Pandora for business

[Bane1]

Hey guys I'm a little low on cash so i'm trying to convince the company i work for to help me pay for an open pandora so i can use it for "work" related stuff on the road such as something to take notes with/use as a calendar, just small things, what else could it do/could i tell the company it does to convince them further? 

Thanks

Bane 

 

[ekianjo]

The Pandora is not really made for office applications (as of now). You can run abiword and gnumeric and as with all devices of such sizes it's not really made for typing long hours and stuff. 

Though there are email clients, but not really any serious calendar application to speak of, and nothing is really integrated together in the system. 

If you use slackware or Pandebian on top of the existing system, the answers may be different, Linux-SWAT can tell you more. 

 

[2bit]

There's also android ... Get creative with that

 

[Neelix]

It's probably worth talking to hmc and checking out his website.  His focus is on the use of handhelds for productivity including the Pandora, so if anyone can help you make a case for it he can.  

- Neelix

 

[_wb_]

What kind of work do you do?

If it includes programming: you can do that on the Pandora.

If it includes typing text: you can do that on the Pandora.

If it includes reading email: you can do that on the Pandora.

Obviously calender/calculator/... stuff you can also do on the Pandora, but even a phone can do that.

Is there anything specific you need for your job? Maybe you need custom software for it? With the Pandora you have a chance at making it work, since you have several ways to connect other instruments (e.g. USB), and it's an open platform so you can easily code whatever needs to be coded. E.g. suppose your job is to monitor radiation around a nuclear power plant, then I suppose you could attach a geiger counter and a gps device to your Pandora and write some software to collect and visualize the measurements.

 

[TrashyMG]

I occasionally use mine at work to connect remotely to other Unix/Linux machines via SSH terminal/X-forwarding or VNC.. Good if I need to check if my scripts are running, checking logs etc.. I move around a lot and carrying the Pandora is a bit easier than lugging around my 8-core i7 monster of a laptop that has 1.5 hours of battery life.

It could be used as an organizer/ taking notes easily enough, but I wouldn't want to write huge reports or anything on it.

 

[dummi]

Than, I think, LinuxSwat is the right to call. He uses his Pandora for administration work. See also his SOLEIL project for the dragon box competition.

 

[Kumaki]

Hey guys I'm a little low on cash so i'm trying to convince the company i work for to help me pay for an open pandora so i can use it for "work" related stuff on the road such as something to take notes with/use as a calendar, just small things, what else could it do/could i tell the company it does to convince them further? 

Thanks

Bane 

Well, I happen to own my own company, so of course this is never an issue for me.

However, I have seveal very specifically work-related apps on my Pandy...a few custom ones being done by nice members of the community...but there's always q-organizer, which is a day planner in your pocket.  Would be helpful to know what type of work you actually do...to tell if there are some apps that can be used specifically for work purposes.

 

[Bane1]

Thanks all for the very helpful replies, much appreciated, I actually work as a private investigator/debt collector/private security so all i need it for is typing up brief reports whilst on the road (as i am 70% of the time), checking emails, taking notes and i was hoping for a calendar so i could put my tasks on there but that isn't as necessary, i think, thanks to all your input, i should be able to convince the boss now and it will look pretty legit on the books, plus i'd like to learn a little programming while doing my job on the road as i only know a little python so that's cool too and of course i love me some video games during surveillance.

 

[Kumaki]

Well, q-organizer is a calendar/day planner,,,,sounds like you need that...and AbiWord is a word-processing program, good for taking your field notes.

You can check emails on the Pandy...the battery life is long enough for a full day of work...plus there is a car-charger available should you want to use that....and it is piles easier to carry around than a cumbersome, bulky laptop.

Those are your arguments for getting THE MAN to buy you one!

 

[cube48]

Hmm ... seems you might store some sensitive data seeing your job description. You would definitely need some sort of data security strategy. First and the most easy is TrueCrypt. I guess that could be an argument for your employer too, ensuring him about secure side of Pandora.

 

[hmc]

Yes, Bane1, check out the videos linked on my Pandora web page. They give an overview of what can be done with the Pandora aside from gaming.
http://www.hermocom.com/en/products/openpandora

Also check out NoteCase Pro, which is a tremendous productivity application. I wrote Plugins for it to make it even more useful for business stuff. Of course everything runs on the Pandora (as well as on Windows, "large" Linux and Mac OS).
http://www.notecaseproplugins.com/about-ncp
http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=NoteCasePro.MiroslavRajcic.001

As cube48 said: As soon as you have sensitive data on your Pandora, you need to encrypt it. TrueCrypt is the best solution for that, that I could find so far for the Pandora.

Regarding a calendar: There is still some hope, that we will soon have the programs of the KDEPIM/PI suite for the Pandora. KO/PI is the calendar application. It's very powerful, with a lot of different views, filters, customizable colors for categories in calendar and task view, of course with a reminder feature etc. etc.

Here you can see some screenshots of KO/PI running on a Sharp Zaurus.

Nobody succeeded in compiling it for the Pandora yet, but to be honest, I don't know, if anyone except myself tried it yet, and I am not an expert when it comes to porting QT-based software...

Office-like work is well possible with the Pandora, especially if you use

- Linux-SWAT's Slackware for Pandora (SL4P) system instead of the default Angstrom-based OS

- an external keyboard for typing a lot of text (USB or Bluetooth)

- you can even use a complete USB-based docking station, with an external mouse, an external keyboard and an external display connected via DisplayLink! Then you have the full desktop experience with the Pandora.

- and: a 1 GHz Pandora would be favorable, if you want to use SL4P and work fluently. The 600MHz Pandora can do all the things well, too, but the 1GHz one gives you a snappier experience... working will be more fun with it.

 

[Bane1]

Wow thankyou all alot for the info especially hmc, now it should deffinately be easy to convince the boss, ill deffinately be going for the 1ghz edition, i can see this job being alot easier now. Cheers

 

[Kumaki]

Yeah, and get THE MAN to pay fer your gaming...Arrrr!!!

LOL

I never actually used company funds to buy my Pandora, but I DID use them to buy a couple of Dingoos, because they could do voice recording, which was good for medical transcription, which I was doing at that time...before I figured out there was no money in transcription and shifted to billing and coding instead.

 

[Kumaki]

By the way...

NoteCasePro...looks like it would be VERY useful for my business for mapping out shortcuts for doing applications in my billing software and my doctor's EHR.

Because I am still learning the systems this particular doctor is using, a few notes on some shotcuts to do certain tasks would be useful.

Where do I get this for Pandora?

It is still called Note Case Pro and is it on the repo?

EDIT: Never mind, I found it.

 

[mcobit]

There is also qt-mindmap or freemind to organize your thoughts and link them together.


Might be useful for your kind of work

 

[cube48]

When it comes to PIM/Productivity weapons of choice, mine is org-mode, the holy grail I was searching for since Palm OS PIM suite days. Check out the features. It's CLI based (runs within Emacs which has X window version too), it's keyboard shortcut driven (=> really efficient if you manage to remember a lot of shortcut combos), binds togehter outliner, calendar, todo list, note taking app, table editor, time clocking tool, allows you to work with various programming languages etc. It has rather longer learning curve but you can start using it straight as a simple outliner and build up your knowledge together with complexity of your PIM system. Using it for 3 years now and I'm still learning new stuff. If  you are not a command line guy, then please ignore my post

 

[hedwards]

What kind of work do you do?

If it includes programming: you can do that on the Pandora.

If it includes typing text: you can do that on the Pandora.

If it includes reading email: you can do that on the Pandora.

Obviously calender/calculator/... stuff you can also do on the Pandora, but even a phone can do that.

Is there anything specific you need for your job? Maybe you need custom software for it? With the Pandora you have a chance at making it work, since you have several ways to connect other instruments (e.g. USB), and it's an open platform so you can easily code whatever needs to be coded. E.g. suppose your job is to monitor radiation around a nuclear power plant, then I suppose you could attach a geiger counter and a gps device to your Pandora and write some software to collect and visualize the measurements.

If only it were that simple. Most businesses still use Exchange, so you're going to have to use a client that's going to be compatible with that. And depending upon the particulars of the business there may be compliance issues as well.

I don't see any reason why the Pandora couldn't be the answer, but it could be a though sell as there isn't a lot of commercial support for it by people that write these sorts of utilities. And the business may not be willing to spring for anything that their IT can't support.

 

[Kumaki]

If only it were that simple. Most businesses still use Exchange, so you're going to have to use a client that's going to be compatible with that. And depending upon the particulars of the business there may be compliance issues as well.


I don't see any reason why the Pandora couldn't be the answer, but it could be a though sell as there isn't a lot of commercial support for it by people that write these sorts of utilities. And the business may not be willing to spring for anything that their IT can't support.

Well, that could be a problem for large, and even medium-sized businesses. But for small businesses...this could be pitched!


For example, I own my own company...and, for now, at least, happen to be the sole employee.


BUT...with the custom apps I am having done - and some of the office apps that already exist....I could see my business supplying these to employees. I would make certain that the devices REMAINED the property of the company, and not the person...but they'd be free to keep it and use it as they please, even for non-business stuff and off-business hours. Just that, in the end, if they ever left my employ, they'd need to return the Pandy!

 

[hedwards]

Well, that could be a problem for large, and even medium-sized businesses. But for small businesses...this could be pitched!


For example, I own my own company...and, for now, at least, happen to be the sole employee.


BUT...with the custom apps I am having done - and some of the office apps that already exist....I could see my business supplying these to employees. I would make certain that the devices REMAINED the property of the company, and not the person...but they'd be free to keep it and use it as they please, even for non-business stuff and off-business hours. Just that, in the end, if they ever left my employ, they'd need to return the Pandy!

Obviously, that's going to depend a great deal on the company. Some large ones do allow people to use whatever they like as long as it's compatible. I don't personally agree with that, it's a security risk, but there you go.

For smaller companies though, I think the imperative is less strong and the productivity gains from using something like a Pandora could make up for the extra cost of having an employing supporting themselves.

I'm likely to be self employed for a while in the near future, and I'll likely be doing business on mine. But, that's one of the benefits/drawbacks of being self employed, you're generally supporting yourself unless you're doing quite well.