.KEYWORD consulting
.FLYINGHEAD ON THE JOB
.TITLE Consulting with your handheld
.OTHER
.SUMMARY As a consultant, Contributing Editor Stephen Vance finds his Palm m505 indispensable. In this article, he describes some of the tools and techniques he uses to support his consulting. If you’re a consultant, you’ll be fascinated to see how your Palm handheld can be used for hours tracking, email management, document editing, and reference.
.AUTHOR Stephen Vance
By night I’m a Contributing Editor for PalmPower Magazine Enterprise Edition. By day, I’m an independent computer consultant in the areas of enterprise software architecture, development process, and software configuration management.
In my role as a consultant, my Palm m505 is absolutely indispensable. In this article, I’ll describe some of the tools and techniques I use to support my consulting, as well as some ideas on expanding my usage. I’ll also suggest some products and product features I would like to see.
I use my handheld for the normal Date Book, To Do List, and Address Book purposes. It really helps with hours tracking, email management, document editing, and reference.
.H1 Why not a laptop?
Laptops can hold anything you put on them with the full range of capability of a desktop. Just like your desktop, however, it’s pretty conspicuous to carry into and out of a client’s site. Some clients may not worry about personal property moving freely through their doors. But when they do, the bigger and more expensive it is, the more likely they are to care. Cell phones and pagers are the only things security conscious clients care less about than PDAs, making handhelds much more transportable.
In addition, when was the last time you told a client, "I can get you that information as soon as I fire up my laptop?" Probably about the same time she went to get a cup of coffee, was snagged by her boss, and sent off on an urgent matter, leaving you with a missed opportunity. Now if you can pull the information up in three taps of your stylus and beam it to her
