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Past Meetings: May 10, 2001

Date: Thursday, May 10, 2001
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Kensington Community Church
Attendees: 45

Another big turnout. At this rate we're going to need to start looking for a larger venue! It's great to see the group growing. Our guest speaker was Rick Broida, founder of Handheld Computing Magazine and author of two Palm-related books:

Before we got started, we had the unexpected pleasure of getting to look at some Palm m505's. Three DPUG member's showed up with the hot new color Palm Vx, and it looks very impressive. All three got their units at Office Depot.

Summary of Rick Broida's talk:

  • Handhelds that Rick really likes are the Visor Edge, Palm VII (thinks this is most underrated Palm), Kyocera phone, and the new Sony CLIE.

  • Rick personally uses a Palm Vx, and thinks that a color screen is superfluous; too expensive; and sucks batteries too much.

  • Rick primarily uses his Palm to read eBooks- likes using the Palm backlight for reading in bed - highly urges us to checkout peanutpress.com and memoware.com as great on-line sources of eBooks. Rick recommends cSpotRun as free reader.

  • Software applications that Rick loves and "you can delete over my dead body":
    1. Hackmaster - allows you to load patches/improvements to the operating system. Shareware - $5.
    2. MiddleCaps hack - turns the center of your graffiti area into an upper case region, which means the upstroke for capitalization isn't required when entering characters using graffiti. Free.
    3. Launcher III - application launcher with tabbed windows interface. Makes it easier to manage your "home" page on your handheld. Free.
    4. AvantGo - allows you to grab web pages during a Hot Sync (as long as your PC is connected to the Internet while Hot Synching). Rick mentioned Moviefone, and Mapquest driving directions. Free.
    5. BeamBox - allows you to beam virtually everything that's on your Palm. Shareware (not all databases and applications are beamable). Shareware - $5.
    6. Big Clock - a "big clock". A clock, alarm, stopwatch. Free.
    7. Diddlebug - sketch pad program for drawing maps or jotting down notes/phone numbers. Free.
    8. Mobile Safe Account Manager from Mobile Generation software (formerly called Account Manager). Keep track of personal information and login id's, etc. Can password protect. $14.99.
    9. BackupPro from Handera - allows you to make a backup of important info. Copies data to Flash memory to preserve it until next Hot Sync. $9.95.

  • Someone in the audience asked what games Rick likes:
  • Hardware that Rick likes:
    1. Parelleldesign.com Personality pack as a cover/screen protector on his Palm Vx
    2. Palm folding keyboard - thinks this is one of the all time greatest inventions. Makes lugging a laptop on the road obsolete.
    3. Floating point stylus sold by Landware. Spring loaded tip makes graffiti feel like writing on paper. Rick also uses Scotch Tape #811 on his graffiti area for improves the feel dramatically and protects graffiti area from scratches.
    4. Kyocera smartPhone- nice form factor, can dial out of address book; has voice activation; also has speaker phone so you can use Palm screen while talking. Supports web clipping like the Palm VII. Lists for $499 plus service charge. No SD or expansion slot.
    5. New Sony CLIE - Rick was sorely disappointed in first Sony CLIE. New CLIE looks to be much better. Has color 320 x 320 screen resolution, will play MP3 files, comes with headphones. Will list for $500. Comes out next month.
    6. Handera 330 - no graffiti area, can pull up virtual graffiti area. Some software like eBook readers needs to be redesigned to take advantage of larger screen area. 320x240 screen resolution. Compact Flash slot and SD slot. Jog wheel and voice recorder. Uses 4 AAA batteries. Lists for $349.

  • Rick feels that modularity is the key to making a great handheld so that the user can buy the accessories he/she wants. Re: expansion slots, he wishes there would be a standard (currently Springboard Modules, Compact Flash, SD, and Memory Sticks). Thinks SD is the best because it's the smallest.

  • Rick is not a Microsoft fan, and gave us his " Pocket PC spiel":

    Rick, along with many other Palm power users, was invited to Seattle last year to visit Microsoft and learn about Pocket PC. All attendees got an all expense paid trip to Seattle, and about $2000 worth of Microsoft gear including an HP Jornada and an iPAQ. After a day long demonstration (where many things went wrong), Microsoft asked the Palm fans what they thought. The Palm fans let Microsoft have it; the interface was way too hard to use, etc. Rick tried iPAQ for a month but hated it. Likes the hardware and screen but thought the interface was horrible. Rick heard Palm users say at the end of the presentation that they were now convinced to switch to Microsoft handheld devices. Rick felt these users never would have done this if they had to spend their own money on the units, and he considered this Microsoft bribing Palm users. Rick's comments got picked up in a ZDnet article. Became a "big ugly mess"

Give Aways - all compliments of Rick Broida:

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