Palm Pilot Software

Oct 6 04:39 UTC 2000

So, I finally got my HotSync to work. Now I am looking for cool stuff 
to put onto it. I downloaded a Quicken program (but alas it's only an 
intro. Hmph.) Where are some good sites to download cool things for the 
Palm? I know Grex has a few Palm geeks like myself...

response 2 of 32:

Oct 6 07:55 UTC 2000

http://www.palmgear.com

response 4 of 32:

Oct 6 15:32 UTC 2000

I had thought of replacing the HP100LX some day. Probably with something with
screen-digitize capability. But what to get?

I got the HP because it was a DOS machine, same as the desktop systems albiet
a bit less powerful. It runs QuickC, and just about anything else that will
run in the lower 640K. Not only could I program it myself, I already had
before even laying eyes on it. Whereas most of the Palm-type machines appeared
to be little more than glorified day-planners.

Or am I missing something here? Can one of these machines become an updated
computer-away-from-the-computer? I know that some are net capable. But can
I use one with a normal ISP connection? A direct dial connection? Can a non-HP
palm device be used for writing, compiling, and debugging code?

response 6 of 32:

Oct 6 20:22 UTC 2000

TUCOWS, of all places, has a PDA section with lots of stuff for Palm
devices.

Then there is www.PalmOpenSource.com, which has, as of the time stamp on
this message, 67 files for PalmOS devices.

If you can find it, I suggest getting pilot-xfer for Win32 systems.  You
can rely on it to back up EVERYTHING in your Palm, and restore correctly
if needed.  It installs stuff as well.  What little experience I have had
with the Palm Desktop suggests to me that it cannot be relied upon to
handle backup of third-party software and databases in a predictable
manner.

response 8 of 32:

Oct 6 23:26 UTC 2000

  Now that I work for Palm, my opinion probably becomes somewhat suspect,
  but I assure you that I took a position with Palm because I'm a big fan
  of their handhelds, I'm not pushing their handhelds because I work for
  the company..

  So, taking things in order:

   #0:  Several software archives with large collections have already been
        mentioned.  I use www.tucows.com and www.palmgear.com most frequently.

   #1:  The number of games is very limited compared to the variety
        offered on PCs but there are still quite a number of very good
        programs out there.  Some people have been doing an impressive
        job in pushing the limits of the Palm hardware.  There's even a
        Gameboy emulator, although it runs pretty slow on a 16Mhz Palm,
        making it more useful for puzzle type games than for action
        games..

        The games I play on my Palm vary a lot, but my personal favorite
        has been XWord, a crossword-puzzle app which can play puzzles
        downloaded from several national newspapers (USA Today's puzzles
        are free, the New York Times puzzles cost $9.95 for a year's
        subscription but that also includes access to the archives,
        so <$10 will get you four or five years' worth of puzzles..)
        XWord is shareware -- the unregistered version is fully functional
        except for the puzzle selection screen, which only allows you
        to select from the first three puzzles downloaded to the device.
        The registered version is a paltry $10, well worth it..

        I also get a fair amount of play out of some traditional games --
        chess, backgammon, and a couple of card games (solitaire, poker,
        and Mille Bornes are usually loaded on my handhelds..)

   #3:  Wanting to see what the competition was up to, and being a gadget
        lover, I bought one of the less expensive PocketPC devices, a 
        Compaq Aero.  The higher resolution screen is undeniably nicer and
        the Compact Flash slot is nice, but the built in organizer apps are
        very poor, text entry is annoying to me, and the quality and quantity
        of third party apps is surprisingly poor compared to the Palm.  

        There are definitely cool things about the PocketPC platform,
        and there are things I can do on the PocketPC that just wouldn't
        be feasible on a (current) Palm device.  It also comes bundled
        with some cool applications -- I (mostly) like the Microsoft Reader
        eBook application and I think Pocket Streets is cool (despite its
        limitations) but despite the long-term potential of the platform
        I think I'd honestly rather have a Palm if I were just going to
        carry one device.

        Finally, don't expect the price of the PocketPC devices to come
        down much further anytime soon.  Every handheld manufacturer is 
        currently struggling against parts shortages and PocketPCs are not
        yet selling well enough to gain advantages from economies of scale.
        I think most companies that sell PocketPC devices are losing money
        on each unit already -- based just on the parts costs I don't
        see how they can sell them at those prices and not take a loss.

   #4:  All Palm devices since the PalmPilot Professional know about TCP/IP
        (or at least PPP) and you can (if you're a masochist, or if you're
        really fond of tiny, tiny screens) even do things like telnet
        from them.  You can certainly attach a modem to one and dial in
        to a server to do things like hotsync, check your POP3 email,
        browse whatever web content you can find that's readable on a
        160x160 screen, etc..  You can either use your own external modem
        with a special Palm <-> RS-232 cable or you can use one of the
        small clip-on modems made especially for Palm.  Free telnet and
        vt100 apps are available for download so you could, in theory,
        at least, use them for connection to "a regular ISP" or for
        "a direct-dial connection"

        As far as whether the machine is "more than a glorified organizer",
        I guess that's a matter of opinion.  It's undeniably a fairly
        flexible general-purpose computing device.  Thousands of people
        have written third-party programs for it.  You can download
        development tools and write your own programs for free --
        there's even a fairly good O'Reilly book on Palm Programming.
        But the physical format of the device does impose limits on what
        sort of things you can really use it for..  Palm provides an
        excellent Palm emulator so you can test your Palm software on your
        PC during most of the development stage, which really helps.

   #5:  > things like a big disk drive ... and a full sized keyboard just
        > aren't compatible with that.

        Yeah, definitely true..  except that it makes me want to mention
        the Palm folding keyboard.  If you haven't seen one, they're really
        kind of cool.  When I'm on the road I find my Palm VII + keyboard
        to be a reasonable nationwide e-mail solution and it's a lot more
        fun to carry than a laptop..

   #6:  Which databases the Palm Desktop software backs up *is* something
        which is predictable, but only if you know how the applications
        were built, because the "backup" attribute on a Palm database
        isn't visible from the Palm unless you're using a special utility
        like Insider to examine the db..  Database backup can be handled
        in two ways -- either by a programmer-supplied conduit that 
        comes with the program and can essentially behave however the
        application author wants, or by the "default conduit" which simply
        makes a copy of the database if the "backup" attribute is set.

        Most applications (.prcs) don't have the backup bits set and
        thus aren't automatically backed up and restored by the HotSync
        software.  I agree that using a tool like pilot-xfer to do this
        periodically is a good idea.  Users who are willing to pay for
        something more commercially polished might like the Backup Buddy
        program, available on Palm download sites everywhere.

   #7:  Yes!  Definitely AvantGo!!  It's my favorite handheld program,
        period, for either PalmOS or PocketPC..

        For those who aren't familiar with it, it's an off-line newsreader
        program that downloads content from the web when you hotsync.  So
        when I come in to the office every morning and sync my Palm VII,
        it downloads the top stories from the New York Times, Wired News,
        Salon, Slashdot, and also movie showtimes and weather forecasts
        from Yahoo so that I have all that information on my Palm and can
        read it any time I want the rest of the day.  The content and the
        program are both free and you can download it from www.avantgo.com
        I think you have to have Internet Explorer -- maybe that's no longer
        true with newer versions of Netscape.

response 10 of 32:

Oct 7 12:22 UTC 2000

(The "special Palm <-> RS232 cable" is just a hotsync cradle (or hotsync
cable) with a null modem adapter attached.  If you need more info, you should
probably just go buy the special cable.

response 12 of 32:

Oct 10 20:53 UTC 2000

I've found that the Palm Vx has organized my life to a degree I'd not have
imagined.  My previous organizer got little use because of poor design.
The Palm series managed to be much more useable.  The one severe 
deficiency I found with the unit was the issue of input, and I addressed
that with a Silkyboard decal & software.  The only commercial app on my
unit, but well worth it.

One nice thing about the Palm series is that (at least according to my
research on the subject) the screen and touchpad are a single sealed unit.
This means that death by pocket dust cannot claim the Palm the way my old
TI went.  It still works, but you can hardly see the screen for all the
dust trapped between the screen shield and the screen itself.

I've analyzed the software I've put in the unit since I bought it, and
all the software on it, except maybe the games, which are a
boredom-while-waiting killer, is targeted at organizing me to one degree
or another.  I have a program that can keep approximate track of who owes
what in shared-check restaurant situations.  I have one to grab local
theater listings so that I don't need to hunt for a newspaper when friends
want to hit a movie.

The single most important feature of the Palm for me, however, is that it
is noisy about alarmed events.  The TI wouldn't do that.  The feature was
suppossed to be there, but it never made a noise.  (It was a $15 display
model, so complaining was pointless.) Just being to keep complete track of
my schedule is worth what I paid for the Palm.

My decision chain when I went for a replacement went like this:  It had to
make noise for alerts.  This didn't weed out much.  It had to be possible
to back it up without having Windows or a Mac.  This instantly reduced the
choices to PalmOS devices, as you can back them up to almost any platform
that has a C compiler.  When the Linux-based PDA comes out I expect that
to change.  It had to fit in my pocket easily, this reduced my options of
what was available in my area to the V series, and no one had any regular
Vs so I got a Vx, good thing too, I had the memory half filled in a week.

response 14 of 32:

Oct 12 00:34 UTC 2000

  What is it about the HPC device you used that "spoiled you forever"?
  I've got both a Palm and a PocketPC device (Compaq Aero) and I have to
  say that while the higher resolution screen on the Aero makes it a lot
  nicer for reading large quantities of text, I strongly prefer to use my
  Palm for most things because many of the apps on the PocketPC are just a
  pain to use.

  Since I work for one of the two companies, obviously my opinion is pretty
  biased, but I'm interested in hearing what you thought the strong points
  of the WinCE device were and whether you thought the Palm had any strong
  points that it lacked..  I'd also be interested in hearing what sort of 
  things you used the handhelds for, as that could explain a lot..

  If you're genuinely sold on WinCE except for the size problem, check out
  the Aero.  It's a black and white device but it's actually a little
  smaller than my Palm VII.  I find it about the same size as a Palm III,
  only slightly slimmer..

response 16 of 32:

Oct 12 02:37 UTC 2000

  I've got one and while Graffiti is my preferred method of text entry for
  casual stuff, the keyboard is great for composing longer e-mail messages
  when I'm on the road without a laptop and just using my Palm VII to keep
  in touch.

  Also, I'm shallow enough to get a kick out of the looks I get when I'm
  using it in public.  Folding or stowing it is a great conversation starter.

  My recommendation on the keyboard is to consider it as a travel accessory
  but don't plan on using it as a regular part of your Palm use.  It's too
  slow to set up to use for jotting down casual notes and the folding model
  suffers from the necessity of having a hard flat surface on which to type.

  Unfortunately it uses the serial port to connect to the Palm, so any plans
  to use it in conjunction with a modem as a highly portable terminal device
  are going to run into problems with lack of a second serial port..

response 18 of 32:

Oct 12 17:47 UTC 2000

I downloaded QuickTime, the Palm version for Quicken. I love it, but 
realized it's a trial period software. I might check the price... it's 
really come in handy and I think will be worth the money. I also got 
time zone programs. If I have a burning need to know the time in Dubai, 
by God, I can! There is also an international calling program. You tell 
it where and to you are calling and it gives you country and city codes!

My eye doctor has a really cool Palm... not the 7 but where it has color 
pictures and everything. Mine is your basic IIIe. When I see him we beam 
stuff back and forth. He programmed an alarm to tell me when to take my 
eyedrops in it. :)

response 20 of 32:

Oct 12 22:02 UTC 2000

  re #17:  The better resolution is definitely a plus.  Since you're talking
  about a "larger screen" and keep referring to it as a HPC, I'm not sure
  whether you're talking about a Palm-shaped WinCE device or whether you mean
  one of those clamshell units with screen and chiclet keyboard.

  Interesting that you cite the character recognition and built-in organizer
  apps on the WinCE device as advantages over the Palm -- for me those are
  two of the biggest drawbacks -- I was getting much better character
  recognition after a day of practice with my Palm than I've managed to get
  in four months with my Aero and the PIM apps that Microsoft has supplied
  drive me nuts -- they seem horribly clunky and cluttered compared to the
  Palm equivalents I'm used to..

  I guess what we're illustrating is that the best device and the best 
  software for any user are the ones that work the way that user wants them
  to work.

response 22 of 32:

Oct 17 19:30 UTC 2000

I so want to get a palm, but I just KNOW I'd lose it.  that's what 
keeps me from making the fateful purchase

response 24 of 32:

Oct 18 18:48 UTC 2000

Re #23: Sounds like something I've noticed with myself -- the "cheap pen"
syndrome.

If I buy a cheap pen, I lose it within a month.  If I buy a good one that
costs a bit more, I can generally keep track of it until it dries out.