DeepWave

Three new Palm related articles have just been posted. They tell the story of how I managed to move my data out of my Palm Treo 650 into the Mozilla suite of products. As everyone knows, the Palm data formats are highly proprietary, and so moving the data to Mozilla means that at least I can still read/write the data in the future. Plus, since I use Mozilla on the desktop all the time, this means my phone and my desktop can be truly synchronised once and for all. Check out the articles:

• Difficulty HotSyncing your Palm Databases
• Convert your Palm OS Contacts to vCard
• Convert your Palm OS Calendar to iCal

Why did I really need to move my data into Mozilla in the first place? Well, because I recently got a new Samsung SGH-i600 Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone. ActiveSync will only sync your contacts and calendar with MS Outlook and not Outlook Express. Since I don’t use Outlook, I have to get ActiveSync to sync with my Mozilla suite instead. I never thought I’d say this, but moving to a MS Windows platform forced me to use open standards/source formats, data and applications! I’ll try to post some information about my SGH-i600 setup in the future.

I’ve been using the PalmOS platform since the Palm III days. During this time, I’ve bought and upgraded no less than 5 PalmOS powered devices - the Palm III, Palm V, Palm m505, Tungsten T3 and the Treo 650. The latest Treo 680 and Treo 750v simply add nothing new to the equation while I’ve been needing 3G support for global roaming and generally, a roadmap from Palm on the future of this platform to assure me that it will still be around in a year or two’s time. With the Apple iPhone setting the bar very high for 2007/08, Palm has to show something to inspire customers to stay with them and not just rely on blind customer brand/platform loyalty to continue in the future.

So, the sad day arrived, Hell froze over and I have gone over to the dark side. I guess this will be the last Palm related articles I post unless I decide to go back to it one day in the future. The good news is, now that I am in Mozilla, which is open, I can go to any platform, not just Palm, quickly and easily.

Modern versions of Palm Desktop keep your data in highly proprietary databases and file formats. In order for it to be of any use to you, you will have to convert the data to something more "industry standard". In this example, we will convert Palm Desktop’s Calendar (PD version 4.1.4) into the iCal format, which is much more popular with other email programs, PIMs, mobile phones and websites.

It should be noted that I have tried to detail my steps as much as possible, but, this procedure is not for the faint of heart. Some computer knowledge is a minimum, including Windows command lines, various applications, and Microsoft Excel/OpenOffice.org Calc. Perhaps most important is good knowledge of Find/Search and Replace functions of your favorite text editor and lots of patience for trial and error. Some other caveats include the fact that repeating events are not handled well (if at all) and these instructions are Windows specific, but I’m sure you can adapt them for Mac and Linux platforms.

So, backup all your data at every step, and follow the instructions below carefully. It worked for me, and if it works for you, then you too can achieve "data portability" - YMMV

Part A - Get the data out of your Palm and Palm Desktop
Step 1. Make sure you have HotSynced your Palm with your Palm Desktop to make sure the data is up to date. If you have difficulty HotSyncing your Palm, make sure you check Fixing HotSync Problems.

Step 2. From the Palm Desktop, click on "Calendar".

Step 3. From the Menu > "File" > "Export".

Step 4. In the "Export As" box, make sure you select "All Records" and "Datebook Archive (.dba)" as your "Export Type". Note that "Calendar Archive" is also a .dba file, but be warned, the file extension may be the same, but the internal file format is very different.

 
Part B - Convert from "Datebook Archive" (DBA) to "Palm CSV" (CSV)
Step 1. Download the datebook_csv.zip package and unzip it to the same folder as your Datebook Archive.

Step 2. Open a Command prompt and navigate to the folder containing the DTBK2CSV.EXE from the datebook_csv.zip package and your Datebook Archive

Step 3. Set your time zone, usually it is a three letter code followed by a modifier from GMT. For example, Singapore is SST-8, while US Eastern is EST+5. To know more about setting your timezone information, you can check out the GNU C Library.

Step 4. Run the conversion program with the following command line:

    DTBK2CSV.EXE -i<your-dba-file.dba> -oOutput.csv -d2

Step 5. You should now have a converted "Palm CSV" file. Below is a screenshot of my own conversion of 1700+ Calendar records over 9 years from 1998 to 2007.

 
Part C - Convert from "Palm CSV" (CSV) to "Outlook CSV" (CSV)
Unfortunately, at this stage, it becomes complicated. The "Palm CSV" does not use a common enough CSV table structure. We will need to convert to the Microsoft Outlook CSV structure, which is more common. It is important to note that the "Palm CSV" has the following table structure:

    "Date","Start","End","Hours","Description"

but the "Outlook CSV" has the following more complex table structure:

    "Subject","Start Date","Start Time","End Date","End Time","All day event","Reminder on/off","Reminder Date","Reminder Time","Meeting Organizer","Required Attendees","Optional Attendees","Meeting Resources","Billing Information","Categories","Description","Location","Mileage","Priority","Private","Sensitivity","Show time as"

Clearly some work is required! To convert your "Palm CSV" into an "Outlook CSV", you must open your CSV in MS Excel or OpenOffice.org Calc. For this explanation, I will use Excel as the example. I assume you know enough about Excel/Calc to be able to create columns, Search/Find and Replace, move data around, reorganise table structures and import/export CSVs.

Step 1. Open your CSV in Excel.

 
Step 2. Be careful about "Descriptions" that are more than one line long, try to edit them to keep them all in a single line. Look out also for any "misformatted" lines in Excel during the CSV import. This is usually caused by "Descriptions" that have commas in them and are mistaken by Excel to mean the next column over. Edit them so that they are all placed in the proper columns.

Step 3. Watch out for all dates that are 100 and above. These need to be edited to reflect the year 2000 and above. Year 100 would be 2000, 101 would be 2001, 102 is 2002 and so on.

Step 4. You need to make sure that your "Date" is in the correct format. Click on the "Date" column and choose Menu > "Format" > "Cells". Choose "Custom" and "dd/mm/yyyy" as the "Type" (type in the type if you can’t find it).

Step 5. You need to make sure that your "Start" and "End" time is in the correct format. Click on the "Start" and "End" columns and choose Menu > "Format" > "Cells". Choose "Custom" and "h:mm:ss AM/PM" as the "Type" (type in the type if you can’t find it).

Step 6. Move the "Description" to the first column, and rename it "Subject".

Step 7. Delete the "Hours" and "Client" columns, they are not needed.

Step 8. "Start" becomes "Start Time" and "End" becomes "End Time".

Step 9. "Date" becomes "Start Date"

Step 10. Copy "Start Date" and paste it as "End Date" between "Start Time" and "End Time". If your event crosses the 11 midnight boundary, you will have to check/edit the "End Date" and "End Time" by hand to make it correct.

Step 12. You can then create the remaining columns, from "All day event" to "Show time as".

Step 13. For the data in the new fields, "All day event", "Reminder on/off" and "Private" can be set to "FALSE" while it should be safe to leave the rest blank. Alternatively, you can edit as needed.

 
Step 14. Next, go to Menu > "File" > "Save As" and choose "CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv)" as the file type and save the file.

Step 15. Now, here comes the really difficult part! You must open the CSV file in a text editor and make sure there are quotes before and after each field string, including the header line. If you do not do this, you will not be able to proceed to the next step. Here is an example of some wrong strings:

    Subject,Start Date,Start Time,End Date,End Time,All day event,Reminder on/off,Reminder Date,Reminder Time,Meeting Organizer,Required Attendees,Optional Attendees,Meeting Resources,Billing Information,Categories,Description,Location,Mileage,Priority,Private,Sensitivity,Show time as
    Attend IT Course,11/11/2006,9:00:00 AM,11/11/1999,5:00:00 PM,FALSE,FALSE,,,,,,,,,,,,,FALSE,,
    Sales Meeting,06/12/1999,12:00:00 AM,06/12/1999,12:00:00 AM,FALSE,FALSE,,,,,,,,,,,,,FALSE,,

Here are the correct strings:

    "Subject","Start Date","Start Time","End Date","End Time","All day event","Reminder on/off","Reminder Date","Reminder Time","Meeting Organizer","Required Attendees","Optional Attendees","Meeting Resources","Billing Information","Categories","Description","Location","Mileage","Priority","Private","Sensitivity","Show time as"
    "Attend IT Course","11/11/1999","9:00:00 AM","11/11/1999","5:00:00 PM","FALSE","FALSE","","","","","","","","","","","","","FALSE","",""
    "Sales Meeting","06/12/1999","12:00:00 AM","06/12/1999","12:00:00 AM","FALSE","FALSE","","","","","","","","","","","","","FALSE","",""

 
Clearly, you need to have a strong grasp of Search/Find and Replace and some good typing skills. If you know how, you can use Excel to add extra columns with the quotes and do a lot more search and replace in the text editor at this stage. Check carefully and clearly. Wrongly formatted lines will fail to pass the next step!

Part D - Convert from "Outlook CSV" (CSV) to iCal Format
This last step requires you to download a program called Sunbird. You should use Version 0.2 of Sunbird (Yes, I know about Sunbird 0.3+ and Lightning, etc, but if you want iCal, you better stick to 0.2). You can download Sunbird 0.2 from Mozilla’s website.

Step 1. Unzip Sunbird 0.2 into a folder on your PC.

Step 2. Go to the Sunbird folder, and double-click on "sunbird.exe" and Sunbird will run.

Step 3. From the Menu > "File" > "Import", make sure you select "Outlook Comma Separated" as the file type and choose your "Outlook CSV" file.

 
Step 4. Sunbird will ask you about the field mapping, make sure that the fields are mapped correctly - if you had done all the text editing correctly, it should be fine to just hit "OK".

 
Step 5. There may be some complaints about date formats, but it should be fine to just hit "OK".

Step 6. You should now see a box saying that Sunbird will import "XXX new event(s)". If this number does not match your CSV file, this means that one or more lines of data is not formatted properly. Hit cancel and edit the "Outlook CSV" file and make sure the quotes, commas and lines are all correctly formatted. Below is my import of 1700+ events.

 
Step 7. After "Import All" completes, you should check to see all your events are there. Note that if you left "Reminder on/off" as blank instead of "FALSE" in the earlier steps, you will have a lot of alarms trigger right after the import is complete. The first time I did this, I had 1700+ alarms trigger in one go. Luckily, Sunbird has a "Dismiss All" button.

Step 8. If everything is OK you can exit Sunbird. Edit as needed if it is not.

 
Step 9. Go to the "C:\Documents and Settings\<your-name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Sunbird\Profiles" where <your-name> is your user name. In this folder, you will see a folder with some strange numbers and letters, like "55xb6j40.default". Browse into it, followed by the "Calendar" folder. You should now be able to see a file called "CalendarDataFile.ics". Copy this file somewhere safe.

Step 10. You can now uninstall Sunbird by deleteing the whole sunbird program folder and the "C:\Documents and Settings\<your-name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Sunbird" folder.

Congratulations, you have now converted your proprietary Palm Calendar into a more common iCal file which is more commonly supported by other software and systems.

Modern versions of Palm Desktop keep your data in highly proprietary databases and file formats. In order for it to be of any use to you, you will have to convert the data to something more "industry standard". In this example, we will convert Palm Desktop’s Contacts (PD version 4.1.4) into the vCard format, which is much more popular with other email programs, PIMs, mobile phones and websites. Fortunately, by using Palm Desktop’s export capabilities supports vCard, and so you too can achieve "data portability".

Step 1. Make sure you have HotSynced your Palm with your Palm Desktop to make sure the data is up to date. If you have difficulty HotSyncing your Palm, make sure you check Fixing HotSync Problems.

Step 2. From the Palm Desktop, click on "Contacts", and from the Menu > "Edit" > "Select All".

Step 3. Then go to the Menu > "File" > "Export vCard".

 
Step 4. This will save all your contacts into a single vCard file.

Step 5. Now you need to edit the vCard file with a text editor. With some good editing and Find/Search and Replace, you can fix some of the missing/incorrectly labeled data in the vCard file. Unfortunately, the "Custom" fields don’t usually get transfered in the vCard. Look for "X-Palm-CustomX:" in your vCard file (where X is some number starting from 1). For one VCARD, each line of custom text will be labeled "X-Palm-Custom1:", "X-Palm-Custom2:", "X-Palm-Custom3:" and so on. You need to combined them all into one single line with the header label "NOTE;QUOTED-PRINTABLE:". Here is an example of some wrong strings:

    X-Palm-Custom1:This is
    X-Palm-Custom2:my long
    X-Palm-Custom3:additional note

Here are the correct strings:

    NOTE;QUOTED-PRINTABLE:This is my long additional note

 
Step 6. Once you have made all the changes you need, don’t forget to save it.

Congratulations, you have now converted your proprietary Palm Contacts into a more common vCard file which is more commonly supported by other software and systems.

The most convenient way to transfer data out of your Palm is to do a HotSync of your Palm back to your Palm Desktop. However, sometimes HotSync fails, or seems to take a very, very long time. In such a situation, you need to make sure that your databases are clean and in good order. This is especially true if you have not HotSynced your Palm for a long time. If you have problems HotSyncing your Palm, try the following approach:

Step 1. Download and install the latest version of Pimlico dbScan (http://www.pimlicosoftware.com/dbscan.zip). I would like to note here that thanks must go to Pimlico for making this excellent and critical piece of software free of charge.

Step 2. dbScan will ask you which database you would like to scan, "Current", "History" or "Neither". Choose "Current".

 
Step 3. Next, choose "Current" > "Start Scan". If dbScan does find any corrupted records, you will probably have to delete it. Now, dbScan can delete it for you automatically, but if it fails or if your Palm resets etc, you will probably have to delete it manually. Take down the details of the record highlighted by dbScan, then go to the app and delete it by hand.

 
Step 4. Now, exit out of dbScan, and launch it again, but this time choose "Neither" database.

Step 5. Go to the Menu > "Options" > "Remove All Deleted Records". Do this once each for PalmOne and PalmSource databases. If you had previously deleted entries in your apps, but have not HotSynced, it will be cleared.

 
Step 6. Try HotSyncing again. If it still fails, then you don’t want to hear the next suggestion, which is to perform a clean reset, and/or uninstall all third party software and try re-syncing the databases again.

I hope this helps!

Some time back, I wrote an article for SPUG entitled, "My Palm m505 Setup: A Journey Into Discovery". Well today, I’m here to tell you about a new journey, "From the m505 to the T3". I’ve used a Palm III, Palm V, m505 and, recently I got my brand-spanking new T3 on 5 October, and now use it exclusively as my every day Palm. Below are entirely my own opinions and experiences comparing an m505 to the T3, so your mileage may vary. But I hope that by sharing my own experiences, I will help you come up with your own fair and balanced insight into this machine.

The package from Palm

The Hardware
Well, there are already many in-depth reviews of the T3 on the Internet like at Palminfocenter and The Gadgeteer. So do take a look at those as well for a balanced viewpoint. The items that impressed me the most are the screen and the speaker quality. Other people who own Clies have also commented that they like the T3 for its size, and yet still have a 320×480 screen. Perhaps this "Slider" idea of Palm is really a "killer app" after all.

Executive-styled small-sized like the m505 and Palm V, but with Clie-sized screen

Indeed, one of the reasons why I myself changed to the T3 is I can have the 320×480 screen but yet without giving up the form factor of the m505 or Palm V. Only when you open up the slider do you get roughly the same size as a Clie NR. I had refused to go the way of the Clie simply because of its size, and now with the T3, I have the best of both worlds. To sum it up, when showing my T3 off to my Clie owning friends, we concluded that all of the T3’s key features have long been available on the Clie, so it is nothing new to them, but the T3 has one major "I’m better than you" feature, and that is its size. Price too has been mentioned as another key factor. So for those who wish they had all the stuff of a Clie (except a digital camera), but were put off by the fact that it was too big for your pocket (both your shirt pocket and wallet pocket), your prayers have been answered. And what about the digital camera? Well, I already have a Nikon D100, and don’t really intend to go around taking "spy shots".. err, but that’s for another article..

But even as the T3 "matched" the Clie feature for feature, the T3 in fact betters the Clie in two more areas other than size - the screen and the speakers. The T3’s screen is the brightest I’ve ever seen on a Palm, beating the Clie with obvious ease. It’s like having the brightness on a new 505 on full power all the time, and this is when I turn my T3 brightness down to 35% or so! The speaker too, is fantastic, out-performing the Clie hands down. I can tell you from personal experience, that if you have a T3 and work in a "open office cubicle" style workplace, do not, I repeat, do not turn your speaker volume past 80% and play Linkin Park or something.. Your colleagues will be screaming their heads off. Yes, the speaker is as powerful as those cheap $15 speakers you can buy from Sim Lim to listen to your PC CD-ROM in the office. But I have my own office, so I usually go at about 88% when next to my PC monitor.. Still, I urge you to go out and buy some headphones, and no, Palm did not supply you with headphones in the box.

YES, the m505 backlight is on when I took this photo!

The casing is also quite sleek and stylish. Very "corporate". The bottom where the Universal Connector is reminds me of the bottom of an iPAQ, and the stylus slot with spring-loaded stylus is just like the Pocket PC ones. For once, Palm actually supplied a good stylus. I’ve been a Panache user for years, so when I got my T3, I immediately went to the shop to look for a Panache for my T3. Unfortunately, I came away extremely disappointed. Furthermore, the Palm stylus is heavy enough, and has a good tip, and has that cool spring-loaded feature, which the Panache lacks. For the first time (ever), I think I will stick to the Palm’s "default" stylus. And the reset buttonhole is big enough for the tip of the stylus to fit in. No need to unscrew any stylus head or search for a paper clip. And yes, in less than 48-hours after I got my T3 I had seen some fatal exceptions and at least one or two soft resets in the back. But more on this later on. What can I say, I really push my machine to the limits

The good news is that hardware compatibility is maintained, and all your m505 Universal Connector hardware stuff still works. You can keep all your old cradles and chargers too. I plugged in my Ultra-thin Keyboard, and it worked like a charm. This brings me to my next point - the 400MHz CPU. Note that, there has been a publicised problem with soft-resets and losing 25% of your CPU power due to the audio portion not reseting properly, but a fix in software (called "T3Optimiser") has already been released as freeware, so that should take care of that problem. Anyway, the 400MHz CPU is fast. I tried a few things which convinced me that the T3 has more power under the hood than I can hope for.. First, I loaded up Benchmark, that old Palm III tool for performance. The T3 registered performance speeds past 400%, and then promptly crashed. So I tried Aaron Ardiri’s old black and white G&W Games, like Phire, and Oktopus. Guess what, the machine was so fast, the octopus ate my diver faster than you can say "Gloog! Gloog!" I didn’t even have time to move! Lesson: Beware of old games and software, they will run happily with no compatibility problems, except that now, the Palm is so fast, you don’t stand a chance! So I tried the final litmus test. I loaded Aeroplayer with some MP3s playing off the SD card, and Wordsmith typing a document using my Ultra-thin Keyboard. I’m not too sure what multi-tasking OS6 is supposed to bring, but already on the T3, there is absolutely no "lag" at all when I play MP3s in the background and do touch typing at the same time. Note that both tasks are quite processor intensive, with the main CPU decoding MP3 from the SD Card and handling IRQs from the serial port to the Ultra-thin keyboard at the same time. Not to mention both Aeroplayer and Wordsmith doing some work. Very impressive for a Palm.

The other usual review stuff is supposed to cover the built-in Bluetooth, IR and 5-way buttons, etc, which I’m not going to go into detail. Please see some other review for that. I’ll just confirm that the Bluetooth and FunSMS works fine with my T68i, although I did have to install the T68i PalmOS specific driver before it worked. Agendus also managed to "dial" a phone number from my addressbook using Bluetooth directly as well, so that’s another happy arrangement. Other than looking for the driver (which was located in the "Add-on" folder where you installed the Palm Desktop), setting up was a charm, having only to specify the type of connection (Bluetooth to T68i) and then setting up a pairing for the first time. I know that there are some IR-based keyboards out there, but I look forward to trying a Bluetooth keyboard.. Korean company Flexis was rumoured to be developing a Bluetooth keyboard, but nothing yet.. Battery life? Well, I’m sorry, you’ll have to look in other reviews for that one. I keep my Palm fully charged most of the time, and have not "burned my juice" and so can’t tell you much about that.

What about the RAM you say? Well, when I got the T3, I immediately started looking at PowerRun, JackFlash, JackSprat which I used on my m505 and so on. But what do you know, with 50+MB of RAM and a 64MB SD Card, I don’t even need to think of those softwares to squeeze more RAM out of my Palm. And why would you need more SD Card space? For all those MP3s you start loading on it. OK, so my MP3s are all "archival quality" with each MP3 at least 4MB.. Programs and Softwares can all sit very comfortably in RAM without PowerRun and MSMount and so on. I still have more than 50% or free RAM and am wondering what else I can put in.

Another useful feature is the "key-lock" function. If you turn on this feature, you can press the power button for more than 2 seconds and it will "key-lock" all the buttons on the Palm, like on your handphone. Press the power button once and it will ask you if you really wish to turn on the Palm (and disable the "key-lock"). This just made a whole bunch of hacks and add-ons obsolete.

Here’s where I started encountering the first problems with being an early adopter. When I got my T3, I realised that there were no cases or screen protectors. I was forced not to take off the plastic covering on the screen and am still using that. I just saw Brando (HK) come out with some screen protectors, so maybe I will check it out. As for the case, I’m still looking for a good T3 case, again Brando has some, but maybe I will shop around. Since I was forced to use the leather cover that comes with the T3, I’ve grown used to it, and so maybe I can afford to wait a while until third-party developers come up with some nice choices. One shop in Funan explained very simply that Palm does not release information (like screen size and dimensions) until the product is launched; so third-party developers have to wait until it is out. This way, early adopters must choose original Palm accessories if they can’t wait. This is quite obviously a purely business decision on Palm’s part.

Finally, "What about the camera?" scream my Clie-owning friends. Sigh.. OK, so we were at Ikea surveying office furniture, and we were writing down dimensions, options and choices. So then my Clie owning friend whips out his Clie and takes snaps for our future reference. OK, so this I concede. But how often am I going to need this? Perhaps I should look at investing in a Veo camera if I really need it, or upgrade to a T610.. Sigh.. But think of this, a T3 + Veo is under SGD$900, and a Clie is.. And the Clie’s form factor, screen and OS and .. well, you do the math.

The Basic PalmOS Software
Palm has included some software updates in this release, namely the Datebook and some name changes (like Addressbook is now Contacts, and Datebook is called Calendar). The Calendar has a nice "Today" page and with 320×480, can show you more information in month-by-month view.

Calendar’s Today Page

Calendar’s Month-by-Month View

But one of the single biggest software improvements in the T3 is the new "always on top task bar" (for lack of a better name. On the left, are buttons for "Home / Applications", "Find", "Menu", "Clock / Status", "Alert Manager", "Bluetooth", "Graffiti Anywhere", "Screen Rotate" and "Virtual Graffiti". Wow! The first three buttons are obvious, but the others are new and fantastic.

Clock

Alert Manager

Bluetooth Control

The "Clock / Status" is a button that pulls up the clock, shows you a status of your memory (on both the Palm and SD card), battery, brightness and audio profile. In this single screen, I can think of a number of Hacks that have been eliminated, including SALVGDA (audio profile), status and so on. The audio thing is really cool because you can quickly turn your Palm to silent mode easily. The "Alert Manager" helps you keep track of missed alarms and the like while the "Bluetooth" button has just eliminated BtToggle from your palm. In this one button, you can turn on or off your Bluetooth easily, and connect to another Bluetooth device.

Two more buttons are the "Screen Rotate" and "Virtual Graffiti". "Screen Rotate" rotates the screen from portrait to landscape. This is the kind of thing that FlipDA used to do remember? But now, this rotating seems to be done in HW, and even when you rotate the screen while Kinoma is playing a Hi-Res movie, there is no loss of quality, and so far, every app I’ve tried can be "rotated" with no side effects. "Virtual Graffiti" will pull down, or push up the virtual graffiti area on the screen. With apps that do not support VG, then it doesn’t do anything.

The "Home / Apps" button and "VG" button also do other things if you "press and hold". "Home / Apps" will show you a list of the last six apps you ran (minus hard button presses), thus eating into McPhling’s pie, and the VG will allow you to change your Virtual Grafitti look from the standard one to a keyboard to a three-panel Graffiti 2 look. McPhling incidentally has some problems because you can’t swipe from "Menu to Home" anymore if there is no VG displayed (hence no Menu or Home buttons!). And in fact, there is no "Menu" button on the silkscreen anymore! This will be tough.

Speaking of silkscreen buttons on the VG, one thing I miss is the calculator button. The four silkscreen buttons now are Home, Photos, VersaMail and DocsToGo. Since I don’t use any of Photos, VersaMail, and DocsToGo, I skip them entirely. And sadly, none of them are re-mapable. But I do use the Calculator (Parens actually) and wished there was a "calculator" button to map to it. The four hard buttons are still the same, but now there is a new re-mapable button on the side, namely the voice recorder button, which I’ve mapped to AeroPlayer. Speaking of re-maping buttons, the Palm Preference screen looks like something out of Win XP.. It also has colour theme support now, so I’ve eliminated Butterfly, Khroma and the likes..

Palm Preferences

Did I miss a button? Ah yes, the "Graffiti Anywhere" button. Well, it does what is says, allow you to turn on and off Graffiti anywhere on the screen. But it takes some getting used to. The default is that one quick press while GA is on is interpreted as a "dot", and a long press is a "screen tap". This is opposite the interpretation the freeware Graffiti Anywhere. But more about Graffiti later on.

Software Support for 320×480
This is the part where only time will tell. I’ve tried numerous softwares to see if they work with the VG on this T3 to get the full 320×480 experience. First, let me explain how applications can make use of 320×480 mode. There are actually no less than 3 different "APIs" for third-party developers to use to handle 320×480 mode. The first and most common is the Sony API for all the Clies, the second is the Palm API (sometimes referred to as Palm’s Version 1 320×480) which is also known as the Garmin iQue version, and the last is the Palm API Version 2 320×480 which is the one implemented on the T3. None of the three APIs are interoperable, so you can’t load a Sony 320×480 software on the T3 and expect to get full screen wonders. So you can only count on (at the time of this writing) original Palm apps (and not all of them either) able to take advantage of the 320×480 screen. Almost no third party app yet officially supports the native T3 320×480 API. However, there are ways to cheat - see the screenshots below:

Launcher X 1.03 Beta 320×320

Launcher X 1.03 Beta 320×480

Wordsmith 2.2.12 320×480

OK, so how is this possible, you ask? Simple, these apps were designed to support the Garmin iQue API (Palm Version 1 320×480 API), and what I did is load in the Palm’s Version 1 API libraries and wah-lah, 320×480 is now supported! Now there is an important caveat, once you install these libraries, it is extremely difficult to uninstall them, and no one really officially sanctions you to install them. Use at your own risk! But why use it? Well, here is a comparison of Adobe PDF Viewer and RepliGo. I think you can easily come to your own conclusion.

Adobe PDF Viewer 3.0.5 320×320

RepliGo 1.3 320×480

Need I say more? With this API, all the apps that support the Garmin iQue (Palm Version 1 320×480) API also does 320×480 in landscape mode. And yes, if you are wondering, you need Screenshot5 2.1 to take 320×480 screenshots, but version 2.1 still cannot take shots in landscape mode on the T3, so I can’t show any here. One third-party app that does support the T3 320×480 native API (Palm Version 2) is the just released Kinoma Player version 2. But regrefully, since Screenshot 2.1 cannot take the picture of Neo while Kinoma is playing, I can’t show you that in its full glory. Nevertheless, here is a bunch of 320×480 screenshots for your reference.

Kinoma Player 2.0.3 320×480

Acid Image Pro 2.9 320×480

Kinoma Player 2.0.3 320×480 Landscape

Acid Image Pro 2.9 320×480 Landscape

RepliGo 1.3 320×480 Landscape

Wordsmith 2.2.12 320×480 Landscape

Launcher X 1.03 Beta 320×320 Landscape with VG

Yes, you are seeing the Virtual Graffiti with Launcher X in that last one, and it has been "skinned" using Velo’s DIA VG skin.. Quite Cool huh? Notice the new silkscreen buttons as mentioned before. Games? Well, most games still can’t do the 320×480, even with the Version 1 API. And many games don’t quite get the Hi-Res either. Still, when it does work, it works very nicely. My favourite has got to be Billiards. Very beautiful and sounds great as well. I’ve got Bzzz! and Zap2016 for "old times’ sake", but I wished they’d update Bump Attack pinball. It doesn’t work quite right on the T3 currently. Note how some of the screen colours don’t work out well. Reminds me of the old Windows 3.x colour palette problems.. (Windows 3.x? Damn, I’m getting old..)

MegaSoft Billiards 4.2

AstraWare Bzzz! 2.0

AstraWare GTS Racing 1.03.12

AstraWare Zap2016 1.6

Graffiti 2
Another major change in this T3 is of course the change to Graffiti 2 (aka Jot). Now regardless of whatever each person may or may not say about this, I decided to just go in with an open mind and give it a try. In the beginning, I was pissed off with my "i" "t", "k" and capital "I" letters. But after two weeks, I am slowly getting the hang of it and am improving. Thankfully, it recognises most of the original Graffiti method as well as the new ways, meaning I can write letters like "a" and "d" in the Graffiti 1 way, or in the "handwritten way" and both will get recognised. However, for those die-hards who just want the original Graffiti 1 back, the method used to "re-install" Graffiti 1 on the T2 also works on the T3, although as they say, it is unsanctioned, possibly illegal and use at your own risk.

I still ended up installing the freeware Graffiti Anywhere for the simple reason that the on-screen display of Graffiti writing also includes the separator line showing where the alphabets and numbers were while the built-in Palm version does not. I need that for the "cross-over capitalisation" that easily allow you to capitalise your letters. Another major feature is the ability of freeware GA to turn off and on on-screen graffiti writing based on the application being run. Very useful - keep it on for Wordsmith, but off for Bzzz! and Billiards. So, even though the T3 has on-screen Graffiti writing built-in, I still strongly recommend installing freeware GA as well. Only thing is, it has some problems with "i" and "k" with Graffiti 2. But other than that, it’s an excellent app and well worthy of any amount of excellent praise.

In the end, I think this topic will be one of those topics ripe for flame wars in the forums, so I am only going to say: to each his own. For myself, my reasoning went like this: when I first picked up a Palm III, I had to learn Graffiti and now that it has changed to version 2 (aka Jot), I should be able to "re-learn" again. And after the initial pissed-off-ness, give me another couple of weeks and I am confident I will adapt fully to Graffiti 2. Why should I even need or want to re-learn? Well, because I want to make sure I personally am capable of changing with the changing times, and not be always "stuck" in the old, whatever the technology or reason.

Voice Record and Audio Playback
AeroPlayer works like a charm, and as I’ve mentioned before, the CPU is really fast to make background MP3 playback really useable. As for the voice recorder, its microphone is located on the side right between the headphone jack and "voice record hard button". It records audio in rather low mono 16bit quality, so it’s OK for basic use, but nothing fantastic. The length of time it can record though is quite good and can record to SD Card directly as well. I’ve found that the microphone recorder tends to drop off when sounds are too loud - its volume range is a little limited. Here’s a screenshot of the AeroPlayer, and a recording (converted from WAV to MP3) by the T3. And yes, the recording IS copyrighted!

AeroPlayer 2.10

Download "Love Leads" MP3

While on the topic of audio, here is one gripe I have for Palm. After they put in this nice speaker that even plays MP3s and WAVs quite well, the basic alarm system still uses the old "System_MIDI_Sounds.pdb" which is essentially a bunch a beeps and clicks. Now, I’ve got some nice MIDI tunes in there, Indiana Jones, Star Wars and so on, but can’t we have default alarm system that plays WAV or MP3 instead of these MIDI beeps? That isn’t cricket, old boy! Nevertheless, I suggest you try out WaveLet 0.60 which is freeware, or wavAlarm 1.3 which is not. Both allow you to configure a WAV file from your SD Card as your alarm sound. Now, there are limitations on the WAV files you can play. It must be uncompressed WAV and in the case of WaveLet, must be smaller than 64K in size. Also, in both cases, the way they work is that they merely "hook" into the Palm alarm system, and when an alarm is activated, they too get called and play the WAV file you selected. This means that the "normal" MIDI alarm also sounds when the WAV file is played. Nevertheless, you can set the MIDI alarm to silent or a short beep to make your WAV alarm the main alarm. The difference between the two is that WavAlarm allows you to configure specific programs to use specific WAV files, but WaveLet uses one WAV file for all. I’ve now got the Quantum Leap theme (anyone remember that show?) as my alarm..

Conclusion
Well, it’s been almost two weeks since I’ve switched to the T3 as my full-time day-to-day Palm and in that time, I’ve also added CrashPro and DigiFix. Even though it is much easier to reset the Palm now than ever before, Crash just makes it super easy with "auto-reboot". And while it is way too early to tell if these machines suffer from "Mad Digitizer Syndrome", I loaded DigiFix anyway.

I’ll give you a basic rundown on what I managed to get running happily:

• Bread and Butter: Agendus, FunSMS, Parens, RepliGo, Secret, ThinkDB, WordSmith
• Misc: MegaClock, Metro, MSDict
• Multimedia: Acid Image Pro, AeroPlayer, HandPainter Pro, Kinoma, MMPlayer, VFSi
• System: CrashPro, DigiFix, Filez, FindHack, Graffiti Anywhere, Launcher X, McFile, Screenshot5, WavAlarm
• Games: Bejewelled, Billiards, Bump Attack Pinball, Bzzz!, GTS Racing, Noah’s Ark, Rook’s Revenge, Zap2016

What I’m missing (at the time of this article)?

• A good backup program to SD Card - currently JBBackup sort of works, but has some problems still and Backup Buddy VFS doesn’t work at all
• A good standalone (and small) pop-up Today page like TealGlance Aggression in 320×480 Landscape mode!
• Nice Leather Case and Screen Protectors

What third-party software has been eliminated?

• Whole bunch of hacks and system software, not really because OS5 can’t support them, but more because they aren’t needed anymore - like McPhling, FlipDA, SALVGDA, key-lock, BtToggle, Butterfly, Khroma, etc
• Whole bunch of Flash/RAM/SD Card Software, cos 50+MB RAM is a lot of space - like PowerRUN, MSMount, JackFlash, FlashPro, etc (until you load up with too many MP3s of course
• Whole stacks of old games and softwares that just don’t cut it anymore - mostly black and whites, greyscales, from the Palm III days.

I think third-party developers have to go back to the drawing board to think up new ideas and things to do for the T3 because the T3 really provides lots of functionalities previously done so by hacks and other third-party software. Hmm, this reminds me of Microsoft..

So what’s the conclusion? You know, I believe that owning and using a Palm is a very personal thing, so your viewpoint will be different I’m sure: "cat flames >& /dev/null".. But I feel that Palm has finally done something right with the T3. For someone like me (a non-Gizmo-Whizz) who uses the Palm mostly for "work" (scheduling, contacts, etc) every single day and only sometimes for fun, the T3 is the real successor to the m505. Sure the Tungsten T was a jump, but it wasn’t a big enough jump for me to make the switch. But the T3, with its top notch 320×480 screen, big RAM, built-in Bluetooth, slim and sleek form factor, audio capabilities, fast CPU and many more features, has really made the difference in persuading me to upgrade from the m505. There are some small wish lists for the T3 of course (others have cited the battery life as "could have done better"), but overall, I find it hard pressed to name any character flaw in the T3 that ranks as a show-stopper or even a "let’s think about it first" issue. The proof of that is since I got my T3 and started work on this review, one of my Clie owning friends (mentioned above has just sold his Clie in favour of the T3. My view is the T3 will be a workhorse Palm for quite a while to come and well deserves 5 stars.

Only problem is, after everyone reads this review, no one is gonna want to buy over my m505.. sigh..

Likes

• 320×480 screen but in m505/Palm V slim and corporate looking form factor
• Fast CPU, big RAM, excellent screen and good speakers
• Good stylus for the first time in Palm history
• Good software updates (ie Task Bar, Calendar, Bluetooth integration, etc)
• Good price
• Eliminates a whole bunch of third-party software you don’t need to spend money on anymore

Dislikes

• Could have included more accessories like headset
• Graffiti 2 (but actually depends highly on the individual)
• Alarms could have been WAV/MP3 based instead of MIDI beeps
• Duh, what’s there not to like actually???

Links
http://www.handango.com - for most of your software needs
http://www.freewarepalm.com/moresoftware.shtml - for free software http://www.cerience.com/downloads/files/T3/T3_DIA_Compatibility_prcs.zip - Palm 320×480 Version 1 Libraries. http://www.palminfocentre.com/view_story.asp?ID=5830 - How to change to Graffiti 1 from Graffiti 2, sorry, but it is illegal to distribute the G1 libraries on the net, so I can’t tell you where or how to get them.

Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewer: Patrick Khoo
Date: 24 October 2003

Introduction
The screen is truly the most important part of a hand-held device. After all, you see stuff through it, and in most cases, you write or draw on it. It is responsible for both input and output. With that in mind, how far would you go to protect your Palm’s screen? It is quite amazing that people usually spend more money on accessories such as cases and styluses than on screen protectors. Who am I kidding? I still use my Palm III Write-Rights on my Palm V!

Screen protectors have long since been divided into two types - the rough to write on (read: attracts dust) and difficult to see through (read: blur) type and secondly, the very smooth to write on (read: scratches easily) and very clear screen (read: very reflective) type. Oh, how we wish we could have a screen protector that does it all. Well, I am pleased to present to you the A.R.M. Kit Screen Protector! Ta-dah! (read: drum roll in the background)

Alas! I had my hopes up for a minute, and then realised that it only manages to fall into the latter category, and is not the Holy Grail of screen coverings that we SPUGers are seeking.

Appearance

Well, as it turns out, the A.R.M. Kit is a very nice screen protector for the Palm V (which is the Palm I have). It is shaped exactly like the screen and has two blue strips over it, which you must peel off before you put it on the Palm. When you place it on the screen, it really goes from edge to edge (if you placed it right), and you can’t really see that there is a screen protector over the screen. There are also two extended "wings" protruding from the sides to prevent side leakage… err, I mean - to fit better and prevent shifting while in place. (Hmm, that still didn’t sound quite right…)

 

Feel
The surface feels very smooth and nice to the touch. Your stylus will float very easily across its surface but it is not too smooth that your stylus will slip or anything like that. Graffiti recognition is not a problem, and you should not see or feel any difference than if you were writing on the actual screen itself. Yep, the surface is smooth and nice to the touch…

Ease of Placement
This really took the cake! Perhaps I installed it wrongly, but it definitely took longer than I expected to install the A.R.M. Kit. Firstly, the two blue strips are there to protect the screen protector because the surface of it is sticks easily to the screen of the Palm. So while I was desperately trying to insert the wings under the sides of the Palm V screen edge, the whole thing kept getting stuck on the screen. And with that, bits of air bubbles got trapped under it…

Ease of Replacement
Taking out the A.R.M. Kit is okay but only if you can get one of the edges un-stuck from the screen. Because it first so perfectly, it is actually quite a challenge to get one of those edges off. A Smart Alec suggested using a metal ruler. I told him where he could stick his metal ruler… Once you’ve un-stuck an edge, the trick is to then lift up the middle first, take out the one of the wings, then remove it from the screen. I figured at this point that installation is probably the same way. Place it carefully aligned top and bottom, then put in one of the wings on the side, then slot in the other side. The sticky-ness problem continued though, it kept sticking to the sides and the screen, making it difficult to align properly. Sometimes when it stuck in a wrongly aligned position, it was a little difficult to remove and re-align. So much for preventing side leakage…

Bubbles

Bubbles are a serious problem here. Although I have been using it for a couple of weeks, the bubbles have not gone away. You can still see them quite easily and it makes my screen look like it caught the chicken pox from Hollow Man or something. No amount of pressing or credit-card-pushing would get rid of the bubbles. This is partly because the screen protector fits so nicely and sticks so well to the screen that it just doesn’t want to come out. The Smart Alec suggested I use a needle to poke a hole and let the air out. You can bet I told him where he could poke his needle…

 

Dust
On the plus side, you don’t really see much dust sticking to this baby. Only a little bit at the edges after two weeks, but it is hardly noticeable. There is not much of a problem with oil either, and it wipes clean easily. However, when wiping the screen, do take care because after a while, you will tend to see scratches on this thing. They’re mostly fine scratches, but they are scratches nonetheless.

Clarity

The screen is very clear and in the beginning, you feel as if you are looking at a naked Palm screen. Then you realise that it is as reflective as a naked Palm screen too. With that in mind, I recommend that users download HandMirror or something like that for their Palm, to complete the effect. And when I am in the office, I always have my Palm on in its cradle showing Time, but sometimes I have to tilt my head to the side because otherwise I would be looking at some fluorescent tubes instead. Finally, there I was trying to take a photo of my Palm for this review, but I was always getting myself into the picture. I guess what you have in the end is a picture of my ceiling lights and my self-portrait instead.

 

Conclusion
Well, to sum up, this is one of those things that you either love or hate. Some swear by Write-Rights and others by the Bible. If you are looking into this type of screen protector, then take a look at the A.R.M. Kit. Otherwise, if reflectivity is serious concern for you, then consider something else.

Likes:

• It’s clear and does not hamper screen viewing
• Smooth surface and does not capture dust and oils much
• Not very visible that there is a screen protector

Dislikes:

• Reflective screen
• Difficult installation
• Scratches easily
• Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles…

Availablity:
US$ 13 for a pack of two screen protectors obtainable from http://www.surplus.com.hk

SPUG Rating:
3 Palm Babies

   
Description
WDC2 is a add on to MS Word 97/2000 that will convert to and from MS Word and Doc, RichReader and iSilo format. It will optionally also install the converted PDB/PRC file for your next hotsync. A PDB/PRC Browser that understands all three formats in addition to JFile and MobileDB is also included. In addition, there is a preview mode, and sample Word Doc templates for optimal viewing and use on SmartDoc and TealDoc.

Download! (461K)

What’s New

• Updated for Word2000
• Compressed Doc version used by default
• iSilo conversions replaces ToGo (ToGo and iSilo use same format, just different converters)
• More error checking
• Small speed gains
• JFilePro converted now, not JFile.

Requirements

• Microsoft Word 97 or Microsoft Word 2000
• Windows 95/98, Windows NT (with DLL Modifications - See Docs \ Dll_readme.txt for more information), Not tested on Win2000
• Doc format reader for PalmOS device (eg SmartDoc, TealDoc, AportisDoc, etc)

Distribution (see "File List" for more details)
\ Doc (Further documentation and other stuff)
\ Samples (Sample documents in Word and Doc)
\ Software (Actual software code)
\ Template (Optional Word Templates)

Manual Installation
To Manually Install WDC2 make sure the files included are copied to the correct directories:

• Copy Software \ EAUSRDAT.dll -> C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM
• Copy Software \ *.* -> C:\Docs (for example)
• Copy Template \ *.dot %MSOFF%\TEMPLATES (%MSOFF% is the directory where MS Office is installed, normally, C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office)
• Create a Shortcut Link (in Explorer/File Manager) from C:\Docs\PalmDocConvert.dot (or location from step 2) to %MSOFF%\Office\Startup
• Run MS Word 97- At this point, you should see the new icons in a toolbar in Word, if not, review steps 1 - 4.
• Choose File > New > Palm SmartDoc.dot (for example) (creates new SmartDoc file)
• Type a few words
• Choose "T" icon (Text to Doc)
• Convert to Doc, hotsync, test by viewing document.

Manual Uninstallation
Remove Shortcut from %MSOFF%\Office\Startup Remove Palm SmartDoc.dot and Palm TealDoc.dot from %MSOFF%\Templates Remove all files and directories C:\Docs (or where you installed it to)

Using WDC2
In MS Word, there will be four (or three) new toolbar icons, labeled with a "P", "T", "L" or Blank. Click on "P" to convert a Doc/iSilo/RichReader document into MS Word. Click on "T" to convert your current MS Word Document into a Doc/iSilo/RichReader PDB file Click on "L" to open a PDB/PRC browser and viewer/converter. (The difference between the PalmDocConvert.dot and PalmDocCD.dot is that the PalmDocCD.dot does not have the "L" option.) Click on the blank icon to open your Palm Desktop.

Docs To Text
When the Docs To Text (P) button is pressed you are presented with the standard Word Open box looking for .prc or .pdb files. Selecting a file will convert the Doc to a temporary text file, which will then be opened is MS Word. To set the default directory shown when this button is pressed, see Text to Doc - Setup section below.

If this button is pressed again while the temporary file is still opened, you will be asked if you want to close the open temporary file. If Yes is selected, the file will be closed and overwritten with the new Doc file selected. If No is selected, the conversion is stopped and the temporary file is left open.

If the text file is subsequently saved as a Word document (rename the file if you do this), the original prc/pdb Title and the location (where the prc/pdb file was when converted) are saved and used a defaults if the document is reconverted back to a prc/pdb file.

The file to be converted is checked to make sure that it is a doc file before conversion begins and a message is displayed if it is not.

If the file selected is a JFilePro database, a message asking stating that it is a JFilePro file is shown, and asks if you still want it converted. If OK is clicked the database is converted and opened as a .csv file. This is only really useful to quickly get information out of a JFilePro database.

Text To Docs
When the Text To Docs (T) button is pressed you are presented with the upper part of a box. This box has various items.

Document Title
This is the name of the database that appears in the Doc program on the Palm unit. This will default from the first line of the document being converted if that line is 30 characters or less. Any non alpha-numeric characters will be removed.

File Name (.pdb)
This is the name of the file that will be created by the conversion. An extension of .pdb will be automatically added to this name. The default is the name of the document being converted.

Path Name for .pdb
This is the where the PDB file that will be created by the conversion will be placed. The button next to this field can be used to browse to a path. The default path will be entered initially (this default can be changed by clicking on the picture button - see Setup below).

User Names
A list of user names is shown here for use with the automatic Hotsync. The most recently used username will be the default.

Doc Categories
The different categories are shown in a drop down box. By choosing one, the doc file created will show up in that category when HotSynced. Unfiled is the default.

File Type
Doc always appears in this list. Other options are iSilo and RichReader. For these options to appear, the respective converters for these Palm apps must be available. (see "Manual Installation")

HotSync
If this box is checked, then the file will install on the Palm unit next HotSync.

Setup (the Picture button)
Clicking on the picture will display the setup part of the box (the lower part) where the default directory and language can be set. By placing the mouse over the picture, the tooltip shows the current default directory. The current default is C:\Doc. Right-clicking this box will bring up your Palm Install Tool window.

Default Directory
The Default Directory field is displayed by clicking on the picture (see "Setup" above). This default directory path is used by the "Path Name for .pdb" above and for the Doc to Text default directory. This field can be entered by either choosing a pre-assigned directory, or by using the browse button to locate a directory, or manually typing a directory. The pre-assigned directories are: where the template is stored (e.g. C:\Docs\). backup directories of the users of the Palm desktop. This makes it very easy for more than one user of a desktop to quickly locate and convert doc files from their backup directory.

Language
Choosing the language from this drop down box will change the view of the Text to Docs box. Currently only English and French supported.

Preview
Clicking this button will show the document in MS Word in an approximation of how it will appear on the Palm unit. This appears to be reasonably accurate for standard doc files, but not as accurate for RichReader files. However a reasonable approximation is still achieved.

Palm File Browser
This is only available in the full version. This button will not appear in the cut-down version. When the Palm File Browser (L) button is pressed you are presented with a box with the following items:

Path Name for .prc/.pdb
The files for the directory selected here will be displayed below. The button next to this field must be used to browse a path. The default path shown initially (clicking on the picture will reselect the default path).

Main Window
This shows the file name, the file type, either from a descriptive list, or the eight character name from the file, and the description from the file. The button at the top of each column can be used to sort these files in ascending order. When clicking on a file, the Install button will be active, and any number of files can be installed. Use Shift or Ctrl to select multiple files. When only one file selected, the Open button will be active. If the file is a Doc, JfilePro or MobileDB file, the button will change to Convert, and the file can be converted and opened. Otherwise the file will just open (not too useful unless you are trying to work out the file format).

Merging Docs
If more then one Doc is select, the Open/Convert/Merge button will default to Merge in the order shown on the list. The Doc files will append one after another into one unsaved Word document.

Print
This will printout the list of files to the current cursor position in the active Word document. This is useful to get a quick list of what you have installed, if you select you backup directory.

User Names
A list of user names is shown here for use with the Install button. The most recently used username will default.

Open Palm Desktop
This button (no letter) will open the Palm Desktop program.

Trouble Shooting
The buttons don’t appear:
The link to the .dot file is recommended that it be placed in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Startup. This assumes that that is the Startup directory. This may be different for some people, or may have been changed. To find out where the startup directory is, in MS Word, go to the menu options: Tools -> Options -> File Locations. In here, under the item "Startup", you will see a path. You can modify this path if you wish, but make sure that the shortcut to the .dot file (the .dot.lnk file) is placed in that directory. This should load the macro every time Word is open, making a toolbar appear.

Also, take note of the location of the support files. These files are: Doc Converter: makedoc.exe, iSiloC32.exe, RTF2Doc.exe (& *gen, *sym, *map) DB Converter: jconvpro.exe Macros: PalmDocConvert.dot, PalmDocCD.dot It is important that the location of the converters must be in the same directory as the Macros. It is therefore important that you create a shortcut link from the Office Startup Directory to one of the Macros.

File List
Docs: (Documentation)      
dll_readme.txt     Readme for EAUSRDAT.dll
MakeDocReadme.txt     Readme for MakeDoc.exe
Readme.txt     Hugh’s Original Readme.txt
Readme.html     Hugh’s Original HTML
      
Samples: (formatted to fit a Palm V Screen)      
Test SmartDoc.doc     A Sample Word Document formatted for SmartDoc
Test SmartDoc.pdb     Converted PDB of Test SmartDoc.doc
Test TealDoc.doc     A Sample Word Document formatted for TealDoc
Test TealDoc.pdb     Converted PDB of Test TealDoc.doc
      
Template: (for MS Word)      
Palm SmartDoc.dot     Template for SmartDoc formatted documents
Palm TealDoc.dot     Template for TealDoc formatted documents
      
Software: (WDC2)      
EAUSRDAT.dll     DLL to allo communication between Macro and Palm Desktop
iSiloC32.exe     Text -> iSilo -> Text converter
jconvpro.exe     CSV -> JFile/MobileDB -> CSV converter
makedoc.exe     Text -> Doc -> Text converter
PalmDocCD.dot     Word-Doc Converter 2 Cut-Down version (see "Using WDC2")
PalmDocConvert.dot     Word-Doc Converter
PalmDocConvert.dot.lnk     Sample Link from MS Office to Word-Doc Converter
RTF2Doc.exe     RTF -> RichReader -> RTF converter
*-gen, *-sym, *-map     Support files for RTF2Doc.exe

Legal Stuff
This software is provided as freeware and may be distributed freely. This software is provided on the basis that it works for the author. No other guarantee is given or implied. This product is provided without warranty and the user accepts full responsibility for any damages, consequential or otherwise, resulting from its use.

General Stuff
This was put together for my own use from an initial idea from Dave Mac, bits of code from other macros I’ve written, and from a rather nice bit Delphi code developed by Art Dahm, that I had made into a dll. I’ve since cleaned up the code a bit (made it smaller and added comments etc). Also, I’ve tried to put all the interesting stuff that the dll does (get user names, Pilot directory, install files to hotsync, etc) in one macro area and referenced to it. This is so you can use the code for other things that may take your fancy. If you find this useful or have got any comments to make I’d appreciate a quick email at gourleyh {at} enersis.co(.)nz. Cheers.

Thanks To

• Dave Mac - for the initial idea
• Art Dahm - for the open source Delphi code to the Palm information and for code to confirm that the conversion has ended
• Sylvain Arbour - for the French translation

Application Overview
Time is a desktop clock application for the Palm OS and having tried the program since version 1.0, it is quite a useful and mature product. It has a digital clock display, Monthly Calendar, World Clock, Current Day and Time and Repeating (or non-repeating) Scheduled alarms. You can define up to six foreign locations in your world clock, and up to three repeating alarms and even attach a short comment (or title) to each alarm.

 

Product Discussion
Having tried many different clock/calendars for my Palm, Time seems like a good bet because it combines several functions into one program. Firstly, you eliminate the need for a world clock. I doubt anyone really needs to know the time in more than 6 different cities around the world at any one point in time. Plus, it has the innovative idea of switching the world clock display, showing one of the six cities every 5 (or 10 or 17 or..) seconds. This saves screen space, and still lets you see the info that you need. Or if you choose not to, you can always turn of the "Auto-Switch" and click on the world clock display to cycle through the cities manually. Time comes preset with Moscow, London, US Eastern, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney, but you can define any other city that you need. All you need to know to configure your world clock is your GMT time zone. For example, Singapore is in the +8:00 time zone, for 8 hours ahead of GMT without Daylight Savings Time (DST).

The next neat thing about Time is that it shows you a calendar of the current month as well. Ever wished you could get rid of the monthly desk calendar from that pesky insurance agent? Or do you feel fed up with flipping or changing the month on your monthly calendar? Well, worry no more, Time’s monthly calendar display shows what you need to know in a concise and precise manner.

The third "service" Time provides, is the alarms. Want to remind yourself to turn off the oven? Well, just key in 9:40am, write "Turn off Oven" and click on "OK". Want to remind yourself to pick up the laundry at 5:00pm every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday? Again, just key in 5:00pm, write "Pick up Laundry", click on "M", "W", "S" and choose "OK". Easy as pie. The top status bar even shows you when your next alarm is scheduled to go off.

And of course, Time displays the time in a 12hour or 24hour digital display that takes up almost half the screen. The top status bar can be configured to display the date in any number of ways, as well as the day in long or short format and the next scheduled alarm. The preferences screen allow you to choose your alarm sound (from the System MIDI), how many times you wish to repeat it and how long before the next repeat. You can also choose to have Time set to "Auto Off" or "Always On" your Palm and you can configure the Up/Down keys to change either the month being displayed or the world clock city or between 12 and 24 hour display modes.

The thing that strikes me about Time is how they managed to squeeze all that info into a single, small Palm sized screen. One look, and it has replaced my desk clock, calendar and even added a reminder service. And you don’t even need to change screens to access any of these three functions. If you’re like me, you keep your Palm V in the cradle and on all the time, Time is a good addition to your desktop.

But I do have a number of gripes as well. Firstly, this being a pre-release version, there seems to be a bug in that when the alarm goes off (especially long alarm sounds), the clock display does not move. I like the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" as my alarm, and when it does ring, the seconds display stops moving until the alarm sound finishes. Tapping the display will stop the alarm and the "correct" time will be updated on the display.

The other thing about alarms is that when an alarm rings, it does not display a pop-up message telling you that the alarm is ringing and what the alarm is. If your palm is off, or if you’re in some other app, the Time application will come on and you’ll hear your alarm sounds go off, but that’s it. It would have been better to also add a small pop-up window that displays the alarm time and the comment you wrote when you set up the alarm when the alarm goes off like how the datebook does it. And after you have stopped a ringing alarm, the auto-repeat will kick in and you will hear your alarm a second time if you do not manually turn off (delete) the alarm you had scheduled.

And again about alarms, after you have scheduled an alarm, the display on the status bar will always change to display the next scheduled alarm. I like my status bar to show the day and date in long mode, but it’s annoying that everytime I set an alarm, I have to reset the status bar to display the day again. But I tested this on a Palm III (okay, the Palm III Emulator anyway), and this problem did not seem to happen. There seems to be some screen real-estate just below the world clock and above the alarm scheduling section and that would have been a better place to "Always" display the next scheduled alarm.

Finally, there seems to be a little confusion about Daylight Savings Time as well. I dont’t think that London has DST but the default installation settings has London with DST set.

The next three comments I have are actually suggestions for Time. The other common feature lacking in Time is a stop watch. One with a with an easy to use interface, count-down stop watch and lap-timer would be quite a useful addition to Time. And the other thing is that they could add a small tick (or other mark) to the calendar to display that you have scheduled appointments on that date from the datebook. Clicking on that date automatically sends you to the corresponding date in your datebook. And of course you could have preferences options for which datebook app you wanted to call up if you didn’t use the standard datebook app. Too bad the screen size doesn’t allow one to choose between a digital clock display or an analog one. I don’t think an Analog clock would look too good here, but it’s a thought for the developers to think about. Who knows eh?

   
Pros

• Very useful screen display, shows you everything you need on your desk, and still not feel cluttered or too small to read.
• Configurable alarms and easy to schedule repeating alarms.
• World clock and calendar displays are easy to use and not too complicated for the average guy.
• Documentation is sufficient and clearly written.
• Low price.

   
Cons

• Quirky behaviour in the alarms section
• No stop watch
• While it’s got a good display for the monthly calendar, it doesn’t link up with your datebook.

   
Conclusion
So, would I recommend it? Yes. There are some small things in Time that could be improved, but if we can live with Windows, I think this is a small problem. If you keep your Palm V on in the cradle all the time, you can throw out the desktop clock your sister gave you and the calendar your company insurance agent distributed to all staff. A person might need to have AnaClock and ClockPro together, one for a desktop clock and the other for alarms, but with Time, well, I guess not anymore eh?

   
Rating
3 and a half Palm Babies. If the bugs (quirky behaviour) in the alarm section above are fixed in the next release, I think it deserves a rating of four Palm Babies.   

   
Summary:
Available from: http://www.PalmGear.com (Real time fullfillment)
Price: Shareware US$8.00
Developer: Horace Ho
Developer Home Page: http://palm.pair.com
Requirements: Palm OS 2.0 and 27Kbytes free

General Overview
A Text Completion Software is a kind of software that tries to "suggest" words or phrases that you are trying to graffiti. While Windows CE users have such capabilities with Jot (from CIC) and it’s auto-completion options, Palm users have to choose from some other not so integrated choices. In this review, I pick out three different options for users and give them all a test run. They are LookDA 2.5, TextPlus 3.0 and WordComplete 1.0. Incidentally, WordComplete is from CIC, the makers of Jot. Just for your reference, they were run on a Palm V8 with about 5 hacks and 5 more Desk Accessories (DAs) running at the same time. I tested their capabilities with various applications like the built-in apps, SmartDoc, MemoPlus and so on.

As I mentioned, each application is not fully integrated with the system like Jot on CE is, and as such, you have a few issues to think about. Firstly, if you use graffiti echo software, screen refresh problems will be something you will have to live with. Secondly, they take up valuable memory space to store the word lists. Thirdly, no text completion software is going to give you perfect results right off the bat. Although with the frequency suggestion capabilities of TextPlus and WordComplete, it will slowly "learn" your favourite words as you use it. All three softwares allow you to configure the length of words to suggest, how many letters you graffiti before they suggest a word, configure your own dictionary of words and phrases and where and how many suggested words or pharases are displayed.

Text completion software is something you should consider if you graffiti a lot on yor palm, and want to have a faster way of entering words and phrases. My recommendation is to look at the graffiti shortcuts option in your Palm before considering any of text completion software. There are in fact many other choices out there, other than these three, like NoteTaker 1.3, SpellCheck, SpellMan, Thesaurus 1.11 and WordList. You may also want to try them if you’re interested (I did!).

Product Discussion - LookDA 2.5

LookDA has a simple display system for suggested words. They are displayed at the bottom of your screen and you can choose between a one-line or a two-line display. Each line can show up to three suggestions. Furthermore, it allows you to configure your graffiti up-stroke to display a pop-up list of user-configurable word/phrase lists. Thus, you can graffiti the letter "K" and do an up-stroke and display all your own defined words and phrases starting with the letter "K". The fun doesn’t stop there, because you can define "auto-attachments". For example, when you graffiti "vehi" and complete "vehicle" it adds a space at the end to make "vehicle ". Graffiti an "s" and you get "vehicle s" which is not quite what you want. Auto-attach allows you to configure it such that whenever LookDA sees a " s" it will automatically remove the space, giving you "vehicles". This auto-attachment feature works not just for single letters, but also for things like " ,", " ed", " !" or whatever suits your fancy! LookDA not only allows you to enter words into its custom database by Learning or Forgetting individual words, but also allows you to scan an entire document or memo with 5 or more characters to be automatically entered. LookDA even allows you to configure which applications you do not want LookDA to be active. By far, one of the biggest bonuses of LookDA is it only requires a measly 30K!

However, I find that the initial databases that are provided for you are very rudimentary and do not have enough words and phrases to get you started. It’s a bit like the first few voice-recognition software that came out. You have to spend some time "training" (and configuring) it before it starts to do things the way you want it to. None of the " s" or " ," auto-attachments are "pre-defined" for you, so you’ll have to do it yourself. Well, I suppose that 30K size thing has something to do with it. Furthermore, you need hackmaster and the accompanied eLook Hack to run this software across all applications. DA Launcher can do it, but not automatically in all text entry fields. In addition, LookDA uses its own menu when it is suggesting words. To get to your application’s menu, you have to first tap the title bar, then tap menu. For those of us with hacks that define the title bar to bring up the menu, you end up having to tap the title-bar twice. But this is only true if LookDA is not suggesting a word. Or if it has suggested a word, but you have moved on. And if you have already… Confusing? Yep.

Product Discussion - TextPlus 3.0

TextPlus is different from the other two in that you can use it in two different ways - as a standalone editor editing the clipboard, or in a global "TextPlus Anywhere" mode. You can of course use both if you so choose. The standalone program also allows you to key in and remove words and phrases from the database. One interesting feature of TextPlus is the fact that you can create more than one database of words. For example, you can have one database for French, another for German and a third for English. Thus, you can simply switch between databases when you need to write in a different language. Another important note is that it also makes suggestions to words when you do a backspace. For example, if you key in "Compl" and choose "Complete" then backspace to get "Comp", it will immediately suggest "Computer". TextPlus will suggest words and phrases together, or words only, or phrases only, according to your settings. In addition, it can also give you statistics about the word and phrase databases. The biggest downside to TextPlus is that it uses a whopping 180K to start. Another slight problem I have is that all the words it suggests in the beginning are in alphabetical order, not according to frequency of use. Although TextPlus will "learn" the frequency of words and eventually adapt to your personal needs, I think a predefined set of frequencies to start would have been quite useful.
   

Product Discussion - WordComplete 1.0

CIC, who makes Jot and the auto-completion software for the CE platform, has decided to do something similar with WordComplete. My question is why they didn’t offer a bundled option (read: integrated version) with Jot for Palm (which they also have). Perhaps the developers have not reached that stage yet. WordComplete is a very easy to use program. Just hotsync it, tap on "Enable WordComplete" and choose the settings you want and off you go. You can then double-tap words to add (or forget) from its own database. It’s suggestions also seems to be the best, since it seems to make suggestions with built-in frequencies already pre-set and thus requires almost no learning time at all (so to speak). From the WordComplete screen, you can also edit the custom database as well is a very easy to use interface.

On the other hand, the biggest problem is the screen refresh. Every time you backspace and try to write something, it gives you this problem. After a while, it becoms quite annoying. CIC’s Technical Support Forums have suggested to remove your graffiti echo software as a solution. Well, I’ll leave it to you if you find that solution acceptable or not. Furthermore, it does not have any phrases installed by default, so you’ll have to graffiti in your own. I suppose this partly explains why it’s smaller than TextPlus.

Pros and Cons
LookDA is free and highly confugurable to meet almost everyone’s concievable needs, but it requires a fair bit of work to get it to the point where you are happy with it. This high "set-up" cost may be quite a deterrent. It would have been better if Millman had provided a better initial database with some basic english and punctuation "auto-attaches" already included. Furthermore, it requires you to run Hackmaster, which may (or may not) pose a resource issue.

TextPlus has the best screen refresh of the three of them, and the ability to suggest words even when you backspace into a word is a definate plus point. After all, we’re not perfect right? It also seperates phrases from words and suggests from either or both, so you can use it where you need it most. And that multiple database thing is a boon for multi-lingual people, as long as you write with roman alphabets at least! The bad point is that it takes up so much space, and does require some use before it gets used to the "frequency" of words and starts giving better suggestions.

WordComplete is much easier to use than the other two and has better suggestions than the others. For beginners, this is a very important thing. You can install, activate and find it useful right away. Unfortunately, it’s the most expensive of the lot, and the screen refresh is a real pain.

Conclusion
All of three software have some screen refresh problems with "screen manipulation software" (read: graffiti echo), but TextPlus has the least and WordComplete has the most problems. LookDA seemed to cause a bit of slowdown when using a graffiti shortcut. Although the others did have some performance issue with that, it was most obvious with LookDA. But if you are worried about performance problems, just try Afterburner or some other over-clocking software for the Palm (something CE devices can’t do). As for Flash memory, WordComplete seems to be flash compatible, but I’m not too sure about TextPlus and LookDA. In the final analysis, each of them cater to a slightly different audience. If you are short of cash or want control of your text entry at a very customised or detailed level, LookDA is the best and only choice for you. Pick LookDA also if you you are so short of space on your palm that you can hardly breathe. If you are an absolute beginner, and can’t tell a graffiti "v" from a graffiti "u", then you may want to consider either WordComplete or TextPlus. Finally, if you want value for money, and can see yourself using it in the long run, take a close look at TextPlus. Especially if you have memory to fit it in.

Summary:
Review: Comparison of three leading text completion software
Review Date: November 22, 1999
Available from: Most leading Palm Software site (eg http://www.PalmGear.com)

Software 1: LookDA 2.5
Developer: C. S. Millman
Developer Home Page: http://member.nifty.ne.jp/yamakado/da/
Price: Free
Requirements: Palm OS 2.x and above, at least 30K and Hackmaster

Software 2: TextPlus 3.0
Developer: SmartCell Technology
Developer Home Page: http://www.smartcell.com
Price: US$ 19.95 (14 day demo available)
Requirements: Palm OS 2.x and above, at least 180K

Software 3: WordComplete 1.0
Developer: Communication Intelligence Corporation (CIC)
Developer Home Page: http://www.cic.com
Price: US$ 24.99 (5 day demo available)
Requirements: Palm OS 2.x and above, at least 120K

General Overview
Firstly, what exactly is a "PalmOS PrefDB Management Software"? Well, in order to understand that, one needs to understand how the PalmOS manages applications and application preferences.

Each PalmOS application is assigned a unique CreatorID. No two applications in the PalmOS world have duplicate CreatorIDs. These CreatorIDs are four character codes, and all CreatorIDs that consist of all lower case letters are officially reserved for Palm and PalmOS applications. Each application can then create its own preference settings in the PalmOS Preference Database (PrefDB). Think of this PrefDB as the PalmOS equivalent to the Windows Registry. The difference is that each preference created has it’s CreatorID attached, so one can always find out which application created that entry in the PrefDB.

Unfortunately, just like in the Windows world, not everyone follows the rules, and many applications leave their "droppings" behind in the PrefDB even after you delete it. These "droppings" are called Orphaned Preferences, where the associated application that created the preference can not be found on the PalmOS. This is true even if you use your launcher or other such program (like FPS Utilities 4) to delete your applications. Even if you choose "Delete Preferences" when deleting an application (like in Launch ‘Em), some of these applications leave Orphaned Preferences behind. These applications do this for various reasons, like installation history, licensing, and so on.

The problem with this is that it eats up space on your Palm. Furthermore although no application is supposed to duplicate another application’s CreatorID, it would be quite disasterous if you installed two applications with the same CreatorID on the same PalmOS device. And if your PrefDB gets too large and has too many entries (just like the Windows Registry) it could be the cause of crashes and other problems. All this is especially true if you regularly install and delete all sorts of programs.

The solution to this, and the PalmOS world’s equivalent to the Windows RegClean, is PalmOS PrefDB Management Software. As with RegClean, you must be careful how use any of these software since it can really mess up your system if you use it improperly. In this comparative review, we will take a look at three such programs, Preference Editor 0.1.2, PrefViewer 1.0.4 and PrefMgr 1.5.

Product Discussion - Preference Editor 0.1.2

Preference Editor has a very simple interface, showing you a list of CreatorIDs of each preference in the PrefDB on the left, and the associated Application on the right. Orphaned Prefrences have "-none-" displayed where the application ought to be. It allows you to view both saved and unsaved preferences. Select any one of them, and you can click on view or delete. View shows you both the hex and text data of that particular preference record, while delete removes that preference permanently from your PrefDB.
   

Product Discussion - PrefViewer 1.0.4

PrefViewer basically allows you to view both the saved and unsaved preferences. You can also switch to Hex mode and view each preference record in hex if you like. to view the next preference, just hit the "next" button. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent "previous" button. When it comes across an Orphaned Preference, it shows "belongs to: - no app -" on its screen. It does not have a delete function but interestingly enough, it has a manu option labeled "(nothing)" that allows you to create a "dummy application" named "DeleteMe" with the offending CreatorID. You can then use your launcher to remove the "DeleteMe" application and it should also take the preference along with it.
   

Product Discussion - PrefMgr 1.5

PrefMgr is probably the oldest program of these three. When you first start the program, you must press the "Go" button for it to scan the entire PrefDB. The screen is divided into three parts, but this is not obvious to the beginning user. The top part holds a drop-down list of all the preferences it finds, the middle has a scrollbar and allows you to browse the summaries of each preference record, while the bottom part consists of three buttons, "Go", "Mark/Unmark" and "Delete". What makes it confusing is that when pressing the "Delete" or "Mark/Unmark" button, it will perform that action on the Preference record listed in the top part of the screen, not the middle. What is nice about PrefMgr is that it gives you two useful features - a "Delete Orphans" button and allows you to keep a list of "Favourite" preferences so that you can just choose "Delete Favourites" from the menu to get rid of the lot of them. For developers for example, this would be quite a useful feature to have since you don’t always have to keep hunting for your app’s preference record to delete it when doing debugging.
   

Conclusion
There is one irritating feature of the three programs reviewed: none of them sort the preference list in any way at all. They appear in the order they are stored in memory. For beginners, the "Delete Orphans" menu option in PrefMgr is a no brainer. Can’t get any simpler than that. And it’s ability to keep a list of favouries is a good one the have. Even so, one really wonders if these two features are really worth the US$15 that the author wants for it.

PrefViewer on the other hand, has a serious flaw in that it reported preferences created by Desk Accessories (DAs) like ezConvDA, MelodyDA, CalCal and so on as an Orphaned Preference when it was not. Preference Editor and PrefMgr did not make this mistake.

Under the circumstances, it looks quite clearly that Preference Editor is the way to go.

Update
Bodo Bellut, developer of Preference Editor 0.1.2, highlighted that Preference Editor doesn’t contain a Delete Orphans option on purpose, because in his opinion it is far to simple to [accidentally] delete valuable information using such an option.

Furthermore, Sven Bring commented that he compared the lists that Preference Editor and PrefMgr created, and there were many prefs reported by Preference Editor as orphaned that PrefMgr found to be in use. He didn’t dare delete anything after seeing this. Bodo Bellut replied that Preference Editor reports all records that are not owned by an application. That doesn’t mean they’re not used by any application. PrefMgr perhaps somehow "knows" some such preferences and doesn’t display those. It also doesn’t display it’s own record used for licensing.

Personally, licensing or not, every software developed ought to use PrefDB properly. Some, like Multimail, are notorious, using ten to twenty (too many to count) PrefDB entries. And for what, I have no idea. Until such issues are resolved, I guess we’ll still need to watch our Windows Registry, oops, I mean Palm PrefDB carefully.

Summary:
Review: Comparative review of three PalmOS PrefDB Management Software
Review Date: January 25, 2000
Updated: January 22, 2001
Available from: Most leading Palm Software site (eg http://www.PalmGear.com)

Software 1: Preference Editor 0.1.2
Developer: Bodo Bellut
Developer Home Page: http://www.bellut.net/pilot.html
Price: Freeware (GPL)
Requirements: 22Kb

Software 2: PrefViewer 1.0.4
Developer: HotPaw
Developer Home Page: http://www.hotpaw.com/rhn/hotpaw/
Price: Freeware
Requirements: 7Kb

Software 3: PrefMgr 1.5
Developer: Schachar Levin
Developer Home Page: http://members.xoom.com/PixIL/Software/PrefMgr/index.htm
Price: US$15
Requiremnts: 15Kb