[BBLISA] PDA/Smartphone for *nix admin types?

[Elizabeth Schwartz]

 I have a Treo 650P and it does most of what you want. It sync's with Exchange
and has an SSH client.  I haven't gotten the VPN client to work yet
but haven't tried too hard (I don't have access to the VPN server side
of things and it is Not Officially Supported at work).

(There's also VNC, which is entertaining on a 2" screen, but would be
more useful with VPN.)

Have not tried to sync an Exchange calendar with a Google one.  I sync
to two pc's and if you try this I very strongly recommend Chapura
Pocket Mirror. I'm a longtime Palm OS user and use a palm outliner
which syncs to the Palm Task list to organize my life, so I wanted to
stay with Palm OS.

It's sort of a hoot having this much connectivity in this small a
device. I recently got an SMS message that imap was unresponsive. I
was able to use the Palm, ssh to the bastion, from there to the imap
server, and kick the daemon, all while sitting in the car waiting to
pick up my kid.

The main downside of the Treo is that it doesn't have Wi-Fi; you
connect over the phone network. I have unlimited data service, but
it's SLOW, and it means I can't use the network when I'm in the bowels
of the data center (which has wireless, but doesn't always get a
signal from AT&T). On the plus side, this thing connects pretty well
with even a fractional bar.