> Home

 > About Us

 > FAQ's

 > Next Meeting
 
 > Past Meetings

 > Upcoming Meetings

 > Download to your Handheld

 > Find the Perfect Handheld

 > Join

 > Message Board

 > Links

 > Reviews

 > Members

 > Weather

 > Contact Us

Past Meetings: October 11, 2001

Some business topics:

• We are unable to get our normal meeting place in April and May of 2002. If anyone has a place we can use, free of charge, that has a digital overhead projector, we would really appreciate you letting us know.
• I finally heard from AvantGo regarding their AvantGo Money Madness contest. We did not place high enough in the contest to win anything. For those of you who tried to recruit AvantGo members, we appreciate your help. Carl Brooks' PalmLoyal.com PUG was the winner; his PUG won a Palm Vx.

Reviews:

1. Demonstration and review of the Full Charge battery recharger by Tom Harvey, Founder of Extend Computer & Instrument.

Tom's company, based in Walled Lake, MI, is an automotive supplier. They use Palms in their day to day work, and when the first Palm's came out they didn't like that they had to keep replacing batteries. So they made a rechargeable battery pack to replace the throwaway batteries that come with the Palm handhelds. There Full Charge product has some the following features:

• Comes with a battery cover with holes for the charger
• No cradle connector - keeps cost down
• LED at end of plug to indicate charge status
• Microprocessor knows when charge is complete so adapter doesn't get hot
• Can still put Palm in cradle while charging
• Their Full Charge product was released in Apr. 2000. They also now support Handspring handhelds, and they also have an auto adapter and an international adapter. They are working on a solar adapter and plan to release it in December 2001. They are working on a charger for the Palm m100.

We also got a good lesson in batteries, and whether it's OK to top off a charge on a battery or if you should always let the battery fully discharge before recharging. Extend Computer & Instruments chargers are all "smart chargers" so you can top off every day. In fact Tom recommends doing this for all NimH or Lithium Ion batteries. The older nickel cadmium batteries (still on some models of cordless phones) are "dumb chargers"; you're better off letting them fully discharge before recharging.

The Full Charge product retails for $34.95

2. Demonstration and review of "Presenter to Go" by DPUG Member Carl Brooks, Founder of PalmLoyal.Com

Let me start off by saying "Wow". I have seen the future of mobile presentations, and it is called "Presenter-To-Go." Presenter-To-Go allows you to connect your Visor to a digital projector so you can run PowerPoint presentations on your Visor and project them through the projector. The Springboard module comes with the necessary cables and even a remote control. Presenter-To-Go comes with software that converts the Powerpoint slide to a format required by the module. This conversion is done on the desktop PC. Note that you can't view your Powerpoint presentation on your handheld, but you can view the notes and titles. The Presenter-To-Go Springboard module also comes with a feature called "Mirror" which projects anything on the Visor screen to the projector. This would be so perfect for our DPUG meetings! No more scrambling to get the Palm Emulator loaded and running with the right software, and then lugging the laptop to meetings. I was desperately hoping to win the module that Carl gave away at the end of his presentation, but no such luck. If anyone has one they want to sell or donate to DPUG please let me know!

Notes: Presenter-To-Go doesn't work on Mac's or PC's running Windows NT. Margi is currently working on a Memory Stick version for CLIE handhelds and an SD version for Palm brand handhelds. The Presenter-To-Go Springboard module lists for $299.



3. Review of various styluses by DPUG Coordinator Tracy Dreslinski.

   Over the past two years, we've received several styluses from various vendors for our use and reivew. There are some really good looking stylueses out there, so no need to keep using that dumb thing that came with your hanheld. There are basically two types of styluses:

   • A thick pen-like combo stylus
   • A thin combo stylus sized to fit in the rail of your handheld

   I personally like the pen-like styluses; they are easier to write with because they're thicker. The nicest ones I used are made by StylusPlus.com. They are combo units, some have even 3 pen colors in addition to the stylus, and you can get them with or without a pencil. They're very sharp looking too. One feature I liked is that the stylus tip is bright orange. I've accidentally written in ink on my Palm screen more times than I care to admit because I didn't realize my pen was out and not my stylus. The StylusPlus stylus has kind of a slick way of changing from pen to stylus; hold the stylus horizontal and rotate the stylus until the icon of the feature you want is facing up. Then click the end of the stylus. Not too obvious, but once you figure it out it's kind of slick.

   Tiny Tools also makes a nice inexpensive stylus that is like a plastic ball point pen. Click the end of the pen once for pen, click again to retract the pen. The stylus is embedded in the plastic casing of the pen, so you don't have to do anything special to access the stylus. When you click the pen on, the pen point extends beyond the stylus. It lists for just $6.95 and works very nicely. They also make a rail-replacement pen-stylus combo as well as a chrome finished stylus.
   
   

Give aways:

1. Two Full Charge battery rechargers compliments of Extend Computer & Instrument
2. One Presenter to Go Springboard module, compliments of Margi Systems.
3. Various styluses from various companies; enough for everyone to take home at least one.

Next Meeting