PalmAddicts

A day in my T/X life

Thanks Sammy for letting me be an associate writer for PA. I have been a "Palm Addict" for several years ever since getting my first Palm Tungsten E for my birthday. Prior to that I used a Casio BOSS with a "wopping" 64KB memory to keep my contacts, appoinments and expenses.

I am now using a Palm T/X for everything. For example, I begin each day reading my and my wife's horoscopes and thought for the day. I check your site several times a day and have tried a lot of the software mentioned. I update myself with world's news and check emails. I glance at the weather forecast using Kmeteo. Recently I switched from a handwritten cheque register to SplashMoney to keep track of my finances on the go on my T/X. I also use Splashshopper to make a quick list of groceries, movies to see, books I want to read, a travel checklist etc. I thought I would never use such a program but there I was in the grocery aisles the other day, recording the brandnames of my favourite items and the unit price on my T/X. Just like a "mystery shopper". The grocer looked at me strange. I check the Metacritic website and record DVDs I want to watch, the major star and the metacritic ranking. I don't always go by the ranking but it is a guide. When I have idle time I play my favourite games such as wordsearch, wordpop and card games and listen to country music. By the way I am not advertising for any particular palm applications but simply stating what works for me.

Your site is a testament to fact that Palm is definitely not dead. It is the go-to-place for Palm die-hards. Keep up the good work!

Little Town goes Big City

I'm sitting here in SPOONS in the small town of Dorr Michigan and writing this on my Palm TX to post using free WiFi! AMAZING! It feels so "big city" -- I am totally celebrating (with the help of Spoons good food and a Chai Iatte -- Yum!)

BORED ;-)

i am bored and i love it ... being bored is underestimated ... it is like an oasis in a hurricane ... it is non pressure and stress ... i worked hard to get here and i love it

i do not use my 650 and tx as i used other pda's when i was working in the hurricane ... now they are soft pleasent friends and carry me from place to place and idea to idea as i carry them ... and i do ...both of them ... as i read jennifer's choosing both as her favorites ... that is where i am ... they are like my children ... alike and different ... but extremely important to me

while i have your eyes and mind .... let me say ... i find the meanies on the web tough to take and wish we would learn the lesson on .... how to disagree without being disagreeable ... palm adddicts is that place and i am glad

the world has gone mad and the right side is hard to find ... unless you choose to be anti everything you don't understand ... we have not learned to disagree ... pogo said it right ... we have met the enemy and they are us

thank you all for being so kind and thank you sammy for making it happen

wally matsen.. asheville , north carolina

The safety of your handheld

I was at the store today and I was viewing my shopping list with Handy shopper.  As I turned around, a young female came rushing thru and bumped into me really hard.  Usually I will remove my handheld from its case when I am working with it, but for some reason today I didn't.  Needless to say, my handheld went flying thru the air and landed about 10 feet away on the hard surface of the floor.       

When it landed I heard the loud thud, and heard the noise my treo makes when the SD card is ejected.  After I picked it up, I was pleasantly surprised to find it still in working condition, with not a scratch on it.  My case however, the Innopocket Magnesium case, had taken the brunt of the fall.  I found a slight scratch on the front screen protector, but no other damage! 

I'm so thankful that I made the small investment of purchasing the case for my handheld.  I know that many still use their treo in a soft case, and that's their preference.  As for me, I am only that much more convinced of the need for a protective case, for my treo is an investment for me, and it would be hard to be separated from it for even a day.

                                       Posted March 31st, 2006  - Bryan Weinbrenner, McPherson Kansas

Palm Envy

We were at a staff meeting a couple of weeks ago, and I had my T5 out with my keyboard, taking notes. I actually am able to take notes with this setup at least as well as with a pen and pad.

Anyway, my boy Chris saddles up to me, new PDA gleaming. "Check this out".

Chris had just acquired an E2, his first foray into the Palm world. I was ectastic. Now, I had a fellow addict at work, and I knew I was going to love my new role as elder Palm statesman.

I felt great as I showed him what I could do with mine. I capped it all with a detailed discussion on the inherent advantages of Drive Mode.

We spent the afternoon beaming each other notes and linking via bluetooth.

However, it became apparent that Chris seemed disconcerted that I had a few more features on my T5. I did my best to console him, even while I gloated inside privately. I was still the man!

Next meeting we had, about a month later, Chris did the unspeakable. He took it there. He attacked my person and self-proclaimed authority on PDAs, and in one swoop, tested our friendship in a serious way.

Chris had purchased a TX.

Whatever.

It's not my fault that Chris is not secure enough in his skin, and is easily rankled by my PDA superiority. He's the one with the envy issues.
I promise you that I was not in the least concerned when he was able to prove to us that the hotel we were all checking into this past weekend had Wi-Fi but signing on in the lobby.

I did not even think of kidnapping the darn device more than once.

So, Chris, if you have to show off, you're the one with the issues. My memory is still bigger than yours!

By the way, I am purchasing a TX next week. This has nothing to do with Chris. Trust me.

I am still keeping my T5. Eat that, C!

- Tre Lawrence, Associate Writer (OH, US)

Buy a Big SD Card, you have no excuse

For Christmas this year I got a 512MB SD card, it cost 19.99 sterling in Curry's, a UK electrical goods store. It was as good a price as Amazon.co.uk. After using it for a while I can honestly say upgrading your SD card is one of the best things you can do to your palm. Instantly you have a mp3 player to rival the storage space on an iPod shuffle or Nano (perhaps). OK, it's not as slick as a dedicated player, but it does the job. Secondly with software like The Core Media Player, (TCMP) you can not only play audio files, but video too. I subscribe to the Digital Life TV, video podcast in iTunes (itunes link to dl.tv podcast). It looks awesome in my simple Tungsten E. With the right plugin (not included with the TCMP installation files) you can copy the iTunes podcast onto your big SD card and watch TV to go - no need to pay big bucks for a video iPod. I know I'm only scratching the surface with this so far.

One little tip: make sure you get Card Export. Read Murray's review. You do not want to load 100MB files to you SD card without it, using a card reader is fine, but having Palm do it direct much less hassle.

So, if you have not bought a large CD card, buy one now. They are so cheap you have no excuse.

- Stephen Trew, Associate Writer (Asuncion, Paraguay)

LOVE the New Look of the Site!

Congratulations Sammy! It's a WONDERFUL new and fresh look! Great job on the design and color theme! Best Wishes to ALL!
- Mark Simpson, Associate Writer, Florida (US)

T/X tweak

pda247 are reporting a new utility for T/X users called T/X tweak:
T|X Tweak is a small utility that improves navigation for owners of Palm's T|X model of PDA's. The 'Find' toolbar button and 'Home' hardware button can be remapped to launch other applications to provide a navigational behavior similar to other Palm based devices that have a DIA (Dynamic Input Area).

Features:

Remap 'Find' toolbar button to launch the search dialog, Application Launcher, Favorites or display a choice dialog to select which of the three actions to be performed.

Remap the 'Home' hardware button to launch any application in RAM.
Disable the romantic stroke pen gesture to resolve conflicts between the default action and scrolling operations in many document and content viewing applications.
-murrayalex, Associate Writer,Edinburgh

one gadget or two?

All this talk and speculation and rumours and just plain lies lies lies about the new treo's that are appearing or will appear or will never appear is all very interesting but what I want to know is...when is the new line of palm pda's coming out? All seems to have gone very quiet in the last few months and normally, around this time of the year, we get the rumour mill building up some pace. But nothing so far. I think all the treo shennanigans and rumpus over the past few weeks is overshadowing this. I have a treo 650 myself so I'd be naturally interested in any new, improved treo coming out...and for me, to upgrade, it would have to be a better device before I did. Firstly, it would have to have a bigger screen, the present one is sharp and clear but just too small, especially when you get used to something like the screen on the T5 or T/X. Secondly, any new treo has to lose some of that middle aged spread. It's a big phone and a relatively big pda without the benefits of being a big pda ie big screen. And it's got to have a lot more internal memory. Make no mistake, I like my treo. I love the simple to set up and easy to use email and also like the gprs set up for relatively quick and reliable internet access but if I could get a slim line phone that provided the same level of service I'd be happy to ditch the 650. Which is why I'm always very interested to see our Jennifer keeping us all up to date with the latest phone developments.
So what's the point of all this? I am just finding that my T/X is a far better pda than the 650 and I'm using the 650 for less and less pda stuff. It's turning into more of a phone than pda for me and I'm sure there are probably better phones out there than the 650. It's funny because until the T5 and T/X came out I was very much in the "one gadget" camp and couldn't see myself returning to the seperate phone/pda scenario. It just seems to have crept up on me over the last 6 months or so and I think it is a testament to how good the latest round of palms pda's are. But that's just my opinion and is based upon the way in which I use my pda which does not involve a lot of internet / email usage.....which brings me back to the original thought, when are these new palm's going to appear? Because if they are better than the current ones then they are going to be well worth waiting for.
-murrayalex, Associate Writer, Ediburgh

J-OS 2.4r2 for TX

Though I haven't seen it listed on any major Palm software sites, J-OS 2.4 is available for download directly from the programmer. This program apparently lets you use Japanese on your Palm, as if your had a Japanese Palm OS installed, with a key benefit being proper Japanese character input! If you click the above link to the programmer's site, you have to choose the "PalmWares" link then J-OS for Tungsten and scroll down to the TX. Since its version is 2.4r2, I'm assuming it's a beta of sorts, so I haven't yet downloaded it to try out: I've got too many things going on to aggravate myself further with a possible data-erasing hard reset. However, if any brave fellow PalmAddicts out there are willing to go where this Associate Writer currently isn't, let's hear how it goes!

- Chris Glick, Associate Writer, Tokushima, Japan