Palm Pilot

Some Reviews regarding devices running PalmOS.

Palm Centro

Recently I needed a new phone, and because I always loathed Windows Mobile, it had to be something with a decent mobile operating system.

The iPhone is a bit expensive, can't be extended (currently) and comes bundled with a very expensive T-Com contract. No go (for me).

So I went to a local electronics retail store (*cough* Media.. Markt *cough*) and bought a Palm Centro.

Because there are a ton of reviews about this device, I will only add stuff I think has not been mentioned elsewhere:

First look

Nice package, pretty small, although not really thin. The finish (black with some kind of cheap-looking metallic-effect) smudges pretty easily, but as most phones nowadays have a piano-lacquer finish and glossy screens, this is a must apparently. I wish they would offer a silver-colored version with a matte finish.

But anyway.

Startup

Pretty fast if you ask me. Compare that to a Windows Mobile driven device (Treo 500 comes to mind).

Software

The default setup consists of a lot of useful tools beside the standard phone/organizer programs, there is a Pocket Office app, a Web-browser, Email program, Google Maps, a world-time-clock and pTunes.

More to come...

Linux compatibility

More to come...

Badbads

Well, mostly the charger for now. Maybe someone should tell those guys THAT THE GODDAMN CHARGER SHOULD NOT -NEVER- BE TWICE THE VOLUME OF THE DEVICE IT IS SUPPOSED TO RECHARGE.

Have a look at this (and imagine the charger being twice as thick as the phone).

Siemens got that right with their phones (but apparently, they got some other things wrong, so...).

Palm m 100

My old organizer. Now on a pension.

Useful programs for the m100

OK, this isn't really exiting -everyone knows http://www.palmgear.com or some other site like http://www.freewarepalm.com/ where you can get virtually every program written for the palm-pilot, including a review, screenshots and all info you need, but..

Due to the fact that my m100 has only 2 MB of RAM, which is really not much compared to the 8 MB of other models (and maybe even more in upcoming multi-media-enabled Palms) most modern programs are not really usable either due to the ammount of memory they use or their speed.

Therefore I was searching for some programs which have a small footprint while providing good performance and -yes- they should be free.

This page has not been updated for ages, and probably won't be in the future (although I am still using my m100 on a daily basis).

Cryptopad
	Need a safe place for all your passwords and bank-account transaction numbers??? Cryptopad is a freeware-replacement for the Memo-application which uses strong encryption to protect your data. Although it is not meant as a complete lock for the Palm it is very usable for encrypting passwords of all kind.
Feiertag
	Integrates all (german) holidays into the calendar, the holiday-list is editable. Quite nice.
GermanChars
	A simpler way to write german "Umlaute". Instead of using the special-function, just draw a horizontal bar over the letter and it will be converted to the correct sign. Unfortunately this seems to be quite picky from time to time, i.e. the program does not always recognize a stroke as it should (or maybe my graffiti-abilities are too poor). You need Hackmaster installed to use it.
HappyDays
	A free birthday-calendar which integrates into the default calendar, THE killer-app on the Palm m100 (at least for me).
IndexView
	Lets you view all entries from the calendar in one long index-list. Very useful if you remember a date or event but can't really find it in your calendar.
Invaders
	A Space Invaders clone for the Palm. Nothing more to say.
IQ3D
	Neither free (the demo is) nor very useful, but it remembers me of a certain game one could download and play in the 386-days (before Doom (sic!)). In fact this is pretty ugly and the scenery is really boring by all standards, but its fun to roam around a 3D-environment on a Palm-Pilot.
LR
	A Loderunner-clone (anyone remember this from the C64?).
MiddleCapsHack
	Tired of doing the two-stroke-business all the time you want to write capital letters? You can choose which part of your graffiti-area becomes permanently assigned to capital-letters, i.e. every letter, which is started in this area is being capitalized. You need Hackmaster installed to use it.
MsgAgent
	Due to the fact that the m100 comes without the default Mailtool, you need something else: MsgAgent is a nice and quite small Email/News-Reader which can be synced via a Mobile or a fixed Internet-connection. This works really great with my GPRS-cell-phone.
ParensLite
	The scientific calculator Palm Inc. should have included in the default setup (Handspring has).
Plucker
	A Offline-Browser published under the GNU Public License, see http://www.plckr.org . Essentially this is an ebook-reader with some HTML-conversion-capability on the server-side (i.e. a spider/parser which can fetch and convert any HTML-page. I'm still searching for a small and free online Webbrowser which would be usable with my GPRS-phone (WebTogo and Eudora Internet Suite aren't an ption with only 2 MB RAM), but for the time beeing this is the best solution. Maybe someone could hack a direct connection to some server on the web like it is done with Avantgo or WebToGo (I can't)...
Reptoids
	An Asteriods-clone which works quite nice and is fun to play. Like Loderunner and Space Invaders it isn't top of the notch in Palm-game programming, but it does not need all your memory and runs fine on b/w-screens also.
TrekSoundsHack
	A absolute must for all fans of Star Trek: Converts your Palm into a gadget from the future which will emit small convenient beeps while being used. You need Hackmaster installed to use it. The commercial version has some more sounds, but the free version is also OK. Not to mention that this program is totally useless beside making noise and providing a fake startup and shutdown-screen, but...

Linux and Palm

Fortunately, Palm devices are quite well supported by Linux-programs. You can have syncing and backup-software, as well as integration with desktop-PIM-programs for Linux. Here comes my short and incomplete list of stuff I use to organize my calendar and address-data on my Linux-box (mostly at work) .

Jpilot
	One very cool Linux-program which tries to recreate the Palm-Desktop for UNIX. Small, stable, useful. Anything more to say?