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Past Meetings: September 11, 2003
| Date: | Thursday, September 11, 2003 |
| Time: | 7:00 PM |
| Location: | Kelly Services Headquarters |
| Attendees: | 35 (?) |
This was our first meeting after an all-too-brief summer hiatus.
It was also our first meeting in our new location, Kelly Services Headquarters
at Big Beaver & Crooks in Troy. Special thanks to Kelly Services
and Marie Woodcox, DPUG member and Kelly Services employee for taking the initiative
and doing the legwork to get this room for us. We meet in the auditorium which
is a nice big room with comfy chairs, and all the A/V equipment we love. Before
we started our agenda topics, we discussed a few administrative items:
- We are now using a Yahoo Group as our email list server. If you did not
receive a DPUG meeting notice, you will need to join our DPUG Yahoo Group,
which you can do by clicking
here. If you have personal or moral objections to joining a Yahoo!Group,
you can always check our website re: next meeting information.
- At our June 2003 meeting, we talked about the Degree
Confluence project as a fun way to use GPS's. DPUG Member David Urbanski
logged this
successful Degree Confluence visit in July. He even commemorated it with
a handmade DPUG flag (see photo #6).
- There are a couple of upcoming Handheld Conferences geared specifically
for educators:
- The Southeast Michigan Handheld Conference in Farmington on Oct. 24
- The Michigan
Handheld Computers in Education Conference in Holland Nov. 19
DPUG Co-founder Tracy Dreslinski will be a presenter at each of these conferences.
- DPUG Cofounder Tracy Dreslinski will be conducting a hands-on Palm Training
Workshop Thursday, October 2 in Bloomfield Hills. For more information, visit
the DigitSense web site.
- Three new Palm models are rumored to be coming out:
- Tungsten E
- Tungsten T3
- Palm Zire 21
You can read all about them in this PalmInfocenter article.
- Our Next Meeting is Thursday, October 9 at Kelly Services. We'll be looking at pros and cons of the Pocket PC. We need people with Pocket PC and Palm experience who would be willing to present their experiences with the PPC in an informal setting. If you're willing and able to attend next month, please contact us.
Our agenda items for this month:
- An informal review of the new Garmin iQue 3600 Palm unit with built-in GPS. We all knew Amanda would be the first to get this one and she didn't disappoint! The handheld itself is surprisingly slim and trim looking--we were expecting much bulkier. The GPs has a pop up antenna, and voice commands for driving. It even has a jack that you can connect to stereo systems, which means Amanda can play her MP3 player on her Garmin through her car stereo. When it's time to turn, the Garmin automatically mutes the MP3 player, and intones "Turn right now", then turns the volume of the music back up. One not so great thing about this unit--battery life with the GPs off is only 2 hours! Ouch. That's with the GPs off--imagine what it is with it on. Of course if you're in your car you can just hook it up to the cigarette lighter adapter, but what if you were out for a long hike or bike ride???
- A review of Planetarium software--this is truly amazing software. You can use your Palm to locate virtually any object in the sky. What with all the recent hoopla about how Mars was closer to earth than it's been in 60,000 years or something--Planetarium was great because it tells you not only the rise and set time but where in the sky, and how many degrees above the horizon Mars is at any given time. We like using Planetarium to track sunrise and sunset, and to scroll through and see how much daylight we're losing each day now that summer is over. I can't say enough about this software. We are not astronomy freaks by any nature, but it's nice to be able to find certain stars and planets in the sky. You can also hook up your Palm to certain models of telescopes, and tap on the object of interest on your Palm--the telescope will immediately move to that same object. Planetarium costs $24.00 and is available from PalmGear, Handango, and the developer's website.
- A review of the SyncGear 3-in-1 cable from InnoPocket. This is a must-have accessory for anyone who has a Palm with an SD card. Not only will this cable act as a HotSync cable and a charger, but it turns your SD card into a virtual drive. We sure hope no one is trying to HotSync MP3 files or eBooks to get them on their SD card--this is incredibly slow and painful. Use the SyncGear 3-in-1 cable to copy the file(s) directly to the SD card in a fraction of the time. Most people would easily spend $20 for a HotSync/charger cable-- this cable is just $24.90 and incredibly useful.
- Many of the newer handhelds are shipping with Graffiti 2, a replacement for Graffiti. If you've mastered Graffiti, Graffiti 2 can be a pain in the butt. You can swap out Graffiti 2 with Graffiti by following the steps in this PalmInfocenter article. Note: we have not tried this ourselves, so "buyer beware". Please follow all the steps as outlined in this article; do not ask us for the files or for help!
Give Aways:
- 8 copies of Planetarium, compliments of Andreas Hofer
- 2 SyncGear 3-in-1 cables compliments of InnoPocket