When we last spoke to Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the PalmPilot and lead visionary, 3Com had shipped just over a million PalmPilots, and it was PalmPower’s premier issue. Eight months later, PalmPower has grown to more than 300,000 regular readers and 3Com has shipped nearly two million Palm devices. Jeff Hawkins and Palm Computing general manager Donna Dubinsky have left the company they founded. To learn more about these big changes, Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz spoke to Jeff on his first day of his new life, in this exclusive PalmPower Interview.

We were as surprised as everyone else when Palm creator Jeff Hawkins announced his resignation from 3Com. When Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz got the news, he set up an exclusive interview with Jeff to get the whole story. The interview was fascinating, but what did it all mean? How will the departure of 3Com’s visionary inventor impact the future of the Palm platform? How will it impact you? Will there be more cool toys? You’ll need to read David’s editorial to find out.

Dieting. The word itself strikes horror into our hearts. How can we enjoy oatmeal raisin cookies, pizza, and Snickers if we’re thinking about dieting? But there’s no escape. If you’re going to improve your health or lose weight, you may have to diet sometime. That said, there’s no reason you can’t have help managing the process. That’s where DietLog comes it — it helps you track what you eat. But reviewer Mark Smith doesn’t use DietLog to lose weight. He uses it for a much more important reason. He needs to track everything he eats to manage his Diabetes and stay healthy. So whether you just want to look particularly buff in that swimsuit or improve your overall health, you owe it to yourself to read this review.

This issue marks the PalmPower debut of contributing editor David Pogue, one of the industry’s most highly respected authors. David’s taken his wealth of PalmPilot experience, showcased in his new book "PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide", mixed in some great new tips and techniques, and created a wonderful new column for PalmPower. Every PalmPilot user knows people are always fascinated by these little devices. And we’ve all had the urge to show them off to friends and coworkers. In this fun article, David tells you how to give the ultimate PalmPilot demo.

In programmer-speak, "controls" are the doodads you use to interact with the Palm device. A button is a control. So is a checkbox. But if you’re a programmer building some new nifty-neato Palm application, how do you control the controls? In the latest installment of his highly-regarded Programming Power column, Programming Technology Editor Alan Jay Weiner shows you how to become your very own control freak.

Contributing editor Jim DeLaHunt’s continues his Macintosh Survival Guide series with this helpful article. In it, he explores a whole bunch of really useful add-on Macintosh tools you can use with your PalmPilot. If you use your Palm device with a Macintosh, reading this article will help you get more out of both.

If it weren’t for intrepid programmers, we wouldn’t have all the cool Palm software we use every day. Programming is tough work, but someone’s got to do it. If you’re one of those programmers (or if you’re learning how), this article will be a real score. In it, our Programming Power columnist Alan Jay Weiner introduces a number of very simple routines that can improve your programs and save you a ton of programming time. Now, maybe — just maybe — you can get that sleep you’ve been dreaming about.

No matter where you go, you need to write checks and record the information. While it may seem overkill to use a PalmPilot as a checkbook recording device, it’s not. Using the PalmPilot prevents math errors (and that means no bounced check fees). Plus, if you record your checking information into your PalmPilot, you can upload that information to Quicken without retyping it (avoiding the potential for even more errors). This article tells all about QMate, a product that records checkbook information on your PalmPilot and synchronizes it with Quicken on both Macs and PCs.

Did you know you could get some Palm III functionality right now, for free–even if you use a PalmPilot or earlier machine? We didn’t either. But Tech Support Insider Chris Brown tells us about the Palm Desktop 3.0 application. It’s cool. It’s new. It’s free. And you can download it today!

Mac champion Jim DeLaHunt again comes to the rescue of Macintosh users in this great article. There’s a new Mac Desktop on the way and Jim gives you a sneak preview. Plus he tells you about new ways to connect your Mac applications to your PalmPilot apps, and showcases a really slick way to link the QMate checkbook program on the PalmPilot with Quicken on your Macintosh.