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Past Meetings: March 8, 2001
| Date: | Thursday, March 8, 2001 |
| Time: | 7:00 PM |
| Location: | Kensington Community Church |
| Attendees: | 37 |
Another enjoyable meeting, a big crowd with a nice mix of familiar and new faces. We reviewed two software items and one Handspring Springboard Module, and concluded with some Give Aways:
- HandyShopper-
another great free application for your handheld. Makes grocery shopping
a snap, as well as packing for vacations, gift giving, etc. Tracy demonstrated
HandyShopper on the overhead projector. There are actually two versions
of HandyShopper out there:
- the latest released version is version 1.7 and is available here
- version 2.0 is a beta release and is available here
- PrintBoy
Deluxe software - from Bachmann
Software allows you to print from your handheld directly to any
printer. Great when you're away from your desktop PC. You can print
directly from your handheld to a printer with an infrared port. If your
printer doesn't have an IR port, then you can use a serial to parallel
cable that connects from your handheld directly to the printer port
of the printer. We didn't have a printer with an IR port to try it out
on, but from home it worked great on our HP Laser Jet printer. Unfortunately
when we brought that printer to the DPUG meeting, it didn't work. We
suspect it was a bad cable and had absolutely nothing to do with the
software.
This seems like a really useful product. You can print out Datebook entries, weekly or monthly views; To Do lists, Memos. You can also print out Microsoft Office documents, and it even comes with a Scribble Pad that lets you print out notes written in your own writing.
PrintBoy Deluxe lists for $34.99 and is available here.
- HandyGPS
SpringBoard Module - new module from Nexian.
Small and compact 12 channel GPS receiver with integrated mapping. DPUG
member Scott Branham used this GPs for a few weeks and presented his
findings. Scott's full presentation will be available on-line soon.
In summary: great idea, nice small packaging, but the battery drain
is so extreme (and much faster than advertised) that Scott wouldn't
recommend the product). But note that he still took the GPs when he
was one of the ones who won it during our Give Aways!
- Give Aways:
- Two copies of PrintBoy Deluxe software, compliments of Bachmann Software, were won by Roger Zielinski and Bill Jenuwine. Roger also won the serial to parallel cable compliments of Palmgear.com
- Two HandyGPS springboard modules, compliments of Nexian, were won by Scott Branham and Larry Koziel.
Handyshopper is great for grocery shopping; you can keep a list of all the grocery store items you normally buy and the aisle that they're in. Before you go shopping, you go to the "All" view to see all available items, and you check the items that you need to buy. When you're at the store, switch to the "Need" view which only displays the items you checked in the "All" view. Now you know exactly what aisles you need to go to in the store, and you're not just wandering up and down every aisle looking for something. Then, as you add each item to your shopping cart, you check the item again, and it disappears from your "Need" view, leaving only the items you need to buy. Probably sounds confusing, but download it and give it a try, it works great. Scott & Tracy use it not only for grocery shopping, but for keeping lists like "Drugstore", "Hardware Store", etc. Let's say you need an item like toothpaste. You can add this as a new item, and add it to multiple stores, like "Grocery" and "Drugstore". Nothing worse than running to the drugstore to pick up a prescription or something, then getting home and realizing you needed toothpaste or whatever. Now using HandyShopper we know what items we need for every type of store we visit.
It's also great for vacation packing lists, keeping track of gift ideas, keeping a list of videos you've been meaning to rent, etc. Other DPUG members in the audience commented on it's robustness; it's never crashed as far as any of us can remember, and it's incredibly full-featured for free software.
The 2.0 Beta version seems almost counterintuitive; the "All" view has changed slightly. 2.0 also uses a separate database for each store where as 1.7 uses one database for all stores. 2.0 allows you to keep track of prices individually (since it's a unique database).