My Utopian Palm World is Just Around the Corner

This isn't about how I use my Palm but how I wish I could use my Palm. I wish everyone had a Palm. If they did then whenever I met someone we could quickly and easily exchange business cards. Then if we were setting up a meeting, I could then easily send them the date, time and location. And if HoliDates was installed on every Palm, then we would easily know what days not to meet or to have items due.

If every store I visited in Bellingham or Fairhaven had a Palm I could quickly add them to my contact list and if they included their hours to the notes section then I would never arrive at the store when it was closed. If my favorite Pizza joint and Thai food restaurant had a Palm I could also get their menu so ordering food for delivery would be easy. Plus I could mark what I love at the restaurant so I could order it again and again.

If all my relatives had a Palm I would do a much better job at remembering their birthday’s assuming it was in their contact info.

I've only touched upon a small part of what a Palm can do, contacts and schedules, but it is so powerful. I do the above things every day but not as widespread as I wish but with more Treo's selling daily, my Utopian Palm world is just around the corner.

Painting My House and my Palm Zire 72

I recently moved into a new house in Bellingham, WA and have started to paint the bedrooms. Being an organized guy I brought up my painting supplies and laid them out on the floor. I then made a list in Note Pad on what supplies I needed to buy. Often when I am making quick, on the spot and temporary list, I find the freehand use of the Note Pad faster and easier than writing a Memo. Once I had the list done I took a picture of what I had. I do this because I will often be in the store and see an item and say “Hmm, do I have one of those?” and the picture will remind me of what I currently have.

When I get to the store I’ll then open my list and as I add the item to the cart I will draw a line through it. When all the items are crossed off, I’m ready to pay. The nice part of having the Note Pad open during this process is that I can jot down something that I might want to buy but not sure until I get home to see if there is a real need or not. If not, I cross it off, if yes, I leave it on the list for my next visit to the paint store. And there is always another visit to the paint store.

Now if I could only get my Zire to actually paint the room.

Palms are Great for Meetings

This evening I met with Darrin in Lynden. Darrin is a writer who will be helping me with various editing and writing tasks. For the meeting I printed out a hard copy of his contract, directions on how to access the FTP site, an outline of work that I needed help on, and ideas that I had for my next newsletter. I only needed to print out one copy as I had copies of all the documents on my Palm. This was very convenient and demonstrated the power of the Palm. We quickly worked up some additional ideas of which I jotted down on my Palm and then copied back to my PC. After the meeting I met my wife for dinner. If I would have brought my laptop to the meeting I would of have worried about leaving it in the car during dinner plus the laptop would have been overkill for what I needed for this quick ½ hour meeting.

Using my PDA to Navigate Bellingham, WA

I recently moved my residence and business to beautiful Bellingham, WA. Although it is a small town, approximately 100,000 residence in the general area, learning my way around can be time consuming. I decided to put my Palm and my Pocket PC into full use by taking full advantage of the contacts feature.

When I visit a new store downtown or in the Fairhaven district I add the store to my phone book. If I happened to have a nice conversation with the owner or employee I will add their name to the notes section. This has been a great help as on more than one occasion as I have asked for that person by name. For example at the print shop I know ask for a specific employee to do all my business cards and other stationary.

To remind me what the store looks like I will take a picture with my PDA and add it to the contact list. This might seem silly, but if you only visit the store occasionally having a reminder what it looks like is very helpful, especially in the downtown corridor.

Part of the fun of living someplace new is discovering short cuts. Whenever I find a new or interesting way to get to a store I will open the notes section and jot down the directions. This is also very helpful if I have not visited the store in a few weeks. It answers the questions, "hmm, do I take state street or 11th?"

I highly recommend all users when using the contacts list to take advantage of the note section and take a picture to remind you of the location.

Treo 680 Camera / Memory Patch - This is a must have.

Palm is now distributing a new patch for the camera. There was a bug where the camera would not shut down correctly after being uses which resulted in a battery drain.

You can get the patch from here:
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo/680cameraupdate.html

Palm Addicts is reporting significant gains in battery usage after using the patch. Several users are now saying that they can use the phone all day without a recharge.

Great job Palm for releasing a patch so quickly.

Happy 5th Birthday PDA247!

PDA247 is my morning cup of coffee news. Like the great rush of caffeine my news junkie habit is not satisfied until I’ve read their latest postings. I especially enjoy their reviews and opinions. In my judgment PDA247 founder Shaun McGill and his staff absolutely love mobile technology and it shows in their commentaries.

Win A Copy of Smart Box Design Palm or Pocket PC Game

Palm Addict Christmas / New Year Contest

Welcome to the Palm Addict Christmas / New Year Contest running between now and the 5th January. Here are a list of the prizes as donated by the relevant hardware and software companies for which we thank them.


Here are the prizes which you can choose from:
• 5 winners can choose any Smart Box Design titles including WordPop, Farkle from SmartBox Design.- 1 unlocked Palm Treo 680 grey colour.
• 1 Extended 2400 mah battery for Treo 680 from SeidioOnline
• 1 Enfora WiFi Sled
• 1 bottle of "Comte Audoin de Dampierre Champagne"
• Brando from Shop Brando has come forward to offer 5 Palm Addict Readers $100 Gift Vouchers as part of the Palm Addict Christmas / New Year Contest
• $50 Voucher for Borders
• 3 copies of Trip Boss and 3 copies of Date Wheel from Creative Algorithms
• Benoit HERVIER has donated copies of kLauncher
• 3 copies of the game My Little Tank for the runners up again from Astraware
• 1 case, 1 screen protector, & 1 cable of the winners choice from Boxwave
• Accessories, Charger, Cases donated by Proporta
• TreoTastic Bundles from Hobbyist Software
• Copies of mRSS and mRing from Motion Apps
• 1 copy of Agendus for Palm OS Professional Edition from Iambic
• 1 copy of Agendus Mail for Palm OS SSL Edition from Iambic
• 1 copy of Agendus for Windows Outlook or Palm Desktop Edition from Iambic
• 1 copy of YourCall for Palm OS from Iambic
• 1 copy of TravelTalk for Windows Mobile (PPC or Smarthpone depending on the winner's device) from Iambic
• 1 copy of EzQuote for Windows Mobile (PPC or Smarthpone dependingon the winner's device) from Iambic
• 1 copy of Propel for Palm OS Standard Edition from Iambic
• 5 copies of any title from iliumsoft.com


How to enter: Everyone can enter [including Associate Writers who can just post directly], let me know how you have been using your Palm / Treo device. Give me a line give me a paragraph it's up to you how long your user thought is. Simple that's all there is to it.

Choose your preferred prize and a secondary prize, IMPORTANT put XMAS in the subject and give your entry a title [please do not use how I use my Palm device].

Failure to enter the correct subject line and give your thought a title will mean we cannot enter you as your entry will fall into our spam folder. Send to Palm Addict - sammymcloughlin@gmail.com.

Winner will be chosen at random and the contest ends at midnight US ET Monday 5th January.

Thanks to all the sponsors, enjoy the contest and warm wishes to you and those close to you this holiday season.

20 Days of Christmas Sale at PDA 24/7

PDA 24/7 is having their annual holiday season sale and Smart Box Design will be featured on the first day, December 1st. If you are looking for some deals stop by PDA 24/7 daily for the next 20 days. See you there.

Palm

Pocket PC / Windows Mobile

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

We had a great snowstorm yesterday that has closed most of Bellingham, WA. The paper asked residents to stay home if possible. The schools are closed which I m sure all the kids are celebrating. The snow is a beautiful sight to see. Snow still holds a child like wonder for me as I barely saw it growing up in Southern California.

The attached pictures were taken from my Zire 72 PDA. The views are from my second story bedrooms. The water in the background is Bellingham Bay. Canada is just a mere 10 miles or so north of here.

Although the Treo and Zire PDA have been criticised for the low end camera I think it is fine for quick pictures that you want to share online. I find it very convenient having a camera with me at all times as I take my Zire with me everywhere. I am thinking about moving up to the Treo 680. I will take a look at it as soon as the snow melts and I can get to the mall.

Win a copy of any of my mobile games. Send me a picture from your Treo, PDA or Phone, and I will randomly select a winner or two. Send email to tsherman(at)smartboxdesign.com (replace the "at" with "@").

How I used my Palm during the power outage

I now live in Bellingham, which is 85 miles north of Seattle and about 10 miles from the Canadian border. Yesterday a strong storm arrived with 80 plus miles per hour winds. It was not long before the power was out in the entire area. During the day I kept busy by looking up phone numbers on my Zire 72 PDA and catching up with friends and family. Night starts around 4:20 this far north so I was soon in pitch black. I went back to Zire and started playing games. I started with Bejeweled, then moved on to Bubble Ship Boy, and ended my last game playing Eric Snider’s Solitaire. With my battery wearing down and still hours to go before I would be tired I opened eReader and went down my list of several books I had recently loaded. Tarzan Lord of the Jungle quickly popped to the top of my list. I made myself comfortable on my bed and spend the next three hours reading Tarzan on my Palm. With about 20% battery left, I decided it was time to stop and conserve what was remaining. I opened World Clock and set the alarm for an early morning rise and went to bed (after brushing my teeth). Power was back on by morning, but with my Palm I barely missed a beat.