QUICK REVIEWS FROM POCKET PRESS

These short reviews have appeared  in Pocket Press over the last several years. While the information hasn't been updated, the programs are still available and well worth a look

Desk Accessories : A Different Kind Of Hack

Palm OS PDAs can switch between applications very quickly, but they can't run two programs simultaneously. If you are in MemoPad and you need to use the calculator, you exit MemoPad as soon as you tap the calculator silkscreen button. Your Palm saves MemoPad data when you exit and, if you didn't close the memo before exiting, it opens to the same place when you once again push the Memo button. So it is not especially cumbersome to switch back and forth. However, unless your memory is much better than mine, sometimes you need to be able to look at your memo while you enter figures on the calculator. A special type of pop up software, called Desk Accessories, will allow you to do this.

Desk Accessories are small apps that are accessed through a DA Launcher. Most DAs, including many launchers, are free. They all pop up over your current application, allowing you to view and use two sets of data at once. (Bozidar Benc has created a series of pop up apps which are NOT Desk Accessories. They share many of the same features, but do not require a DA Launcher for use.)

Desk Accessory launchers are usually hacks, although there is at least one that works through the Prefs panel. They are generally activated through a stylus stroke that calls up a list of DAs. Tap the name of the DA to launch it. App/DA Launcher 0.5.4, for instance, divides the App silkscreen button into four sections. A tap on the lower left section launches DAs. The upper left quadrant brings up a list of all applications. The upper right gives you a history list and the lower right is the Palm launcher. Different pen swipes will launch your last used app or DA.

The DAs themselves don't just add new functions to your Palm. They may make hidden features easier to use, enhance the built in apps, or increase your productivity. There are pop up clocks, world clocks and stopwatches, pop up calculators, a phone look up (much superior to the built in one), system utilities like volume controls and backlight toggles, pop up notepads, a find and replace string utility, and a host of text editing tools. For instance, ToUpperDA lets you choose any text and change case from all lower to ALL UPPER to Title Case with a single tap. Tree lets you create and use outlines in any text entry field. TealEdit, a part of TealTools, has a whole slew of functions including bulleted text or numbered lists, tabs, encryption, auto capitalization, copy, paste, and more.

Some Desk Accessories may not be compatible with OS 3.5 or OS 4.0. Be sure to read the instructions and do a HotSync to back up your data before trying older DAs. You can find lots of Desk Accessories at PalmGear, where they have their own category. Go to http://www.palmgear.com/software/answer_category.cfm?sid=22707820010305123855&categoryIDs=146,&searchTitle=DALauncher%20%28Desk%20Accessory%29  for a good selection of applications. You can find more DAs at Cute & Funky DA, the web site of H. Yamakado, the creator of Desk Accessories :  http://member.nifty.ne.jp/yamakado/da/index.htm

5/4/01

Adobe recently released a public Beta of their new Acrobat Reader for the Palm OS. This reader has the potential to fill a big hole in many users' PDAs. There are several plug-ins currently available for converting Adobe PDF files to Palm PDB files. Unfortunately, they all merely attempt to extract the text from the Adobe document. None of the plug-ins or converters I've tried have been able to handle the embedded graphics or the tables that are commonly used in PDF document layouts. The result has, as often as not, been a garbled Palm doc that is hard, if not impossible, to read. Adobe addresses this shortcoming nicely in its reader.

The Acrobat Reader for The Palm is a set of two applications: a reader for the Palm and a desktop converter for the PC (Windows only at this point) that translates the PDF file to PDB format. Adobe cautions that "tagged" PDF files will produce the best Palm docs. Since tagged files are an innovation of Acrobat 5.0, which was just released, Adobe admits that you are unlikely to run across any of them. Even the User's Guide produced by Adobe and included with the Acrobat Palm reader is untagged. The desktop converter therefore attempts to interpret and tag older Adobe PDFs. The degree of success seems to be proportional to the graphical complexity of the original document. The desktop converter gives you the option to remove graphics for a smaller, more compressed document or to retain them. In my limited experience, removing the graphics garbles the document, just as other, competing converters do if the text is arranged in tables. However, retaining the graphics solved this problem. The text was displayed cleanly, in the correct order, with the images interspersed throughout the page.

The Acrobat Reader for the Palm OS has many of the features familiar to users of the desktop Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can display and tap on a Table Of Contents to navigate through a document. You can tap and hold on a graphic to enlarge it (useful for diagrams). You can turn graphics on and off and change font sizes. In addition, you can beam documents to other Palms, select and copy text, and do most of the things you can do with any other Palm document reader.

The Acrobat Reader for the Palm is 185 Kb. The size of the documents varies widely, of course, depending on the originals. By my rough reckoning, on a limited sampling of PDF files, removing the graphics will compress the document by about 20%. Retaining the graphics will give you a file about twice the size of the original. So you should allot at least 250 Kb on your Palm to the Acrobat reader.

The initial download from Adobe is over 5.6 Mb - the majority of which is the desktop converter. The desktop application will install a new conduit on your Palm desktop for synchronizing your desktop and Palm documents. I found this an unnecessarily complication. Most users will not be synchronizing documents, since most users will not be creating PDF files, only reading them. Simply dropping converted files to a user's Install directory would be sufficient. The conduit did not work on my desktop unless I had the Adobe application open during the HotSync, which seemed odd. What's more, Adobe did not include an Uninstall function with the Beta software I downloaded (perhaps this will be fixed in future releases). To remove the conduit from the Palm Desktop, it is necessary to edit your Registry by hand.

If you use PDF files frequently and want to be able to carry them on your PDA, this well worth a look. It was heads and shoulders above its competitors, even in the Beta stage.

You can download the Acrobat Reader for the Palm OS at: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readerforpalm.html

4/11/01

If you are like me, one of the first things you did with your PC was dump Microsoft's default color scheme. None of the other twenty five installed schemes were quite right either. It's not surprising, then, that I was disappointed to discover there was no way to change the colors on a Palm IIIc. For a device that boasted a 256 color display, white and blue seemed unnecessarily limited.

Then I found Chrome through a mention on the PDA discussion boards. It's a small utility application that allows you to change and apply color schemes to your Palm IIIc. Several colorful themes are pre-installed. If none of them are to your taste, you can easily create your own. It takes full advantage of the Palm's 256 color capability, so you can go from loud to restful. Chrome allows you to change the color of almost any dialog box, menu screen, border, or font. Once you install the small 20 kb prc file, you just tap on the Chrome icon. You can tap anywhere on the Chrome screen itself to change the color. When you've found a scheme you like, save it and tap Apply. You can always revert to the Palm default by tapping "System" from the schemes list, and then tapping "Apply."

A new version, now available in beta, will allow Palm Vx and IIIxe owners with OS 3.5 installed on 16 color gray scale machines to apply gray scale schemes to their Palms as well.

You can download a trial copy of Chrome from : http://www.twinkletwinkle.com/

7/28/00

Whether you are tracking long term market trends or looking for up to the minute information on individual stocks, you’ll find Stock Manager jam-packed with tools. It is intuitive and very easy to use. It takes only a few minutes to enter the necessary information - then you're up and running.

There are several options for getting quotes, depending on your PDA and ISP. If you have a wireless modem, you can use Stock Manager over either Palm.net or the Omnisky network. With a dial up ISP and a modem, Stock Manager provides instant real time quotes. On AOL, you can HotSync the latest stock information to your Palm while you are on-line. There is also a desktop component for Windows users with always on internet connections that allows you to check stock prices while you’re at your PC without having to open your browser.

Stock Manager offers a variety of tools to track and chart your stocks' performance. On the main page, Stock Manager displays your complete portfolio. There are many ways to chart and track a stock's performance beyond the simple up and down arrows. You can set up alerts on stocks you’re watching. Stock information can be sorted by name, symbol, price, profit, etc. Tap on any stock on the main page for a more detailed look. Stock Calculator keeps track of the stocks' history: number of shares bought, sold or held, splits, average buy price and profit. Tap on the chart tab to see a graph of daily highs, lows and closing prices. Wondering about the volume of shares traded on a given day? Tap on a date area in the field for a pop up window with date/closing price/high & low/ and volume. Very nice!

Stock Manger also gives you tools to track your whole portfolio’s performance over time. The terrific color graphics take full advantage of the Palm IIIC's or Visor Prism's display, showing much more than just red or green arrows! In Pie Chart or Bar Graph format you can compare stock prices, value or profit. You can categorize stocks into different portfolios, each with its own totals. Stock Manager also supports currencies other than US Dollars, for international traders. Plus you can export your portfolio to a .csv file, so you to work with the data in a spreadsheet on your computer.

For ease of use, versatility, a user friendly interface, and a wide range of tools at an affordable price, this program is hard to beat.

1/3/01

The last time I escaped into the woods for two weeks, my backpack was loaded down with paperback books and a story downloaded and printed off the 'net. Plus a nice big lantern to make nighttime reading possible.

This year, I left the 25 pounds of books and batteries at home and took my Palm IIIc. (I'm a recluse, not a Luddite!) Since we expected to be driving around 1,500 miles round trip, I bought a car/plane charger for the Palm's rechargeable battery and left the hotsync cradle behind. I packed my modem, Palm, and the charger all into a small pocket camera bag. It took up less space than one trade size paperback. From a distance, I looked like any tourist, peering under rocks and around trees, searching for a better camera angle. You'd never know I was checking for dataports.

Before we left, I performed a meaningless little ritual called "getting ready." First, I put a new screen protector on the Palm. Next, I loaded BackUpBuddy's network restore utility into the Palm's Flash ROM and did a complete backup to Driveway.com. Then I made a list of freewwwb's local access numbers in all the states we'd be visiting and pre-loaded AOL's local access numbers as well. I downloaded Mapopolis and installed maps for obscure parts of Idaho and Wyoming (ummm, well, all of Idaho and Wyoming). I scoured AAA Guides and camping directories for locations offering internet access.

Here's what I discovered on the road:

America Online should be called Urban America Online. If a river, rather than an Interstate Highway, runs through it, you'll need to use the 800 number. However, a surprising number of campgrounds and friendly restaurant owners offer dataports or will let you unplug their phones so you can plug your modem into their phone jacks.

AOL Mail works great. I debated whether or not to use the v 2.0 Beta or the stable v 1.2 Gold Master, and eventually chose the beta. I was slightly concerned about unexpected crashes or hard resets with the beta software, but AOL Mail came through like a champ.

If AOL doesn't offer local access, you can bet no one else will either. While the Driveway.com backup/restore option was comforting, there was no way to dial in to Driveway using freewwweb in any of the areas I visited, unless I was willing to pay for a long distance call. Luckily, the need never arose.

Before leaving, I considered signing up with MSN or Earthlink for a free one month trial. Both are national services and both offer Palm compatible dial up access for POP mail and web browsing, which AOL does not. However, neither had any more local access numbers than freewwweb (which surprised me -- I will miss freewwweb!) and Earthlink charged a $25.00 set up fee to use their 800 number.

The more you have to pay for email, the less you need it. A couple of days with the surcharged 800 number as my only email access convinced me that most stuff could wait until I got home. Also, reading email on the Palm is a lot more fun than writing email on the Palm. Graffiti gets tedious after a few paragraphs.

The Palm IIIc itself is a marvel. I'd sat outside reading at night last summer with my Palm III. The backlight made the screen quite easy to see, but it drained the batteries quickly. With the IIIc, however, backlighting is unnecessary. In fact, the darker it is, the more you can dim the display. With the Brightness control set to its lowest level, battery consumption is almost negligible. After two nights of reading, the Palm battery was still at 72%.

I was very glad to have taken my Palm along, though I ended up using it somewhat differently than I'd originally expected. The Mapopolis maps of Wyoming were not terribly helpful. The local access numbers for freewwweb were all long distance. But the little expense tracker I created in HanDBase worked fine. The eight novels I'd installed gave me plenty of reading. Big Clock allowed me to keep track of time zone changes without messing up my appointments. A few games helped while away the time while the coffee brewed. ListMaker let me create compulsive check-off To Do lists and packing lists.

The only thing I was missing was a map of the solar system. The Wyoming night sky was crowded with stars… and I couldn't identify any of them except the Big Dipper. Next time, I'm dumping the highway maps and taking a planetarium program.

7/28/00

One of the simplest ways to make your Palm more productive is with a customized Launcher. The Palm's built-in Launcher (the screen you see when you tap on the Home - or Apps - silkscreen button) does a good job of arranging and launching applications if you have added only a few third party applications. It has the ability to sort by category and it presents information about battery state plus the time and/or date. However, the launcher hasn't changed much since the earliest Pilots, while the Palm itself has grown significantly. You may need ways to navigate among a multitude of programs and data without constant screen switching. And that is exactly what launcher supplements and replacements are designed to do.

There are two approaches to improving the Launcher: supplement it or replace it. First, let's look at the supplements. These are usually small and inexpensive hacks that allow you to switch apps with a few taps or swipes of the stylus. Within the Supplements, there are two broad categories: graffiti/stylus swipe activated hacks and button re-mapping hacks.

First the Graffiti/Stylus Hacks:

Switch Hack ($5.00 from http://www.deskfree.com ) provides a method to switch between recently run applications. You can switch back and forth between two programs with a single stroke of the stylus. Switch Hack also provides a pop up menu of the 10 most recently used apps. Call up Switch Hack, tap on the program, and it's launched.

Phlegm Hack by Mitch Blevins functions very much like Switch Hack. Swipe your stylus from the "Apps" silkscreen button to the upper-left graffiti area to switch to your last-used application. Swipe from the "Menu" button to the "Apps" to pop up a list, complete with icons, of the ten most recently used apps. Phlegm Hack is freely distributed and licensed under the GNU GPL. It can be found at PalmGear

(Warning: Not recommended for use with the OmniSky flashed ROM)

Pop Up Favorites ($5.00 from http://www.benc.hr ) is another pop-up menu type program. But, unlike Switch Hack, it allows you to define which programs will be displayed as well as the stylus swipe used to activate PopUp Favorites. It can also be activated by PopUp Suite.

LaunchEm App Hack by Synergy Solutions is similar to the pop up menus of all three previous programs. Although it is described as freeware, if it is used with any launcher except Synergy's LaunchEm, it displays a Synergy Solutions logo/nag screen before showing the menu.

The button re-mapping hacks take a different route to reach a similar destination. Instead of launching programs with stylus swipes, these hacks redefine the uses of the hardware or silkscreen buttons.

SilkHack ($10.00 from http://www.palmgear.com ) allows you to re-map the silkscreen buttons. Each button can be divided into four quadrants and each quadrant can launch a different application.

Teal Launch adds easy access to system functions and editing commands as well as application launching through button mapping. A pop up window allows you to assign more than twenty different functions to key presses and key-press combinations. It's available for $11.95 from http://tealpoint.com/

AltCtrlHack ($10.00 from http://www.iscomplete.com ) features two levels of configurable short cut mapping. Push a button once to launch one program or push the same button twice to launch a different program.

There are also a few quirky launchers designed for specific programs or specific models from Palm.

Watcha! is a HackMaster extension that keeps track of program launches and generates a database. You can switch programs by using the database. The Launch! DA (desk accessory - a hack-like system extension) is packed with Watcha! and can be used as an app launcher. Both are free at http://homepage1.nifty.com/abby/PalmTech/index.html

TaskHack works only with the Palm V and OS 3.3 It can switch among a list of user-defined applications when you tap the contrast button on the Palm V. It costs $6.00 from http://palm.pair.com

While launchers are very unlikely to cause any damage to your Palm, they are system and hack extensions. That means they have the potential to cause conflicts serious enough to demand a hard reset. Always read the instructions in the Readme file before using a launcher. Although the file descriptions for many launchers say they are compatible with all versions of the Palm OS, don't believe it! Application descriptions are not updated unless the application itself is updated. If an application is several years old, as SilkHack is, for instance, do not assume it will work with OS 3.5 -- or even with OS 3.3. Visit the developer's web site to look for updates. And when in doubt, ask

There are many different styles of launcher replacements available for the Palm, ranging in complexity from the addition of a simple tabbed interface to a 100 kb plus display that includes everything from battery voltage to an application's author. Some launchers hardly change the Palm's appearance at all while others use "themes" to change the name and look of the icons.

Here are the main features of some of the most popular Launcher replacements:

HandScape http://www.mobimate.com

HandScape now comes in two versions : the freeware HandScape Lite and HandScape Pro, which costs $14.95. Both versions use plug-ins called "Views" to place different information on the Palm's launcher screen, creating what HandScape calls a Live Desktop. Live Desktop can show your next DateBook appointment side by side with today’s ToDo item and a resizable analog clock. In addition, support from third party application authors has made a truly wide variety of plug-ins available for everything from FlashPro to Hebrew. There's a tabbed interface available, an unlimited number of categories or folders, one tap beaming and deleting. HandScape Pro adds a file manager with features including: a hierarchical file system which the user may re-structure, a "Tree Structure" folder management interface with drag-and-drop and other capabilities, and direct access to documents and Palm Databases.

LaunchPad http://www.palmgear.com free

LaunchPad is the granddaddy of Palm launchers. It first offered, in a very simple way, many of the most common features in other, newer launchers, including a tabbed interface. It is still available for download from PalmGear, though it may not work with OS 3.5.

Launcher III http://www.benc.hr/  no longer free

Launcher III is a modification of Eric Kenslow's LaunchPad. Applications are organized in tabs. You can easily create new tabs or transfer an application to another tab, delete or beam an application - all that by simply dragging its icon. With Launcher III, you can view, open, delete or beam Palm VII PQA applications, DOC files and HackMaster hacks, or any other launchable databases (if appropriate application is installed). Launcher III is not compatible with OS 3.5 devices!

Launch'Em 2 http://www.synsolutions.com/software/launchem/ $10.00

Launch 'Em is the full featured shareware successor to LaunchPad. It can show PQAs as well as any other type of database in addition to all your Palm applications. The user interface of Launch 'Em allows you to put the tabs on the left, right, top, or bottom. Launch'Em 2 comes with a HackMaster extension called LEAppHack. This Hack allows you to bring up a list of recently and commonly used applications from any screen on your Palm organizer by swiping the stylus from the App silkscreen button up to the screen. The Tab View preferences are customizable on a per-tab basis. The main screen also displays remaining battery voltage and free memory. You can organize your App icons alphabetically or manually and you can display them on more than one tab. Plug-ins called "Gadgets" allow you to perform many system tasks. LaunchEm 2 also supports a limited number of themes which allow you to change the appearance of the icons.

Palm Application Launcher (PAL) http://www.dovesoftware.com/pal.html  $14.00

PAL is an old standby that's gotten a small make over to make it compatible with OS 3.5. You can place any application into one of 15 categories and quickly switch between them for easy application navigation. There are several icons that you can add to the status bar that offer quick access to many of PAL's features, including : Backlight/Brightness, Categories, Favorite Apps (assign up to five different applications to your favorite button which you can access regardless of your current category), Beam , Delete, Reset, Lock and Power. The expanded status bar displays the current time, date and battery voltage.

Commander http://www.palmation.com/ $14.95

Commander takes a somewhat different approach to launcher replacements. Its focus is on security. It combines : 1) a replacement for the built-in Application Launcher, providing multiple views of your applications (similar to categories), and configurable display ordering of those applications (manual, alphabetic, or by most recently used). Additionally, individual applications can be set to private, and/or locked, protecting those applications from unauthorised view, or use. 2) a full replacement for the built-in Security application, providing the ability to automatically lock your pilot, hide private records, or simply display an 'owner' message, whenever the Pilot is turned on, or under a variety of other configurable conditions. Commander 'Startup commands' are not limited to security tasks, but may also be configured to run a specified application, turn on the backlight, and various other tasks. 3) provides 'Shortcut Commands', which offer the same wide range of options as Startup Commands, such as revealing private records or turning on the backlight, but may be activated by entering a grafitti shortcut, from within any application.

Silver Screen http://www.pocketsensei.com/ $12.95

Silver Screen is the first (and may be the only) launcher designed to take advantage of the Palm V's 16 bit gray scale and improved display. It works with a variety of themes to change the look of your icons. New themes are frequently added to the Pocket Sensei web site for free download.

Go Bar http://www.aladdinsys.com/ $14.00

Go Bar puts the "Start" button, familiar to Windows users, on your Palm's launcher screen. Your favorite applications can be displayed on the desktop for quick launching. The current time and battery level are displayed (with easy access to the current date, battery voltage, and memory statistics), as well as a button to toggle back to the most recently launched applications. It gives you an easy way to delete applications, reset your device, cycle through desktop folders, and access Memo Pad records. Like most new launchers, Go Bar is compatible with Palm VII Web Clipping files.

Mega Launcher http://www.megasoft2000.com/  $12.50

Mega Launcher is a huge application telling you everything you ever wanted to know about your Palm, and then some, from the main screen. It has status and application information, date and time displays, application size, usage, and author data, beaming, deleting, and launching capabilities. Mega Launcher is quite complex. There is a "lite" version, with a much smaller footprint, in the works for those who like the interface but don't need quite so much information.

All of these launchers, plus the add-ons and hacks discussed last week, are available for download and a free trial period. No one launcher or hack will be right for everyone. The add-ons, like Switch Hack, can be combined with a replacement, like Launcher III, to give you increased flexibility. Try some out and see which like. As with any application, system extension, or hack, you should always make sure the launcher you choose will work with your Palm or Visor. Most, but not all, of them have been upgraded to support OS 3.5. Most, but not all of them, can be used on Palm Pilot Pros or Pilot 5000s. Always read the information on the author's web site -- and when in doubt, ask!

7/14/00

These articles first appeared in Pocket Press, a weekly newsletter for PDA users.

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