(click image above to return to 'Clie World') Welcome to the 'pilot' edition of CLIEWorld Magazine. In this first issue you will find a taster of what to expect in future issues such as reviews, articles and loads of interesting CLIE/Palm OS related information. This issue if free and is really a tester to see what future features are required by you- the reading public. You should expect at least 4 times the content in future issues. I would be grateful if you could take the time to let me know what type of content you would like to see in the future (email me: webmaster@clieworld.co.uk). I'm particularly interested in what 'format' you would prefer to view the magazine in. There are a few options such as HTML, iSilo, HandStory Clip, Doc, Palm Reader etc. The reasons for the first three formats are that I think this is the 'only' PDA related magazine available which actually looks like a magazine on a PDA i.e. graphics, full formatting etc. If you are reading this you probably own a PDA, it's more than likely colour and if it's a CLIE it's likely to have hi-res so it makes sense to take advantage of these features. Don't worry if you own an older PDA- the text version will always be available via Palm Reader or Doc. Finally I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this first edition, in particular George Birman and Sean Charles, and look forward to working with you all for a long time to come. CONTENTS: 1/ PDAWorld 2/ Handstory 2.1 Suite Review/Feature Set 3/ World Cup 2002 Fever 4/ The Law in the Palm (or Clie) of your hand 5/ Have you got 'Download Disease'? 6/ My Clie In My World… 7/ TimeTraveler Review/Feature Set 8/ Special Interview (Erik Telford) 1/ PDAWORLD by Shaun McGill It would be safe to say that the world of PDA's is a small place that only a minority of the population venture into. My guess is that the majority of people who see me reading a book or checking my emails on my Clie on the morning train journey either think I'm a poser or that I'm a little strange- "he's probably storing a list of people he's about to kill" "hmmm- people who use things like that usually have a mental deficiency which causes them to sit hunched over like that staring at the small screen" "shall I call the police?" "yes- best to make sure nothing happens to us" It is totally acceptable though for the man in his pin striped suit to get out his laptop, turn it on to the tune of the Windows 'da daa' sound clip at the loudest volume and then spend the next hour making the most annoying clicking sound imaginable and making a mobile phone call every 5 minutes:- "just thought I'd let you know that my ETA is 35 minutes- I'll be in at the same time I am every other sodding day" "we've been delayed at the station- my ETA is now 37 minutes- I'll be in a little later than I am every other sodding day! By the way- can you ask Giles to call me so that every poor sod in this train knows that I own a mobile phone with a rediculous ring tone." Part of the problem may lie in the fact that a lot of us spend sooooo long enthusing about what they can do and trying to find the perfect machine and software combination to hold 'every' possible detail we could ever need. I wonder how many of us spend more time organising our lives rather than living them? Saying that, how many times do you see someone at work waste countless hours looking for telephone numbers, email addresses etc. I make it a rule that if a person has ever slagged off my Clie or called me a geek and they need a telephone number I will not get it for them even if it's only 2 clicks away (or 72 clicks if you own a Pocket PC). And why is it that we get so personally attached to our PDAs (or is it just me)? I can download a wonderful looking and useful program to my laptop and think 'that's quite nice'- give me a simple word game on my Clie and it's 'wow- look at that!'. I suspect it's because, if you are a power user, you can carry around music, dictionaries, every contact detail you will ever need, a complete agenda, photos etc. etc. etc. in a machine that fits in your hand and there is something quite reassuring about that. Anyway- enough of my rambling. Don't worry the content of this magazine improves after this point because most of it's written by other people. 2/ HANDSTORY SUITE 2.1 REVIEW/FEATURE SET by George Birman Handstory Suite 2.0 is a program which begins to blur the lines between functionality. You can say that it's an all in one Memo Pad, HTML/document/e-book reader, and high resolution picture viewer. What handstory lacks in one area, it replenishes itself in another. The program is ideal for people on the go, who just want to quickly grab some information from here and there and take it with them on their palm. In this review, we'll go over the pros and cons of this program, compare it to it's competitors, and, since this is a Clie-oriented magazine, we'll see how well it takes advantage of the Clie's features. The screenshot above shows the main, or "home" screen of Handstory. It's simple, yet already gives you a lot of information about the files you have stored on your Clie or the Memory Stick. The little card logos next to the files (in the above picture, next to Palminfocenter, and PalmTipsheet) point out that the file is stored onto the memory card. One negative feature about storing files onto the memory stick is that when you update them on your PC, they sync to the ram, so you have to erase the ones on your card, and then transfer the "fresh files" back onto the card to preserve ram space. As you can see, one of the files is locked, in this picture you can obviously tell because it is masked, but even if you decided to show all private records, the little "lock" logo would be next to a private file. The bottom navigation bar lets you choose from the different modes: Selecting 'New' will create a new memo, selecting 'Category' will open a pop up menu when selecting a file (in this pop menu you can adjust the category of that file), and selecting 'Details' lets you alter some properites of each file, such as the name, whether it's private or not, and it lets you see the file's size and allows you to move the file to the memory card. (see picture at below left). Another nice feature is the pop up menus that come up when you click on the little logos next to each file. These menus let you Open, Categorize, Delete, View Details, Move to card, and Beam each file. Clip Clips can be downloaded from Handstory's new Clip Serivce (http://www.handstory.com/clip/index.html), or you can make your own by making a custom clip. However, currently, making custom clips isn't all that great, it isn't anything at all like iSilo's HTML converter (read on for a comparison), but the developers of Handstory are promising to release a new clip editor, which should make converting Avantgo-style clips to Handstory very easy. One other important thing is that Handstory doesn't support Tables, like iSilo does. Document/E-Book You can convert literally any text from your computer into handstory, and it's converted into the standard palm document format. This can be a negative, or a positive, a positive because you can also read these files from differnet applications such as Quickword and the like, and a negative because you can't preserve font colors, and other features like bold, italic, etc. through the simple palm document format. On another postivie note, handstory is great for those who need documents NOW, because you can just highlight the exact portion of text you need, right click, click 'save to palm', hotsync, and out the door w/your documents. Handstory also features a small, yet free, E-book library, at http://www.handstory.com/ebook/index.html. Picture You can convert almost any picture from your computer to your palm. Just right click and save to palm. It's up to you whether you convert it into high-resolution and high color, grayscale, and other varieties. Pretty useful. You can also crop images through the Handstory Program. Memo Write Memos on your palm. What more is there to say. Lock/Private File Shows that a file is password protected Card (File is located on expansion card) Viewing Files and Pictures Handstory can be a great file/HTML reader, for many reasons, including it's ability to show, crisp, high-resoultion color images, and the ability to change the size of the font to fit much more text on the screen. I tried converting this review into the Handstory format, and it worked wonderfully. It didn't look like the version that you're reading, but rather, Handstory made the review to fit the width of the screen and it was very easy to read. When i did the same thing with iSilo, the review wasn't converted to fit the width of the screen, and the font was much to big, making the review misaligned. There's a variety of clips availble at Handstory's clip service, and the library is growing every day. The new ClipEditor, as soon as it's released, should make converting HTML documents to handstory even easier. However, one thing that iSilo can do that Handstory currently can't is to "miniturize" a website to read on the palm. For example, I convertedthe clieworld website, and it looked very similar to the real version in iSilo, but doing this with handstory kept everything in it's original size. I read somewhere that people have easily found the "secret" URL's to Avantgo channel sites, and have been syncing them to their Handstory Suites. (By the way, anybody has any info on this, please e-mail me, xps800@msn.com, or just e-mail Shaun). When reading a document you can set it to autoscroll, and you can adjust the speed of autoscroll in 'Scroll Prefrences'. For those who've had experience with iSilo, you won't be able to get that smooth scrolling effect, it'll be more "rough". You can also set bookmarks in documents.The back button is not well supported. Pressing it will bring you to Handstory's home screen, unlike in iSilo, where it would bring you to the last page youi viewed. As an image viewer, Handstory does a pretty good job. Ofcourse, it lacks a slideshow feature, and doesn't have any way that you could browse over all of your photos with thumbnails, but it's still great considering the fact that it's an add-on to an applciation. Below is an image I converted into High-color format, but I could have converted it into 256 or Grayscale. The top one is the original image. As you can see, they're pretty much the same. If the original image was bigger, it would have been automatically resized. Below are three pictures of an article in my PalmInfoCenter Clip, which includes pictures. In handstory, there are three different font sizes, here, I'm only showing the two hi-resolution ones. The largest font is just silly. The picture at the top is in Medium font with the bottom toolbar on. The middle picture is in Medium font without the toolbar, and the bottom is in the smallest font without the toolbar. (Medium Font with toolbar) (Medium Font without toolbar) (Small font without toolbar) The Toolbar Pressing this will close the current file you are in and will return you to the home screen. Works same way as in internet explorer. The magnifying glass to the leftmost, when pressed, finds the last thing you searched for, the center one will open the find box, and the rightmost one is like the forward button but for searching. This shows how much of the page you've read. When pressed you can navigate through the document. Pressing this once will bring you to the "home page" of a clip (if you're in a clip), and the second time will bring you to Handstory's home screen. Comparisons AVANTGO Uses: Read Internet Content Amount of channels/clips available: Tons Ease of use/converting: 1 (Custom channels are a pain) Time it takes to convert files and go: 6 (syncing avantgo is rather slow) Clie Feature Support :2 - Jog Dial only (not even hi-res) Price: Free HANDSTORY Uses: Read internet content, e-books, documents, view pictures, write memos Amount of channels/clips available: Limited, but rapidly growing Ease of use/converting: 9 (speed and integration) Time it takes to convert files and go: 9 (you can choose what to sync for clips, and you can simply right click and save to palm) Clie Feature Support :9 - (doesn't support formatted text) Price: $19.95, or $5 upgrade iSILO Uses: Read documents, internet content, view images Amount of channels/clips available: Almost none Ease of use/converting: 7 Time it takes to convert files and go: 5 (open the program, wait, then sync) Clie Feature Support : 10 Price: $17.50 In the end...... I think it's a good idea to get Handstory if you need to do these things on your palm. Even though it lacks some, (a very small amount though) features that iSilo has, you save so much time comverting things. I like this program for the same reason that I like the Quickoffice suite, because everything is integrated (what I'm talking about is how in Quickoffice, there are built in menus in Microsoft Word, Excel, etc. to convert things to your palm). As soon as there are more clips available, and the Clip editor is released, and as soon as there are more E-books, I'm guessing this will be one of the most popular programs for the Palm out there. Update Handstory Suite 2.1 had now been released. Included is the anticipated clip editor, and I must say, getting websites into Handstory format is much easier now. I converted Clieworld.com to Handstory, and it turned just good enough so that I could view pictures and read articles easily. New feautures in the actual Palm program is the ability to decide whether Handstory remembers or doesn't remeber the password you enter, and whether or not to show, hide, or mask private records. . Update for 2.0 users is free, the price remains the same for the full version. - George Birman (xps800@msn.com) 3/ WORLD CUP 2002 FEVER by Shaun McGill The biggest sporting event in the world is almost upon us- four years in the making, 100's of goals, millions of fans and an awful lot of tears (I know about the tears- I'm Scottish). If you are intent on watching as much of it as possible here's a quick quide to some programs which will help you track and keep a record of the action. Of course a Palm powered PDA has a lot of useful built in tools which will help you plan your viewing over the summer and keep track of the results as they happen but it's even nicer when someone else makes all of the effort for you. Here are some examples:- WCup 2002 WCup 2002 is a free application available from www.tinystocks.com. It's a very colourful application with some excellent features, especially the 'scores' section which allows you to enter the scores for each group match and have the points totals, group positions and goal difference automatically calculated for you. Once the first round has been completed and the scores entered you can then go to the 'quarter final' button and the teams will be there already for you to enter the next lot of scores and this functionality is there all the way to the final. There are also some other useful sections built into the program:- STADIUMS- full stats on each stadium participating in the tournament including games being played, capacity, parking and travel instructions. MATCHES- a diary type interface which will show all matches being played when you click a date GROUPS- a simple list detailing the teams in groups A to H TEAMS- details games to be played, Achievements (World Cup and other tournaments) and a profile of the 'star player' It's impossible not to recommend this program- it's very quick in operation, has a simple and functional interface and is comprehensive without taking up too much space on your Palm. There is a string of advertisments running accross the top of the screen but they do not interfere with operation- it took me 10 minutes before I even noticed them. This has to receive and overall mark of 8.5 out of 10 as it's free and does exactly what it is supposed to do- excellent stuff! PSCup 2002 FIFA World Cup Schedule 1.2 There is no doubt that the developers of this application have tried to make the 'daddy' of World Cup 2002 tracking programs and initial impressions are very good which is mainly down to the clean and colourful graphics and the nice animated touches with menus sliding in from the side of the screen etc. The main screen has three sections- History, Korea/Japan 2002 and News. HISTORY- this is nice and will prove useful long after the world cup is over. You click a button e.g. 1998 France and you are then taken to all sorts of statistics such as fixtures, topscorers and much, much more. The program also includes full statistics on qualification matches, team details and too many other features to mention. KOREA/JAPAN 2002- another excellent section which covers everything you could possibly need to know about this years tournament including Venue information including a location map, you can simulate match results and analyze the probabilities of your country being the next World Cup champion and organise your agenda by entering your favorite matches with alarms in case you want to be reminded. NEWS- when you hotsync you will receive the latest World Cup news along with automatic results, goals, cautions, referees etc. etc. etc. I could write about this program for a long, long time but I won't. Although it is the most expensive program here ($11.99) and it has a footprint over 200kb it is well worth both. The amount of information available is incredible and the hotsynced daily information makes it extremely good value to which it receives 9.5 out of 10. Full details are at www.palmr.com. I tried a few more World Cup tracking programs such as FIFA World Cup Fixture 2002, 2002 Soccer World Cup and World Cup 2002 1.1 but the two above won by a mile- so, the choice is yours dependant on how much you want to spend on tracking every moment of this exciting spectacle. If you are lucky enough to be travelling to Japan/Korea to see your country's games live (I hate you!) then I would advise taking a look at section 8 in which George Birman has done a review of My Time Traveler which includes a host of programs designed to aid your communications whilst abroad. Make sure you also take your charger along or you won't be using any programs! Good luck Ireland!!!!! 4/ THE LAW IN THE PALM (OR CLIE) OF YOUR HAND by Robert Lands MEDIA LAWYER ROBERT LANDS FROM FINERS STEPHENS INNOCENT EXPLAINS WHY HE NEVER LEAVES HOME WITHOUT HIS CLIÉ I'm a solicitor and at work my Clié T625 is always by my side (or in my shirt pocket, to be more accurate). Like many Clié users, the Clié is not my first PDA. I recently upgraded from a Palm V. I traded up for several reasons; the Palm V was rapidly running out of memory but, more importantly, I needed a new toy. Let's not kid ourselves, however much a PDA can be justified on "sensible" grounds, most of us buy them primarily because they have an intrinsic appeal, just for being sexy gadgets. One of the features that excited me most about the Clié was the Universal Remote Control although turning on TVs is not something I desperately need to do at work. However, that's not to say that my Clié isn't a great help to me in my working life. In my firm approximately 20% of lawyers have a PDA and Palm OS handhelds are by far the most popular (though to date I am the only Clié owner). The majority of lawyers buy Palm OS machines simply for the Address Book and DateBook features and the value of these applications should not be underestimated. Our diaries are kept on our computer system so that our colleagues know what we're up to. The convenience of being able to carry a synchronised copy of you diary around with you is invaluable. Not only is it essential when in meetings and away from your desktop but, when the worst happens and the network crashes, those without PDAs (or fastidious old fashioned secretaries with paper diaries) are left not knowing what their day has in store. Wonderful though these features are, the expanded memory of my Clié allows me to do so much more than simply carry around a few dates and phone numbers. AvantGo channels keep me up to date with news in client specific industries. My clients come from the Film, TV, Publishing, Art and IT sectors and AvantGo channels cater for all of these areas. There is however currently a dearth of good UK legal sites. I have however found a novel use of AvantGo. I use it to carry key pieces of legislation around with me. You can do this by creating a custom channel which links directly to a particular statute on the HMSO website, then set the channel to only sync once. Note to publishers of practitioners texts - how about some e-book versions? Traditional print copies can be very heavy you know! With the addition of Documents to Go (bundled with my Clié), I have been able to carry around a lot more information from my desktop PC. I am however hesitant to use this feature fully until I get some decent encryption. Carrying around sensitive client files is not something I am keen to do without adequate security and it may be that we have to wait till Palm OS5 before this is possible. As it is, the lack of built-in encryption tools is a major reason why a lawyer might be drawn to a Pocket PC rather than Palm OS machine. As I do a fair amount of film work, I'm off to the Cannes Film Festival shortly (yes, I know, it's a hard life!) and my Clié will certainly be making the trip with me. Not only will I be using it for email and Internet access (albeit slowly via infra-red mobile phone link) but, in previous years, Palm has set up "beaming stations" all over the Festival. You slide you Palm OS machine under the beam and instantly get the latest festival news and a directory of all exhibitors, film times etc. I just hope the hard case and charging cable I've ordered from the States arrive in time for the trip! 5/HAVE YOU GOT 'DOWNLOAD DISEASE'? by Sean Charles This Christmas last I received, to my surprise, a SONY Clie N770. For the last couple of months I had been driving my (long suffering computer widow of a) girlfriend mad with my constant umm-ing and ahh-ing over magazine comparisons and web reviews of the various handheld gadgets on the market. I had not actually bought one as I suffer from a common condition whereby the second day after buying something, a new model comes out with twice the power at half the price. That has happened to me so many times, starting with the purchase of an Atari 800XL back in my youth. After a while it makes you paranoid about buying anything at all. It's like that film, 'Seven', where all purchases or library borrowings of 'Catcher In The Rye' are monitored by the intelligence bovver boys. You just know there's a computer out there monitoring your credit card activity . . . waiting . . . For the record I am a thirty six year old self-employed I.T. consultant. That might explain the paranoia. Ha ha ha! Self employed, what a laugh. God Bless IR35. I've been sadly addicted to computers since the age of twelve, when I learnt BASIC on a Research Machines 280Z, those were the days. 8K of RAM and totally cabbaged until you loaded BASIC via the cassette interface. If it worked. Despite being such a sad case I have managed to stay clear of being too 'wired' lest I looked like Cliff Richard in that awful video for Wired For Sound years ago. Never did like roller skates. Am I off beam here, does anybody know who Cliff Richard is anymore? Nevertheless, Christmas arrived and so did Polly. That's 'Polly Pompers' to you, the name I've given to the thing. Pompers being a corruption of Palm, this due to the mickey taking from my girlfriend over the way I pronounced Palm Pilot on occasion (P-om Pi-lut). I should also mention that I live in Plymouth, England and do not own a tractor. Nor does my limited company benefit from letters written by Tony Blair. Being a software developer, I have in the past written little mickey mouse programs for PalmOS using the software emulator from Palm. I've used just about everything going to see what it's like; PocketSmalltalk (I am a *serious* Squeak freak), Waba, OnBoardC, PRC-Tools, Pila, you name it, I've tried it. Personally, I have to admit to getting the best results with C, Pocket Smalltalk just needs better documentation, but what a great tool in the making. I ended up using Squeak to chuck out C files. Anyway enough of that. Having something of a passing acquaintance with PalmOS devices, it wasn't long before the Clie was steaming from overuse. I had read many reviews and it *was* going to be the one for me because of the high-resolution screen. Some reviews mentioned poor battery life and a not too readable display in bright sunlight but I can honestly say that I have not had the battery go below about sixty percent charge as I leave it on the cradle overnight, and as for reading it in bright sunlight, why? I think the memory stick slot should be made wide enough to hold a chocolate '99 with two flakes . . . Once I had exhausted the small sample of software that comes bundled with it i.e. next to bugger all, it was time to start grazing for the free stuff. I already had a dozen bookmarks for various sites. Off I went. Little did I realise that what started out as a harmless pastime was to become a serious addiction. It started with just looking for little demo programs (anybody seen DragonDemo? Not too shabby!) to show off the hi-res mode. It soon became apparent that these were still a bit thin on the ground. There are now some very very good programs out there that really showcase the 320x320 screen. A friend has an m505 and by comparison, the display looks like a Teletext screen. Soon I was out of control, hour after hour, every search engine with fifty browser windows open at once. My desktop looked like my actual reality desktop but tidier. And with no coffee marks and stick marmalade patches to catch the unwary. Working from home is a double-edged sword at times. And then, horror of horrors, the unthinkable happened. Polly ran out of room. Her bytes were no more. They had ceased to be. OK. Now I was faced with the prospect of removing stuff to fit more stuff in. But what stuff to remove? My PC has a 40GB capacity, correct, *had*. I'm down on my last few gigs. Bloody hell, that should last a lifetime. Back in the days of 280Z's the dual 360K floppy machine seemed incredible. How on earth could you fill that space? What would you put in it? And now I've a gadget small enough to fit inside the cassette player we used to boot it with 8MB of memory and I've stuffed it to the brim with, lets face it, crap. Some stuff good. Most stuff bad. But what stuff to get rid off? It was like working on 8085 assembler all over again, every byte counts. Hmmm. If I delete that and this too I can install that and that. No no. Remove those two and that database. And then backup first. No no no. Remove all those databases and programs . . . . You see the problem. Once upon a time, when I first got my big disk PC I was instilled with the 'I will keep it clean and organised' mentality. One spends hours creating hierarchies of folders called 'accounts', 'letters', 'pictures', and so on. A profile of my PC now shows that about ninety-five percent of stuff lives in K:\TEMP as that's where the browsers stick it. So much for that then. I think sometimes it'd be easier to do an insurance claim on the thing rather than try and clean it up by hand. Here kitty kitty. Oops, there goes the vase down the back of the computer. Where's that smoke coming from? There should be some kind of Internet self-help group for people like me and you that suffer from download disease. It's just not fair. People say "Why don't you just turn it off and do something else?" but they just don't understand the joy of finding a new site or a new piece of shareware or freeware. I'm nowhere. Oh damn. Look, I'm awfully sorry but I'm going to have to stop now. I'm usingWordSmith and a collapsible keyboard to write this and I've just run out of roo 6/ MY CLIE IN MY WORLD... by Bolaji Ayorinde As a medical doctor specialising in Anaesthesia, I use my Sony Clie N770C PDA extensively in both my professional and private life. In this article, I will be looking at a typical day and highlighting the various ways in which the Clie enhances my life. A typical day begins at 6am when the Clie alarm goes off. I use WA clock which is included in the ROM of the newer T and NR series Clies, but can be downloaded from Nxt's website (url) for use on the N series Clies. I like the simple hi-res interface with 5 alarms and 3 world times. It is free as well. Once I finally drag myself out of bed, I open ActionNames Datebook from Iambic Software (www.iambic.com) and check my schedule for the day. I really love the 7-day view in this program which really helps me to keep my diary up to date. The monthly view is also very useful. Action Names 7 Day View Action Names- Monthly View Just before I leave for the hospital at about 7:30am, I log on to the Internet and update my Avantgo channels (www.avantgo.com). Because of memory constraints, I only have two channels on my Clie. These are the Reuters-UK channel and my customised Gopherking channel (https://www.gopherking.com), which I use for downloading emails from 4 email accounts. A short article on how to use Gopherking for hotmail is available in the 'tips' section of the Clieworld website. There is usually no time to read the emails in the morning. This option allows me to read them at my leisure when I have some free time at work. I can also reply to urgent emails using the Clie and my Sony CMD-J5 mobile phone. I connect the Clie to the mobile phone with a cable I bought from www.pc-mobile.net. The Sony mobile phone does not have an infra-red modem, but any mobile phone with this facility will do the same job. I arrive at the hospital at about 8:15am after braving the morning traffic. A quick check on the notes section of Action Names reminds me of the patients I need to see for a pre-anaesthetic visit before the day's work starts. A trainee anaesthetic doctor is joining me for the morning theatre session. We will be discussing the physiology of the human heart during the session. I have put some pictures I downloaded from the Internet on the Clie memory stick for illustration. I use Acid Image, an excellent viewer from Red Mercury (www.red-mercury.com) to display the pictures. It allows you to use pictures in their native format without any conversion. It is also hi-res. After the operating session, I need to keep a log of the patients I have anaesthetized. I use HanDBase from www.ddhsoftware for this. I have also designed some other databases that I use to keep a record of work-related activities such as annual leave and professional courses I have attended. Handbase- Database View Handbase- Records view Another program I use extensively is PenpenCol, a free colour paint program. It is free. I use this mainly as a scratchpad to jot down ideas and notes. I hardly use the built in to-do-list. PenPenCol- my wishlist! My default handwriting recognition software is Jot from www.cic.com which I use in conjunction with Wordcomplete from the same company to speed up data entry. I find Jot easier to use than Grafitti and it seems to have a very good recognition engine. On the down side, it can conflict with other third party software. However, there is an option to disable it when this happens. My default launcher is Crs-launcher, a nifty little program with supports a tab-based interface and is hi-res compatible. At lunchtime, I check my emails and read some ebooks with Isilo. Isilo is a very powerful program which can display web pages downloaded and converted by its desktop companion, IsiloX iSilo displaying CLIEWorld Work ends at about 5:30pm after the last patient has fully recovered from their anaesthetic. I head for the gym to wind down. At the gym, I listen to the refreshing strains of Bob James's Touchdown with the Clie's MP3 player. The MP3s were copied to the memory stick via MS Import which mounts the Clie as a removable drive on the PC. I get home at 7:30pm, just in time for the start of the football match on Sky. As usual the digibox is stuck on the cartoon channel. Anyone who has kids will be familiar with this scenario! Worse still, they can't find the remote control. Out comes the Clie to save the day with Omniremote. This is one of my favourite all-time PalmOS programs. It can be downloaded from www.pacificneotek.com. It lets you use the Clie as a learning universal remote control. This concludes a snapshot of the world of my Clie. I find it indispensable and would find it difficult to cope without it. 7/ TIME TRAVELER REVIEW/FEATURE SET by George Birman Time Traveler is a suite consisting of several programs, all linked together, but each with it's own distinct functionality. An excellent buy for any frequent traveler, this suite will make your trip easier and enhance the abilities of your palm's datebook, whether you're using the standard built in one, Datebk4, or Actionnames. In this review, we'll go over each program and it's function. By the way, some of the programs can be purchased on their own as well. Time Place 4 is an excellent program, period. Whether you're traveling in different time zones (ideal for this situation) or you just want to take a glance at the time in another place in the world, this program will suite your needs. Plus, it is the only one of it's kind that has High Resolution Support. Some of the features packed into Time Place 4 include: - Full color Rotating Globe view, and zoomable world map - Over 600 Pre-programmed times for international cities, plus you can add your own cities - GMT and Daylight Savings information - A built-in alarm, with a snooze feature -Integrated with TimeTraveler Suite Opening TimePlace, you are either at the Globe or World Map view. When in the globe view, you can drag you stylus to move the globe in many directions, and clicking on a location will bring up the nearest city and show it's current time. The top left corner of the screen has a "menu" button, and the top right portion has a rectangle (a sphere if in world map view), that when clicked on switches to the other view. The bottom right corner displays your current time, and the bottom left corner displays today's date. I must admit, dragging the globe to view a differnet location isn't all that easy, you have to have "accurate" drags and it takes many to get around to the other side, but that's what the "flip current view" option in the menu is for. This will take you to the position opposite the one you're currently on. A view menu contains shortcuts to view Africa, Asia, Australia/Oceania, Europe, North America and South America. Another nifty feature is the fact that even in the Globe view, you can see where day and night is, because one portion of the globe will be shaded. You can also go to a specific view, and "save it" as "my view" and easily refer to it later through the menu. The World map gives you a broader view, plus you can zoom in and drag if you want. This view can be better for quick glances. Adding a place is quite easy, you enter the name, time difference, and then tap the location on the globe to store it, or, you can even enter the exact lattitude and longitude. Last but not least are the Timer and Alarm features. The alarm is pretty basic, plus it has a built in snooze feature, and the timer, (although I can't really imagine why it's in the program) simply lets you set a time, then tell the timer to count up or down to it, still useful, although I prefer a DA timer of some sort. If you're ever lost, there a built-in help feature, which is great, since you're not always by your computer to view help files. So if you're getting the suite, then this is one of it's best parts, but if not, think about getting it on it's own, it's a wonderful application. Figaro is a great conversion program, which, like TimePlace, is great on it's own or within the suite. Figaro can convert Currencies, Areas, Clothing Sizes, Energy, Lengths, Temperatures, Volumes, Weights, and in additon, it has categories such as "favorites", "My sizes", and "Partner's Sizes". Figaro is also skinnable, and is color-enabled on color palms. When first opening the application, it functions as a regular calculator, with the same features you would find in the standard calc, but when you click on the arrow button on the top left, the calculator screen slides down, and "under" it appears the conversion program. You choose your category, and then enter a number value, and click on one of the conversion buttons. So, for instance, If i want to convert 35 U.S Dollars to Francs, then I would: First enter in "35", then find the button which is titled "USD$ to FRF", push it, and under '35' I would see "USD$=271.29FRF". What's really excellent about Figaro is that when you have TravelSync (free) installed on your palm, hotsyncing will update currency rates from Figaro's website. This is great since those rates change every day. Figaro is a great program for converting things, plus it has a "visual" effect. By the way, here's the link to the skins: http://www.classactionpl.com/Figaro/Skins/A_Guide_To_Skins.htm. Time Book is yet another extremely useful application that can be found in the TimeTravler Suite. Furthermore, Time Book is fully integrated with TimePlace. It uses TimePlace's enormous time database and other data to make time-zone-spefic appointments a breeze. Basically, you go into the application, Title your event, select a time zone for it, enter it's time, date, your current time zone, and your date, and then click done. Then, Timebook puts this appointment into your datebook, wheither it be ActionNames, Datebk4, or the standard Datebook. The main view of Timebook shows all of your appointments bunched together. Timebook is extremely usefull for planning appointments and other things that you will do in a differnet time zone. You can also set Timebook to sync with outlook, which is rarely found in other applications of its type. Great application, it is only available when you purchase the entire suite. Time Travel, one of the most important applications, lets you have an easy experience with scheduling in a different Time zone. Once you enter in your itinerary, it informs your palm to change the time when you'll be abroad, plus, it tells TimePlace and TimeBook when you'll be in your different Time zone so that they reconfigure themselves at that time, and it also tells your datebook to show you when you're flying and departing. This lets you enter information on one day, and then never have to fiddle with changing all of these times when you're away. Some other features include: - Days, Hours, and Minutes display to next departure - Add notes to your itineraries to include additonal information - Select Arrival and Departure ports from the hundreds of time zones found in TimePlace's database TravelSync syncs many of the applications found in the website through your hotsync cradle or wireless modem. For figaro, it updates curency conversion rates, for TimeBook and TimeTraveler, it downloads any added itinerary informatin from your FREE MyTimeTravler online account (where you can add new itineraries and appointments), and also updates your account. This is useful if you want family or co-workers to see your schedule. TravelSync is a free aplication, and as mentioned before, MyTimeTraveler is a free service. These two things extend the functionality of the Time Traveler Suite. In the end... TimeTraveler Suite is a wonderful assortment of integrated applications, with the ability to sync to the web, that can make any frequent traveler's life A LOT easier. If you think about it, it's not that expensive for the amount of features you get, and the time you will save organizing your trips and schedules will pay itself back. Visit www.classactionpl.com for more information. There are also demos of all of the applications availble there. The whole suite costs $36.95. 8/ INTERVIEW WITH ERIK TELFORD (a very talented and interesting chap!) What PDA do you use, why and where are you based? Here from my home in New York, in the US, I use a Clie (of course!) PEG-N760C. About nine months ago I upgraded from a Palm Vx. My main reasons for staying with the Palm OS ere that I had already used it and felt it also had the most going for it. i.e. most apps, games, etc. I chose the Clie because of how impressive the screen looked! Amazing picture quality...also, the MP3 player was a nice feature and the size of the Clie is oretty compact compared to some other PDAs. In retrospect, I suppose I wish that the new NR series was out at that time. But, at the rate Sony seems to release new PDAs, I'm sure byt the time I'm really ready to upgrade from the 760C, there'll be a PDA that is so versatile, it will take care of most, if not all, of the portable electronic functions (such as cellphone, more PC capabilities, etc.) How much money would someone have to offer you to give away your PDA and to lose all of the information in it forever? This is a tough question. I suppose if someone really wanted or needed it that bad, they could have it. It's not that I don't have valuable information in it, but I like to think that I can seperate myself from a culture overwhelmed by "technology" that is supposed to make things easier. In my opinion, something like a PDA is "cool" and "convenient" but it doesn't really solve a pre-existing problem. It's not as if a pen and paper, the typewriter, the paper organizer, or even your mind all of a sudden stopped being viable means to record and store what we consider pertinent information. (I know this is a bit out there!) You are banished to a desert island as punishment for not visiting Clie World every day (you are allowed to take your PDA and a special extra long 3 month battery)- what 2 applications and 2 games would you take? The first application I would take would be MegaLauncher VIP (Megasoft2000). I love it and can't wait for the upgrade which may be out by the time this interview is published (I'll keep my fingers crossed!). The second app would be Iambic's Action Names (except for the fact that I guess I wouldn't really need to schedule much if I was on a desert island!). So, if I chose to go against Action Names for this reason, I guess I would choose Fast CPU (also by Megasoft2000). This way I could use the extra speed to run the 2 games I couldn't live without. The first game I love is Dave Mayes' Rally 1000 (available as FREEWARE at http://davemayes.hypermart.net). It is just one of those addictive games that you could play with real cards, but having them on the Clie makes them that much more addictive! The second game would either be 300 Bowl by Jason Goldman (available at www.jasongolman.com) or TakoShi (A japanese freeware game available at http://www.t2bp.com). I would probably lean toward 300 Bowl on this just because it is a lot different from Rally 1000. That, and the fact that I think it is one of the best game for Palm in a long time (though seeing as how I am a huge Megasoft 2000 fan, I can't wait to try the update to Mega Bowl!). In addition to these apps and games, I would bring a big memory stick and music on it (if the rules allowed me!). Give me 4 reasons why everyone should own a Palm Powered PDA? 1. There are tons of apps and games (especially Freeware) available. 2. Seems stable enough as an OS where it won't be obsolute within a few years (at least as of today!). 3. Convenient and compact (though I guess most PDAs, not just Palm powered have these features). 4. Because Bill Gates doesn't get any money from it! (Or, hell...he probably does somehow!) What's your opinion of the Pocket PC and do you see it ever becoming the dominant PDA form? I've heard good and bad things about Pocket PC just as I've heard and experienced good and bad with Palm OS. I don't see it becoming the dominant PDA form...at least not in its Windows CE format (does this mean Compact Edition or something stupid like that?). As I sort of eluded to in the first question, I believe we are pretty close to an all-in-one machine. There are already a couple of machines that may be predecessors to this "mega-PDA". The eightythree (by Tiqit Computers www.tiqit.com) looks interesting. Though what is really impressive is the OQO (by Oqo at www.oqo.com). They are calling it "Ultrapersonal Computing". And, the new VAIO looks nice for a close version of this. You see, tech companies have managed to get the size of these machines smaller and smaller. Something like the OQO is a real pocket PC! So, like I said, I really think that soon (within 5 years or so?) we will see a machine that is a portable PC, Cellphone, personal stereo, interent/email capable, and has a great graphics card and processor to play awesome games! The unfortunate thing for a lot of companies out there is that if they want their product to do the best it can, to be really really competitive, whether it be software or hardware, they pretty much have to make it PC-compatible...specifically Windows-compatible. Something like 85-90% of computer users/owners are Windows-based! Now I think Mac is a great platform, but the numbers speak for themselves. Even if it is just for pure convenience, a Windows-based machine is better. That is, until a new biggie comes along to really challenge Microsoft. Unfortunately, this isn't likely in the foreseeable future! the main obstacle into all of the PDA forms of comouting willbe, and have always been, in my opionion, the price. Some things are just too expensive for the average consumer. So, as the technology becomes old, more people will have it...just like anything else. So, in short, I guess I would have to say the PDA of the future will probably a full Windows OS. Not this CE crap! What would you like to see in a monthly PDA/CLIE magazine and what format would you prefer to read it in? I would like to see the independent guys talked about....like Jason Goldman, et. al. They are where I see the real innovation in PDA programming coming from. Can you think of another platform around today where a single person can make a game or app and have it be as successful as something like 300 Bowl (which by PDA standards I have to assume has been pretty successful)? As for the second part of your question, I didn't like reading news, etc. on my Palm and I don't like reading it on my Clie! I prefer the good old Gutenbergian form of information for this purpose. What are your 3 favourite web sites? 1. ClieWorld UK, of course! (http://www.clieworld.co.uk) (This isn't just a suck up answer! It is honestly a site I sit everyday). 2. Macromedia Showcase (www.macromedia.com/showcase). *I also think that the future of the PDA will somehow have to include technology by Macromedia...especially Flash. 3. ErikTelford.net (www.eriktelford.net) Do I have to explain this one? Visit and listen to my music! (Sorry, Shaun...had to get the plug in eventually!) What's the best song you have ever heard and why? Wow! The toughest question yet. You really know how to put someone on the spot, Shaun! Well, the best song I've ever heard, if I had to pick one, would either be "So What" (Miles Davis, from the Album "Kind of Blue") or Bach's Goldberg Variations, particularly as played by Glen Gould. If I could explain why, they probably wouldn't be my favourites! What program or update to an existing one are you really looking forward to? Without a doubt, MegaLauncher VIP! Megasoft 2000 is great! If you had a spare 2 months and were given the tools to write a Palm program what would it be? Beacuase I'm a musician/composer, I would definately write a real music notation program. If this were available, my life would almost be complete!