Last year I noted that 3Com's PalmPilot had moved from high-tech toy to useful tool. Since then I've discovered a few more add-on utilities that make it even more valuable.
At the top of my list is Landware's GoType keyboard. Flip it open, fit the Pilot over a serial connector at the top of the keyboard, and you have a full-function keyboard that makes text entry much, much easier. The Pilot stands at an angle that lets you see the screen as you type. The keyboard weighs less than the Pilot and requires no batteries. It includes several programmable function keys that bring up PalmOS applications, and even has two built-in stands for the stylus on either side of the keyboard. I've found only one drawback: If the Pilot automatically turns itself off after a minute or two of inactivity, you have to turn the device on and off twice to get it to recognize the keyboard again. Landware is aware of the problem and has been promising an updated driver for months. For $80, the GoType keyboard turns my Pilot into the only computer I need to carry on trips. Landware also offers a $20 case that holds the keyboard and Pilot in one compact, stylish package. Once I got comfortable with my new keyboard, I turned my attention to an application with which I could use it. While 3Com provides an acceptable tool for text entry with its Memo Pad and Smartcode Software's HandStamp Pro gives me great remote e-mail, I didn't have a spreadsheet on my Pilot. Luckily, I found Cutting Edge Software's $50 QuickSheet application. With it, you can create spreadsheets on the Pilot. You can also take Excel spreadsheets on your desktop machine, send them to the Pilot and edit them there. The interface is pretty intuitive; the company has done a good job of working around the limitations of the Pilot's tiny screen. The application is unbelievably robust, supporting all the most essential Excel features, including 45 built-in functions. After you've made changes to a spreadsheet on the Pilot, you can upload it back to your desktop machine when you HotSync and edit it again in Excel. To support all these applications, I upgraded my faithful companion's hardware with 3Com's Palm 2MB Upgrade. It's a memory card that replaces the existing card in your PalmPilot Professional with double the memory. It also gives you an infrared port and PalmOS 3.0. In effect, it turns your PalmPilot Professional into a Palm III for as little as $50. If I'm going to rely on my Pilot as a serious resource, I need serious protection to back it up. BackupBuddyNG from Intelligent Systems does the trick. Unlike most Pilot applications, it takes up no memory on the Pilot - it does all its work from the desktop. While a normal HotSync backs up data, BackupBuddyNG does a complete backup of everything on the Pilot and lets you restore one application or an entire configuration. It's a steal at $20. o RELATED LINKS Contact Test Center Director Lee Schlesinger
Cool Tool: Handheld handyman
Our review of the PalmPilot. Network World, 8/31/98.
Last year's review -
