being able to parse some files. It tends to slow down and basically takes forever to finish processing files. Sunrise Desktop can process files better, but tends to make larger files. It still gets the job done though. If Plucker is giving you problems, move to the Sunrise Desktop program instead. Converted files will be loaded into your PDA and are still accessed via the Plucker program installed in your PDA. You must install Plucker before using Sunrise Desktop.




AvantGo
http://www.avantgo.com
(Consumer Service Section)

It is a web based sync tool. Creating "channels" is pretty easy. There are a lot of channels already configured by AvantGo that you can choose and the work of configuration is done for you. You can push the screen with the stylus. AvantGo does have its bad points as it relates to Geocaching files. It does place advertisements on the main screen. Spinner files will disappear after a day unless they are redone immediately before you sync your PDA. You can only sync 2 MB of data for free, but you can sync 8 MB for $19.95 per year.

Here is a screen shot from the AvantGo configure page.

AvantGo Screen Shot Example


***Remember to only sync data to a link depth of three or four levels since the more levels you sync the more of the Internet you download.


Other programs for Paperless Geocaching are in Part 4:

PDA Introduction PDA Convert Other Programs
Cachemate Tutorial

 
Copyright 2004 The Georgia Geocachers Association