Palm Tungsten E Lego Sync And Charge Cradle

I’ve had my Palm Tungsten E PDA for about 6 months now, and it’s great. I got it 2nd hand off Ebay, and it’s given me no trouble. Here’s what I do with it… (read on, it’ll be worth it!)

  • I keep all my contacts, calendar, and tasks synced with my home PC, and backed up on my work laptop. For both I use the included Palm Desktop. I don’t want to mess up my work stuff, and I don’t want Outlook on my home PC.
  • I’ve used IR to connect it to my work Nokia 6810, by using the included software. I had to select ‘Nokia 6610’ from the available phone settings to make it work, but it works fine.
  • I play a few games: GG’s Blocks, Yahdice, Dope Wars, iLarn, iRogue, kMoria.
  • For a while I used the included VersaMail to keep track of my email, but I’ve stopped now.
  • I use DiddleBug, a Note Pad replacement for everyday notes and jottings. It’s better than the built-in app because it makes it very easy to attach an alarm to the note. I tend to scribble a note in DiddleBug, then attach an alarm to remind me to transfer it to a proper to-do or calendar item.
  • I use Plucker and Sunrise to grab web newsfeeds to read later.
  • I’ve got loads of texts from Project Gutenberg and Memoware to read on the daily commute, especially H P Lovecraft and H G Wells.
  • I use VD Image Viewer to view images like the tube map, as well as Palm Photos to keep a few personal pics on board.
  • Z’Catalog, Mass Transit and FileZ are all very useful.
  • … and finally, I use the included RealOne player to play mp3 files off a 512MB SD card. I remapped the Notepad hard button to switch to the player, and the Navigator pad performs the Volume and FF/RW controls. This way I can slip it in my pocket, and reach in to play and navigate my mp3s. Great stuff. The RealOne player is pretty good, considering how atrocious their Windows player is.

But there is a problem with the TE. It doesn’t come with a charge/sync cradle, and because it doesn’t use the Palm standard Universal Connector, you can’t buy one. No-one makes a TE-compatible cradle.

Until now.

Visiting my father over Easter, and getting some boxes out of his loft to put in my loft (books we’ll never read, vinyl we have on CD, CD’s we have more than one copy of, for example Joy Division Substance, etc), I thought I’d check out the big Lego box, and see what I could make.

I got pretty far too, but pressures of time, and the realisation that my nieces and nephews play with the Lego when they visit, and may resent Uncle Matt stealing it for his own geeky uses, forced me to give up for the time being.

It gave me some ideas though, so I’ll be figuring something out. I want

  • simple ‘drop-in’ action
  • connect to Sync and Charge
  • ability to easily remove cables for travelling

Watch this space…