.FLYINGHEAD FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
.TITLE Cars, planes, and Palms, oh my!
.DEPT
.SUMMARY Can the PalmPilot save you money when buying a car? This was the all-too-serious question Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz needed to answer. In this article, he tells you about how he loaded up his PalmPilot as both a defensive and offensive weapon in the war that is buying a new car, saving money, and not getting ripped off.
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
Deadline approaches. The journal goes online in two days. All the articles are submitted and are in first-edit. All the articles but one: my "From the Editor in Chief" column. It hasn’t even been written. I could tell you my good excuses: we had lots of great articles, I spring-cleaned my kitchen, I had to brave the supermarket (did you know they have an entire section for veggies?), I shipped a product, I’m thinking about buying a car. Of course, I’m always thinking about buying a car. It’s probably a guy-thing.
But the fact is, I just didn’t get around to writing anything. When we had our editorial meeting and were reviewing the articles, I said, "I have a bright idea. We have lots of good articles this month. We don’t really need the From the Editor-in-Chief column." No joy. Overruled. Being Editor-in-Chief isn’t quite as much fun if you get overruled in editorial meetings. Oh well.
So, here it is. My "From the Editor-in-Chief" column in all its sordid glory. Next problem: what to say? I put so much energy into avoiding the work that I don’t have a formal outline. After all, didn’t we already do the Palm PC, the Palm III, and such to death? After all that excitement, what else is there to talk about? I guess I’ll just do some stream-of-consciousness typing and let you know what sorts of things I’ve been thinking about. Hang on, buckle-up. Here we go.
.H1 First topic: What do we call this thing?
We’ve been calling the device the PalmPilot. But now it’s not a Pilot anymore due to some legal goop. Now it’s the Palm III. And the device category is called a Palm Computing Platform Device. Yowch! That’s a mouthful. "Look honey. I just bought a Palm Computing Platform Device." It just doesn’t roll off your tongue.
Our esteemed competitor over at Tap suggests calling the new device a P3. I kind of like that. "Look honey, I just bought a P3." Of course, a P-3 is also the P-3 Orion, a Lockheed-built United States four-turboprop anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and maritime patrol aircraft that can cruise at over 400 miles per hour. That’s sure not going to fit in your pocket. (Told you this was stream-of-consciousness!) But now you know something about ASW aircraft.
It is an interesting problem. Even if we use Palm III or P3, it only fits this device, not this class of devices. We’ll probably wind up calling them Palm devices or Palm UnPC’s. Who knows? I guess we’ll have to figure that one out later.
.H1 Second topic: Car stuff
My current vehicle is annoying me and I’m staring a big repair bill in the face. Either I trade it in or pay my repair dues. Hence, I’m dreaming of new cars. But, I’m dreading dealing with the car dealers. Even though I’m a darned tough negotiator, I’m just not in the mood to put up with the obligatory dealer B.S. (and no, that’s no Boy Scouts or Buy Southern).
But the last time I bought a car, back in the dark ages of 1995, the Internet was in its infancy and I didn’t have a PalmPilot. We didn’t have CarPoint, the wonderful, Microsoft-owned car-buying information source located at http://www.carpoint.com. Now I have ammunition.
When I go into the car dealer, I need to have facts, figures, strategies, and some self-control. By using CarPoint, my always-on-hand PalmPilot, and some add-on software, I’m ready to go to war.
I went into CarPoint and first determined the trade-in value for my car. With the Pilot Desktop open, I created a new memo category: "Car". Then I put the phone, the account number, and my buy-out from my car loan into one memo. To that memo, I added the trade-in values for the car at "fair", "good", and "excellent" condition.
It’s still pretty subjective, though. What I think is excellent condition, the sneaky car dealer might claim is only fair (the difference is more than a thousand dollars). So I then copied the definitions of fair, good, and excellent and dropped them into a memo. So now when the crafty car dealer tells me my car’s only fair, I’ll open up my PalmPilot, read the definitions, and be able to quote him chapter and verse from the Kelley Blue Book, proving my car’s actually in good condition. More bucks in my pocket. I like that kind of fair.
But what about sticker shock? All those add-ons, prices, etc? Well, it’s more difficult extracting simple text from the over-rendered tables used in CarPoint, but it is possible to grab some important figures and type them into a memo field, so that’s what I did.
Finally, what about lease vs. buy? I bought this car. I might want to lease the next. And while I know that a closed-end lease is better, I might forget in the heat of the deal. So, back again to CarPoint. This time, into the lease advisor section. I copied the definitions of closed-end and open-end from CarPoint and pasted them into a new memo in Pilot Desktop.
Next, I needed loan calculators. There are a bunch. I visited our friends at Tucows and PilotGear and downloaded three different calculators. Most of these calculators are oriented towards home-buying. None does lease-specific calculations and I’m not positive if they do APR, but they checked out against the CarPoint payment calculator. If you’re a software author, here’s a suggestion: write a loan/lease calculator specifically for car buying. I’ve bought way more cars than homes.
Now I’m armed. Everything I need (other than non-weak knees) exists in my PalmPilot. I’m ready. I’m armed. I even put in new batteries.
Of course, I haven’t yet been to the dealer, but that’s why God invented procrastination.
.H1 Third topic: Palm PCs
This’ll be short. We haven’t yet gotten our grubby editorial hands on one yet, and I’m sure they’re slicker than (* deleted *). But here’s a key question. Seriously. Could a Palm PC help me negotiate a better car deal? If not, the hype just isn’t worth that much.
.H1 Fourth topic: End of editorial
Well, the word-count button tells me I’ve exceeded my thousand words.That means I can wrap this thing up, secure in the knowledge that I’ve done my job, shared some thoughts, and won’t be driving a car that leaks for much longer.
Stay tuned.
P.S. I wrote this editorial a few days before going to press. The latest news is, I got the car. It’s a great Subaru Forester 4-wheel drive. And being able to quote chapter and verse from the Kelley Blue Book definitions did indeed save me a couple of thousnd dollars and bought me a way nicer car.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
The Subaru Forester is available at http://www.subaru.com.
Visit CarPoint at http://www.carpoint.com.
P-3 Orions may be available from various government auctions or your friendly neighborhood arms merchant.
Veggies and other grocery products are available at http://www.netgrocer.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO David Gewirtz is the Founder and Chairman of Component Enterprises, Inc. He is the Editor-in-Chief of PalmPower Magazine, published by Component, and The Insider for Lotus cc:Mail, published by The Cobb Group division of Ziff-Davis. He is also the author of "The Flexible Enterprise" and "Lotus Notes Revealed!"
.DISCUSS http://www.component-net.com/webx?13@@.ee6bc62
