Here's hoping Palm stays in business for the next ten years!

[From Jared Spurbeck] I've been using Palm devices since before there were even Palm Pilots. My first PDA was a Casio Zoomer, made in collaboration wtih Palm Computing. I was only a teenager, but I remember hearing the Hawaiian jingle it played when it showed the Palm logo, and thinking how clever it was (they used a palm tree for their logo back then). And I remember how heartbroken I was when I dropped the thing on the floor, and the screen cracked right in front of me.

Later on I got my first PalmOS device; then my first color device. My Sony Clié kept me company during the long hours when there wasn't any work left to do, and I had to just wait for my ride. I read books and took notes, kept pictures of my then-significant other, and once even used it to play chess with her on a date. (Naturally, she trounced me.)

In the last year or two, though, I started to outgrow my old Clié. I needed to listen to MP3s and take pictures, and I had to buy separate devices for that. And my Clié's book-reading and picture-viewing were slow, plus it barely had any room on its 32 MB memory stick.

So I finally got a new Centro this last Christmas. And it does everything! It takes pictures and videos with sound, plays MP3s even better than my old player did, and it comes with Documents to Go, which has already come in extremely handy. I used it to view a PDF file of a church magazine when I was giving a lesson two weeks ago, and I also love being able to write up rich text files that I can then copy to my PC using Softick's Card Export II. Being able to mount the SD card as an external hard drive is very convenient! Oh yes ... I hear the Centro can make phone calls too. Imagine that!

I'm also amazed by how good of a game-playing machine it is. Astraware's games are simply amazing! I still remember playing Zap! 2000 on my dad's Palm IIIc, and nearly beating the game before the plane landed. And their monthly specials make some of their coolest games affordable -- Platypus is an iPhone game now, but I got it for my Palm for only $5! This thing is like a Nintendo DS, but with one screen and an actual keyboard. I'm becoming an Astraware fan all over again, and I love it!

My new Palm is also handy for work. Just today I decided I wanted to read some html files: The log of a conversation that I'd had with one of my clients, and a web page that he had directed me to. I found iSilo Reader and iSilox, and was amazed at how well they worked!

I love how much software is available for PalmOS, I love how convenient and intuitive it is, and I love how I can do everything with my new Centro. I can even play old LucasArts adventure games using ScummVM -- the same games that I used to play on the PC I synced my my first Palm with! And of course, I love the Centro's feel in my hand, what can I say? But through it all, I don't think of my new device as a "phone" ... I think of it as a Palm, that just happens to be able to make phone calls. And the "Nostalgia" color scheme that it comes with reminds me of that first Palm, and how cool and amazing it was.

Here's hoping Palm stays in business for the next ten years!