Plain Vanilla Makes the Best Sundaes
Written: Jul 17 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Highly adaptable
Cons: Preloaded applications somewhat wanting
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| bill_altreuter's Full Review: Palm IIIx Handheld |
Probably the most useful electronic gadget I've got, besides my laptop, and best of all, the two work together. I can be gadget-resistant, but our office had reached a point where scheduling complexity was starting to overtake us. The Palm IIIx solves that problem.
The Palm is a little bit longer and a little bit thinner than a deck of cards. It sits on my desk in a cradle which is connected to a port on my computer. Once a day or so I push a button on the cradle, and the Palm is updated from my copy of Lotus Organizer. Calendar and contacts are the part that we find most important, but it will keep a to do list, and it has a nifty little expenses tracker, and some other toys, some standard, some available as freeware or shareware.
By way of background, we are a ten lawyer firm with a rather far-flung practice. We have our principal office in Buffalo, and a satellite office in New York City, and we find ourselves appearing in court all over the state. In addition, one or another of us are often out of the country. Keeping track of where we each need to be is somewhat more complicated than merely keeping a paper diary, and knowing where and who is available on a particular date three months or six months or a year hence is important. When the judge on your case says that the trial is going to be on November X, you need to know that you or someone else is available on that date. When we were just a bit smaller, our paralegal would update our pocket diaries from the central diary, but that task has taken on a larger dimension now.
Now we keep track of this things on our networked Lotus Organizer. Aftermarket software (Puma Technology's Intellisync) allows our Organizer to coordinate with our Palm IIIx units. Everyone in the office is able to review the calendar for the entire office, and we are able to make intelligent scheduling decisions, based on the most current calendar information, from wherever we happen to be. The Intellisync software also lets us keep our contact list in Lotus Organizer format, which means that this is always current as well. For example, if I am in court and I'm directed to return in two weeks I can (a) make sure I'm available on that date; and (b) enter the date in the Palm. When I return to the office, I can upload the date to my computer, and everyone's diary is instantly current.
I think that I would like the Palm IIIx less well if I could not use it with the Organizer software that I was already used to, and the fact is that although this gadget is wonderfully cross-platform in theory, as a practical matter its functionality no doubt improves the more Microsoft dependent you are. I would probably not use this at all if I were limited to the calendar and contact list that is standard, and I don't use Outlook, which limits my ability to use this for email. In theory I could download my mail, and compose responses to it, but even though the Palm user interface is very simple and straightforward, I have not been able to dope out how to make this work with Netscape. Sooner or latter all software tries to make you do things the way it thinks they should be done, and this seems to be about where the palm runs into that barrier. I do not find the handwriting recognition feature all that difficult to use, but the touch keypad seems faster
On the other hand, I can download travel directions from Mapquest, which is a great feature, and Avantgo.com makes it possible for me to download sports scores and the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (or any number of other websites), and this is quite convenient.
The Palm people have been updating this thing-- there are versions that allow for wireless Internet access, for example, and there is a color version now, but the IIIx seems to be the workhorse version. The Handspring Visor, a competing product produced by the originators of the Palm OS, has as its claim to fame the ability to expand its functionality by accepting different chips for different purposes. The Visor can, for example, become a MP3 player. This sort of thing has a certain Swiss Army Knife appeal, but the plain vanilla Palm IIIx seems to be the platform of choice for developers. I have just purchased a gizmo from Kodak, for example, which turns the Palm into a digital camera, and there is a ton of software out there to soup up the device's functionality. In the end, I would have to say that it is the Palm's adaptability which is its greatest feature. Because its user interface is so simple, it is a very easy device to adapt to one's own requirements. This is what a good tool is supposed to do: it should be simple to use, and it should do what you need done. I have few electronic tools which do this better than my Palm IIIx.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
bill_altreuter
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Member: Bill Altreuter
Location: Buffalo, New York
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 9 members
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