Text taken from Linuxdevices.com news

It's 2031, and Microsoft advertises Linux on Edinburgh's largest billboards. Duncan Steele roams a brave new world, besting techno-proles and fighting to extricate himself from a bogus murder rap, his trusty Sharp Zaurus by his side. So begins a cyberthriller from Scottish security professional Kevin Milne.

Milne's novel, entitled "Z4CK," was written entirely on a Sharp Zaurus PDA (pictured). "Z4CK was written on the train, whilst on my way to and from work," says Milne. "My Zaurus SL-5500 equipped with Open-Zaurus, and the Pockettop wireless keyboard was used to write the story. You should have seen some of the looks I was given by people looking for the cables!"

According to Milne, "Unlike Films like 'The Net', Z4CK gives a realistic insight into hacker tools and techniques. Z4CK features wireless hacking with the Zaurus, and a view of how an Open Source future might be."

The Zaurus PDA and OpenZaurus software play a central role in the novel. "Duncan uses Z4CK meaning Zaurus-ACK, compiled on the OpenZaurus OS," notes Milne.

Kevin is offering the first 6 chapters of his cyber-thriller for free as a downloadable PDF file. Following the example of king-of-thrillers Stephen King, Milne is also selling the complete version electronically (using PayPal) for 2 Great Britain Pounds (currently about $3.59).

A dead-trees paperback version will be available at the end of Sept 2004. Take a look at http://www.z4ck.org for more information.