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My Meagre Hacks

Over the last couple of years while using Linux, I've slowly become better at what could loosely be described as "hacking".

Now DON'T PANIC! - don't get me wrong - I'm not some Linux guru who can cut perl code with my toes blindfolded...just somebody who sometimes at a very low level likes taking someone else's code & modifying it for my own needs. Sometimes I might even improve on the original! *cough*.

I mainly focus on stuff that is Palm related, mainly trying to integrate some of the command line tools available for Linux->Palm connectivity with some well known Linux applications.

Here are my (meagre) hacks:

  1. -> Sticky Notes Gnome Applet -> Palm - Perl/Tk Script <-
  2. Modded X-Box, Xebian Linux, SMC Router & Ext 56K4 Serial Modem
  3. Christchurch Address/Map Search Perl Script
  4. Dilbert Perl Script
  5. Pilot-Link read-expenses -> CSV Perl Script
  6. Palm Tungsten W & T2, Palm Bluetooth card, Holux Bluetooth GPS & Handmap
  7. Casio Exilim EX-M20U 2MP Digital Camera and MP3 player with Linux
  8. Tribute to "Thrust" & "HHGTTG". The best computer games ever written!
  9. USB ProDrive with SD/MMC card with Linux
  10. pilot-doc.el - An Emacs LISP extension
  11. Nautilus Scripts
  12. DiddleBug Sketches
  13. Iverson-Gleeson Bent Middle Finger Grip (& other thoughts...)
  14. Happy Hacking Keyboard
  15. Christchurch Bus Timetables for the Palm
  16. Connecting Palm to Linux box with USB bluetooth dongle
  17. Connecting Sony Ericsson T610 via bluetooth to Linux box
  18. The ZX81 & Linux
  19. Gameboy & Doom for the Palm!
  20. Learning Harmonica using your Palm?
  21. gtd - desktop companion to mobileGTD
  22. All of them

HHGTTG & Douglas Adams at his best! Very sage advice!

Sticky Notes Gnome Applet -> Palm - Perl/Tk Script

Ever since I saw the Linux app XNotesPlus , I have been interested in the concept of synching what are termed "sticky notes" to my Palm, or even emailing a particular note. "Sticky Notes" are a little like Post-it notes for a PC desktop. Sometimes you just wanna type a quick note without having to open your favourite text editor. Anyway, until recently, XNotesPlus wasn't compatible with the latest USB Palm's. I had a wee search around & found a Gnome2 applet called (funnily enough) Sticky Notes . So I downloaded & installed it. Sticky Notes stores its data it an XML file in ~/.gnome2/stickynotes_applet. I figured it wouldn't be too hard to write a Perl/Tk script that parses this file & builds a wee GUI around the output & allows you to easily automate a Pilot-Link function (install-datebook, install-memo etc), or email the Sticky Note using Mutt. Ended up being quite easy!

If you have never seen Gnome's Sticky Notes before, below is a piccie of some...

First thing you need todo is goto CPAN & download & install the XML::Simple, Tk, Data::Dumper, IO::File & Time::localtime Perl modules. Copy the "sticky_tk3.pl" file somewhere in your path making sure its name is "sticky_tk3.pl". Also do a "chmod +x" on the file. Lastly create a category in the Palm Memo app called "StickyNotes". This is where your Sticky Note will be installed on your Palm. You will need the Pilot-Link utilities, as well as txt2pdbdoc

Have a look at the script above & change the paths to directories to what you want on your system. If everything is cool, running "sticky_tk3.pl" you should see something that looks remarkably similar to the image below...

From the above piccie it should all make sense. Choose "E-Mail - Mutt" to email your Sticky Note, or "Palm Whatever" to install the Sticky Note to your Palm. Then double-click on the Sticky Note in the list box. Descriptions are below...


E-Mail - Mutt - Opens Mutt using the title of the Sticky Note as the subject line and the content of the Sticky Note as the content of the E-Mail.



Palm Address - installs Sticky Note in the Unfiled category of the Address Book, with the title of the Sticky Note as First Name & content as a Note



Palm DateBook - installs Sticky Note by default to a time slot you prefer using todays date


Palm MemoPad - installs Sticky Note to the StickyNotes category in MemoPad


Palm ToDo - installs Sticky Note in the Unfiled category of the ToDo list



Palm DOC - creates a DOC version of the Sticky Note using txt2pdbdoc , then installs that resulting .PDB to your Palm.


Output TXT File - Simply writes selected StickyNotes out to a where you have stored your temp .TXT file in the script above.



I would either run the script from a command line, or if you are using Gnome create a launcher on the desktop that opens in a terminal.

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Thats all folks at the moment! If I come up with anything else I'II post it here.

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