Lifedrive Microdrive to CF conversion...More.

There is now a wiki available to all who wish to change their lifedrive hard drive to a CF card.
Click on the title or click here .

Remember that your warranty will be void if you attempt to do this. I have not personally performed the change myself, but I am looking for either a used or cheap Lifedrive to do this.

The Wiki is excellent and it details which cards are able to be installed in the Lifedrive. It is a basic instruction set. However, I do wish someone would offer their services for this. That would be more interesting. As soon as someone does, I will post that information here.

There is a report in both Palm Infocenter (PIC) and Palmaddicts that Compusa is selling the Lifedrives that are still in inventory for $199.00. I cannot confirm this at the present time, but this would be a good deal if you sought to make the change.

However, I must say that I am awaiting the Hawkins' Project or a complete drop in the price of a Lifedrive before embarking upon the above. It is risky and you should make sure that you backup your Lifedrive before doing this. Additionally, it will not solve all of the problems of the dated operating system should you decide to embark upon this project.


LDD.

Dr. Bikshandi allegedly creates a new lean PDA.

Akin to the Origami mystique discussion a few months ago, a physician in India claims to have created the first lean PDA for medicine. The device is apparently centered around preexisting hardware and is devoid of the bulky applications and proprietary restrictions that have closed the doors on progress thus far.

The article, published in India's Healthcare Management Express , would seem to be someone's reach for the spotlight if it were not for a few important facts. Dr. Bikshandi is a well respected Trauma Critical Care Specialist. Secondly, he actually presented a working model of the device to the Royal Society of Medicine in London! That's right, no vaporware here! A real, dedicated device. One would think that a picture or two would have evolved from this meeting, but alas, there are no pictures, but a lot of questions. According to HME, the device has the following characteristics:

1. Basic PDA functions: Calendar, Contact/Address book, meeting alerts and e-mail.
2. Wireless connectivity.

When asked if the device can be applied to different operating systems, Dr. Bikshandi replied,

"...I configured a basic palm based hand-held device to run important clinical applications by performing minor tweaks. The configured device is currently operational and capable of synchronising over the internet and even checking e-mail. I have also conceived the idea of providing a SPIX (single point information exchange), which is a blueprint for an elementary network using the built-in infra-red port provided with many hand-helds in a hospital/clinic set up. The design can network doctors and other healthcare professionals in an institutional setting with no specialised hardware requirement or huge investment."



Obviously, until we see a working example, it will be difficult to comment on it. But it is nice to see some innovation still finding its way into the standalone PDA market. The recommended price in June was about Rs 10,000 (Rupees), which was about $220.00 at the time. There is a possibility that the price will be decreased if demand is increased. This could be interesting if it ever comes to life.

(Originally written in June, 2006).

LDD.