.KEYWORD pose
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Train your staff with the Palm OS Emulator
.OTHER
.SUMMARY As your company expands its mobile workforce, hardware may be changing, but your computer trainers’ teaching techniques don’t have to. Ed Crandell has a review of the Palm OS Emulator, just the tool your instructors will need to train your employees in the use of their new Palm computers.
.AUTHOR Ed Crandell
Before you can transform your employees into an effective mobile workforce, you need to train them in the use of their new handheld tools. At first glance, the traditional methods of training–demonstrating programs with a projection system or printing screen dumps–don’t seem to be possible with Palm devices. However, by using an application called POSE (Palm OS Emulator), you can use the same methods used for teaching desktop applications.
.H1 POSE: A Palm computer on your desktop
The Palm OS Emulator allows you to run Palm applications on your Windows, Macintosh, or Unix desktop computer. It can be downloaded for free from the Palm OS Emulator page at http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/tools/emulator/. While at the site, download the Emulator Skins file so you can have your simulated Palm device match the look of the actual device your trainees will eventually be using. These skins not only include those devices manufactured by Palm, Inc, but also many of the models made by Handspring, IBM, and Symbol Technologies, allowing you to configure your emulator with the look and feel of the devices your company uses.
To make the emulator work, you’ll need to transfer a ROM image from your handheld to your computer. The documentation for POSE describes how to do this transfer. Once you have the ROM image transferred, you can use POSE just as you would a real Palm device. Your mouse will take the place of the stylus Simply click the mouse to represent a tap on the emulated Palm device’s screen. The Graffiti hand recognition also works the same way as on an actual Palm handheld. However, while using a mouse Graffiti can be a little clumsy, so you may want to use your keyboard for entering text. POSE can even be configured to use the networking capabilities and serial port of the host computer.
Since POSE was initially developed to assist programmers in debugging their applications, the behavior of POSE (with just a few exceptions, such as beaming) matches that of an actual Palm device with extreme accuracy. Since you’re using the ROM image you supplied to POSE, the version of the built-in applications will match those of your Palm device. This matching goes so far that holding down the power button for a few seconds will activate the backlight and pushing the button on top of the Palm V will activate the contrast control. The biggest difference between using the emulator and a real device will be the speed of processing. Depending on the computer running the emulator, the program may run faster or slower than on an actual handheld, due to the overhead of emulation.
.H1 Dealing with handheld diversity
POSE allows you to create and save various configurations, making it easier for you to manage producing teaching materials and presentations for different groups in your organization.
For example, one configuration could be for your sales force, using Palm IIIxe handhelds with your company’s order entry software installed. Another configuration could be for your shipping department, using Symbol Technologies SPT 1500s with third party inventory control software installed.
When creating these configurations, you have three options for installing your third party applications on POSE:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Choose the Install Application/Database option from the POSE menu;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Drag and drop the desired PRC or PDB files from your desktop onto the simulated Palm device while it’s turned on;
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Perform a HotSync either with another computer over a serial cable or with the network.
.END_LIST
.H1 On the big screen
Once you have POSE running on your computer, doing demonstrations for large groups is a simple matter. Just hook up your computer to a projection system and demonstrate away. For best results, you’ll want to change the settings for POSE so that it displays at double scale by selecting the Skins Option on the Settings menu of POSE.
Some of the projection systems I have worked with and gotten good results from include various models made by InFocus (at http://www.infocus.com) and Mitsubishi (at http://www.mitsubishi-presentations.com/Products/products.html).
.H1 On the small screen
POSE can also be used by the trainees on their individual desktop machines, providing them with a safe hands-on environment where they can work without worrying about getting training data mixed with real data or accidentally deleting important records from their Palm devices as they learn.
.H1 On the printed page
In addition to live demonstrations, the screen capture capabilities of your computer and of POSE can be used to prepare screen dumps for written materials. On a Microsoft Windows system, you can use ALT+PrintScrn to copy the active window to the clipboard. The image pictured in Figure A would be useful as part of an instruction sheet discussing the functions of the various buttons or the layout of the silkscreen area.
.FIGPAIR A ALT+PrintScrn saves an image of the whole Palm device.
POSE is also capable of saving screen dumps of just the 160×160 display area. You can save this image in one of two ways. First, you can use the normal background of the Palm device, as shown in Figure B.
.FIG B A screen dump with a green background works best for online documentation.
Alternatively, you can select the Skins option from the Settings menu and choose the white background option, as shown in Figure C.
.FIG C A screen dump with a white background works best for printed materials.
Using your favorite paint program to add callouts, arrows, and annotations is a good way to further increase the effectiveness of these screen dumps.
.H1 On the Web
When you place your training resources online, your written materials gain the ability to be dynamic. You’ll also have the ability to update your materials to reflect changes in your organization. Using a sequence of screen saves and annotations, you can create an animated GIF showing the steps of a procedure. If you create an animation loop, it would be a good idea to use a frame that clearly marks the start of the loop or add a sequence number to each frame as it’s displayed. Also, be sure to create a long enough delay between frames.
While using animated GIFs can show the various steps of an operation, they can be very time consuming to put together. An alternative to rolling your own animations frame by frame is to use ViewletBuilder2 from Qarbon.com. It’s a free program supported by banner advertising, and it can be found at http://www.qarbon.com.
ViewletBuilder2 is designed for demonstrating Windows applications, not Palm applications, but POSE is just another Windows application as far as ViewletBuilder2 is concerned. A sample viewlet that shows how to add a contact to your address book can be seen at http://www.viewhow2.com/viewlets/skxqjai/Palm_add_a_contact_viewlet.html.
The program takes a series of screen captures and allows you to add annotations to the various frames. These viewlets can then be viewed over the Web. Your trainees will just have to put up with the banner ads while they work. Versions of the ViewletBuilder2’s predecessor, Leelou, are available for the MacOS, Linux, and Solaris operating systems at the same site.
.H1 Conclusion
Whether you’re training your users on the basic operations of Palm devices or on a new custom application, using POSE can make your job easier by allowing you to use some of the same training techniques you’ve used with desktop applications. You’ll probably end up discovering some new techniques as well.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information about the Palm OS Emulator visit http://www.palmos.com/dev/tech/tools/emulator/.
For more information about InFocus projectors visit http://www.infocus.com.
For more information about Mitsubishi projectors visit http://www.mitsubishi-presentations.com/Products/products.html.
For more information about ViewletBuilder2 and Leelou visit
http://www.qarbon.com.
For a sample viewlet, visit http://www.viewhow2.com/viewlets/skxqjai/Palm_add_a_contact_viewlet.html.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Ed Crandell is a computer science professor at Spring Arbor College. When off campus, he runs a Web site for developers using the Waba programming language, an open source language for handhelds at http://www.wabaworkbench.com.
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6ec38
