(I also posted this in crisscross - sorry for the annoyance, but I'm desparate)

I'm interested in buying a palm computer of some sort. As a minimum, I want it to be able to run a language flashcard program (Twinkle most likely), and a language dictionary. Right now I'm studying Japanese, but I want to be able to use it for several other languages in the future. I?d like it to be small. I have a laptop, but it's really big, so I don't like to travel with it.

1.Can you suggest a good palm computer?
2.How about capacity/speed? Is it possible to use for several languages at once, or would that require carrying around extra drives or something?
3. Do these things hook up to big computers? Is the normal thing to load data from a desktop or laptop? I don't know if I like the idea of doing a lot of typing on a small keypad.

Thanks,
Leo

Well I expect a cheaper one would probably suffice, but I bought a palm T|X, which is probably overkill but it was about half price when I got it.
Just get a 1 or 2GB SD card and you can chuck anything you want on the thing.

I really like PAdict and dokusha for Japanese. I got twinkle too but I don't like the interface very much and I havn't made any useful lists for it.

I will give a warning though, for me at least, the Palm syncing software is utter shit, you can't use it to put any filetype you want on the internal memory and the last time I tried to install the sync sioftware it died before finishing the install.

You can run most software from an SD card though, so I'm using that for both software and storage of videos etc.

This is a timely post. I'm thinking of getting a palm enabled phone. Does anyone know the difference between the 650 and 700? I also need to dig into the threads to see how people have used and abused their palms.

I have a mobile phone with Windows Mobile 5.0 and I'm currently looking into installing Japanese support using the methods outlined on this thread:

http://www.aximsite.com/boards/showthread.php?t=103305

In this way, I might be able to send emails from my phone in Japanese to people in Japan. (Just like they do). Of course this Japanese support is unofficial and I haven't tried it out yet.

If you're really keen on a palm then you can get one but I've always gone for pocket pc devices and others in the same vein. If you're open to them then let me know and I'll point out a few that I like.

PS on the small keypad point, I have a bluetooth Thinkoutside stowaway keyboard. Just like a normal keyboard but with no wires and it folds up to fit in your pocket.

wrightak Wrote:If you're open to them then let me know and I'll point out a few that I like.

I'm open. To be honest, I didn't know there was a difference.

Well, as far as Japanese learning goes, what do you want apart from a Flashcard system and a dictionary? There's major players for both Palm Pilots and Windows CE machines, and I'm soo devided that I have both. For the Palm, as mentioned by norgus there's Dokusya and PADict, those programs are both VERY good, I used only Dokusya in first year, but I don't seem to use it much anymore, PADict is fantastic, the kanji-input recognition has saved me hours and hours of work (some say this is bad, but...) but I guess if you had a Japanese OS or an IME on a Windows CE machine it would be just the same, I will look into that. As for Windows CE machines there's the JWPce / JFC suite, which is completely free and totally rules. These programs are why I needed a CE machine aswell, JFC is the best flashcard system I have ever seen, the control you have over the cards is exactly what I need for school, I usually make vocab, single kanji, compounds, grammar cards and even just notes, example sentences, anything I want really. I try and 'learn' whatever it is while I'm making the cards (kinda like the first test run through a set)　and then I'm all setup for review. Also if you're doing RTK there's KanjiGym for Palm Pilots. That's basically my setup, but I have played with other software aswell, so I will try and help you make a good decision if I can. I'd probably suggest getting a Palm Pilot at this stage, but...

krusher, very interesting post. You had me sold on the Windows CE path but then you suddenly at end push the Palm Pilot path. Would you mind expounding on that.

I'm returning to RTK study and want to set up a 21st century study method before I do anything. I want to be versatile, being able to transfer easily between desktop to a electronic device on the road. For the latter, I would like a screen a bit bigger than the typical electronic dictionary or at least with a robust zoom function. Although I have a PC, any of my serious computing is done on a MAC. If the gods look with favor, then I would really like to go MAC. This is probably a tall order but any comments will be appreciated.

Well, they both have cool things you can do with them, I guess it comes down to comparing the features and picking what you want most. The Palm has Kanji Gym which is the offical RTK software, so that might be a good selling point. I use my Palm with PADict in the classroom because it's really easy and fast to find words in the dictionary by taping it in from the hiragana grid on the screen, plus it has hand written Kanji recognition that words really well, plus other cool things like Stroke Order Diagrams.

But I have been using JWPce and JFC (A Japanese word processer and a very good flash card application) on my desktop computer for quite awhile and I always make my flashcards in this format, which is really easy when you use both programs, you can just look the word up in the dictionary in JWPce and insert the entry into the file and save it in JFC format. So I can just transfer the flashcard files to my handheld and use them with JFC. You could download JWPCe and JFC versions for PC and have a go and see if that does all you want it to. For my needs, Palm is better to use in the classroom where I have to look lots of things up quickly, but the CE machine is better for reviewing and doing other things like word processing in Japanese. Getting a portable keyboard for a CE machine would make text processing and word lookups with JWPce much faster.

Here's an article about turning a Palm Pilot into dictionary: http://www.peterrivard.com/Pages/SuperDictionary.html

As for transfering data, there's Palm Pilot sync software for Mac OS, Linux and Windows - I have mine setup on my Mac and my Linux machine, you use that program to sync all your datafiles, plus for installing new software on your palm, etc. But I just take the SD card out of my CE machine and put it into my reader to transfer things onto and off it.

I recently got a Palm TX which I am using for Dokusha, PAdict, and KanjiGym. I have tried transferring notes written on my PC either in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat (pdf) that have both english and japananese writing in them but I have been unsuccessful in viewing the japanese in documents that I have transferred. Has anyone else tried this? Has anyone been successful in viewing files transferred this way? How could this be done?

krusher, very informative. Many thanks!

I've looked at kanjigym and PAdict on the websites and as far as I'm aware, they don't offer anything special. I know that Leo is using Supermemo and I believe that there are supermemo versions on both palm and pocket pc.

I got an HP iPAQ hx4700 a couple of years ago and it's been fantastic. If you buy one with an English OS, then you won't be able to view Japanese characters or input them. From the above post it seems as though it's the same for palms. If I were going to buy it again then I'd get a Japanese OS one but since I didn't do that, I installed some CAB files that were created by a guy called Bagoj. These made alterations to the wince.nls file and some registry entries that resulted in Japanese input and viewing capability. For input, a number of IMEs can be used on my iPAQ. One of them involves entering characters by radical and there are a few others but by far the best is the multibox. This allows you to write the character in a box and the IME recognises it. It works very well and even if you use a more cursive style, it will usually recognise the character. My only complaint is that I can't find a way to write つ and っ so that the IME always differentiates.

As you'd expect the IME on the pocket pc looks very similar to the IME on a normal windows machine. You get a small window which is very similar to the language bar and allows you to select between hiragana, katakana and romaji input. This means that when I use my bluetooth keyboard, I can type away in Japanese in the same way that I do on a windows machine.

For software, I use JWPce. With it's built in dictionaries and look up methods, it works very well. It doesn't have stroke order diagrams like PAdict but apart from that it has just about everything. Especially when you have the multibox IME to enter characters. You can use JWPce to create flashcard files for both JFC and kingkanji.

I used to use kingkanji a lot but it has an extremely simple method of review. You see cards randomly and if you get them wrong you see them again. Simple as that. The advantage of king kanji is that it gives you feed back on your stroke order, which is great. However, it only has the stroke order of about 1000 kanji programmed in so not that brilliant.

For a more sophisticated reviewing algorithm, I moved to JFC. This shows cards you get wrong a lot with higher probability. It's not Leitner but it's better than kingkanji. Then I moved to the PC to use this site with the leitner system. Now I use supermemo. I haven't tried supermemo for pocket pc but I would be interested to see whether I can get it to display Japanese characters. Supermemo is an unwieldy beast on windows so goodness knows what it would be like on palms or pocket pcs. I might try it out though.

Nowadays, the pocket pc/windows ce OS's have evolved to Windows Mobile 5.0. The big advantage here is that most of the PDA machines with this OS can also function as a phone. With skype releasing more and more PDA versions of it's software, getting a PDA/cell phone with WiFi and skype could save you a lot of money. It might even work with these new 3G networks that are in Europe (and possibly elsewhere). I'm not certain about this though.

I just moved back to the UK and I got an HTC TyTN. This has windows mobile 5.0 so it functions just like my iPAQ. It's much smaller though and really does fit in your pocket unlike some of the other PDA/phones. It also has quite a nice camera on the back. I'm thinking about installing files like I did with the iPAQ in order to give it Japanese input and display functionality. A bit of work has been done to these files and one guy appears to have included support for Chinese and Korean as well as Japanese. I haven't tried it out yet though. Check out the link I posted above. If I do manage to get it working then I'll be able to email my friends in Japan just like I did in Japan with my Japanese mobile phone. I can already do this in English and I can also send pictures attached to the emails. With windows mobile 5.0's new support for push email, things are promising.

*For those that might not know, Japanese cell phone networks issue an email address as well as a phone number with every cell phone they contract. You send emails in much the same way as you send SMS text messages in Europe. None of that 160 character limit rubbish.

My best advice for choosing a device would be to check out lots of reviews before you buy. I like to go to http://www.pcpro.co.uk as a starting point. You get really good reviews but sometimes they are a tiny bit dated. (They currently recommend the i-mate KJAM which was the model before the TyTN).

A quick update. I just became aware of a program that allows you to run Palm OS programs on a pocket pc. I might try out the trial version to give PAdict a go but at 30 dollars it's a bit expensive for the full version. http://www.styletap.com

Yeah man, getting your phone to do Japanese with e-mail would be really, really awesome. I learnt soo much from just sending quick email all the time while I was there. I was playing with an 'Apache' the other day, it had CE and everything worked nicely, the phone sort of slid apart in half to get to the keyboard and you used it in 'landscape' mode. Data charges are still way too much here for me to do that though. And the Skype idea is good, my old man has a new iPaq, one of those big blue ones, and we got Skype on it over 802.11 and it worked perfectly. I atcually still have my flash Japanese cellphone and still use it sometimes when I'm studying, looking up Kanji compounds that you can't remember all of through the text-input system is pretty awesome. Let me know how you go with that Emulator for Palm man, that sounds interesting. I know a few people who have install J-OS on Palm, this seems much easier than doing it with CE, although thanks for those links man. I have an old Palm Vx with a dead battery that still works in the cradle, I might give J-OS a try and see if it's worthwhile. Speaking of emulators, if you guys are really keen to try out the different software, I'm sure with a little google you can find a Palm and an Win CE emulator and just try them out on your desktop before you buy one.

Thanks for the info everybody, especially wrightak & krusher. My goal was to switch flashcards over to a handheld before my trip to Japan, which is at the end of the month (anybody in Fukuoka want to meet?). Due to time, I've decided to back off a little and make a more informed decision. Looks like my laptop is going to Japan.

I'm using supermemo right now, which gives excellent results. But the UI is terrible, and I had so much trouble getting around encoding issues at first, I'm just afraid when I start learning other languages I'll have to go through hell again. It took me about 30 hours to figure out how to use it and get all my data properly loaded and sorted, etc. Because I like to travel a lot, and because I hate spending hours with desktops and laptops, getting a handheld seems like the smart thing to do. As long as all I'm doing is reps (I plan to author on my laptop), I could just stretch out in an easy chair and go for it. I heard about twinkle, and thought "wow, this is the perfect opportunity to break away from supermemo". I heard it's similar to supermemo but with no encoding problems and a simple UI.

Your excellent posts got me to do some research. I found out that twinkle doesn't have font support for some of the languages I want to study (but may have it in the future). I've also heard that supermemo for pocket pc is much more user friendly than desktop. I know a guy who's using it to study 20 languages right now. He's a programmer, so maybe he's written a lot of code to handle foreign fonts. So now I'm leaning towards a pocket pc and supermemo. I'll check out the link of reviews wrightak posted.

I think I'll go with an English OS, because I want to try to use the same machine for many languages. I wouldn't have considered character recognition to be a priority, but the whole dictionary setup wrightak mentioned sounds sweet. I don't have any plans to use this as a phone, but thanks for the really interesting info, technology is amazing. Also, I don't mind paying more for a better machine.

Given my new parameters, any suggestions or info will be much appreciated. Thanks again.

I wonder to what extent you need to worry about memory when installing these programs?