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Past Meetings: November 9, 2000

Before we dove into our published agenda, we discussed Microsoft's request to visit our PUG for their "Spring Mobility Tour". They want to try to convince us why their handhelds are better than Palm OS handhelds. Although we are strictly a Palm group, we figured it couldn't hurt to let them visit and give them the opportunity to give us their best pitch. They offered to subsidize the cost of hosting the meeting in a larger venue and providing free prizes and giveaways. This meeting would be sometime next spring, in the March-April timeframe. If you are really anti-Microsoft and can't stomach the thought, then just don't attend this one!

For our Beginner/Intermediate discussion, we discussed two topics:

1. How to extend your battery life on your handheld device
   
   One of our friends was concerned that he only got about 1 month of battery life out of his new Palm IIIxe. After comparing notes with other Palm owners, we found that users were getting anywhere from 1 month of use out of their batteries up to five months of use. It turns out that the people who only were getting one month had their auto off time set to 2 minutes or higher. The person who got five months of use out of his palm (and yes, he really does use his Palm!), also turned his Palm off every time he was done with it rather than wait for it to auto power off.

   So in summary:

   • Set your Auto off time as low as possible (under Preferences, General)
   • Turn your palm off when you're done, just don't let it turn off by itself.
   • As mentioned at an earlier DPUG meeting, always turn your Beam Receive off (Palm OS turns it on by default after a hard reset)
     
     
2. How to create address labels from your Palm address book
   
   
   • Go into your Address Book on your Palm Desktop.
   • Select all the addresses you want to create mailing labels from. If you have entries in multiple categories, then go to the "All" category. Hold down the CTRL key while clicking on multiple names.
   • Press and hold your left mouse button down and drag the highlighted Address Book entries to the MS Word icon on your Palm desktop
   • MS Word will open up and prompt you for your "Dragto Action". You can choose to make mailing labels or print directly to envelopes.
   • You'll get the standard MS Word "Mail Merge Helper" which will walk you through the three steps to do a mail merge.
   1. Main document: Setup the type of mailing label or envelope size you are printing to.
   2. Data Source: Click Edit to define which Palm Address Book fields you want on the label/envelope. Select First Name, and manually enter a space. Select Last Name and press ENTER. Select Address and press ENTER. Select City and manually enter a comma and then a space. Select State, and manually enter a space. Select Zipcode. If necessary, press ENTER and select Country. You have now configured how the label/envelope will be formatted.
   3. Merge the data with the document: Click Merge and you'll have a document that you can print labels to.
      
      
3. Product Review - JackFlash 2.0. JackFlash is a product that allows you to take advantage of some "free" memory on your Palm OS device. In most Palm OS handhelds, there is 2M of "flash" memory (static or non-volatile memory) that is used for the operating system. Most OS's don't use up the full 2M, leaving up to .8 MB of unused memory. JackFlash allows you move some Palm applications and databases into this flash ROM, freeing up the normal RAM that comes with your Palm OS. This is extremely useful for people with devices that only have 2MB or 4MB of RAM.
   
   You can put just about any application into Flash. So what kinds of things do you put into Flash? Memory hogs like DateBk3 or DateBk4, Avantgo, Avantgo's libmal, etc... The only databases you can put into Flash are non-changing ones, like read only doc files and things of that sort. Most applications databases store preferences, and they change when you change a preference, so those must remain in RAM. There is a JackFlash Light version on Brayder's web site (scroll down past the contest info). that you can download for free. It will give you the feel of the product, but only allows you to move files smaller than 64KB.
   
   Notes:
   • There are some issues with older version of Hackmaster. You need version 0.91 of HackMaster which is available from the JackFlash web site.
   • JackFlash does not run on the following devices: Palm IIIe, m100, VII, VIIx, IBM WorkPad 30J, Handspring Visors, and the Sony Clie. These devices either do not use Flash ROM or they use all of the available Flash space.
   • JackFlash costs $19.95 and is available from Palm Gear or Handango.
     
4. Last but not least we enjoyed some giveaways:
   • Free version of JackFlash 2.0, compliments of Brayder Technology, won by Linda Baker
   • 2 Kodak PalmPix digital cameras, compliments of Kodak, won by Tom Maryon and Susan Sweetman.
   
   
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