.KEYWORD profile
.FLYINGHEAD DEVELOPER PROFILE
.TITLE Enterprise applications straight from Croatia’s heartland
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY The enterprise applications you use everyday are created by hard-working software developers from every corner of the globe. In this article, Steve Niles profiles Bozidar Benc, one of the original members of Palm’s ever-growing global developer family.
.AUTHOR Steve Niles
The Palm family is truly global. You don’t need to live in California’s Silicon Valley to be a successful Palm software developer. The enterprise applications you use everyday are created by hard-working software developers from every corner of the globe. This month, I’d like to profile one particularly prolific programmer working in Eastern Europe.
Registered Palm OS developer, Bozidar Benc, is the creator of such popular Palm applications as PopUp Names, PopUp Calculator, and Currency Calculator. You can find the complete catalogue of his applications at http://www.benc.hr. Benc resides in Slavonski Brod, Croatia, a small town located 200 kilometers east of Zagreb, the Croatian capital, on the Bosnian border. Croatia is pictured in Figure A.
.FIGPAIR A Bozidar Benc lives and works in Slavonski Brod, Croatia.
Benc began developing Palm software four years ago, and he markets his products exclusively through PalmGear.com (at http://www.palmgear.com). The majority of Benc’s applications are ideal tools for the enterprise. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
.H1 PopUp Names
Benc’s PopUp Names application is an intriguing enhancement for the original built-in Palm Address Book. The most notable aspect of the application is the fact that it’s a "PopUp," which means you can start running it over any application, get the information you need, and close it, bringing you back to the same application (and the same place) you were before you opened PopUp Names.
Once you install PopUp Names, you need to visit the setup screen pictured in Figure B.
.FIG B Configure PopUp Names on the setup screen.
The first thing you need to do is decide the method you want to use to launch the application. In this example, I’ve chosen to have PopUp Names launch via a stylus stroke made from the Calc icon on my Palm device’s silkscreen to the Find icon.
Once PopUp Names is open, you can use its powerful find feature to look up the names in your Address Book, and the pertinent information will automatically be displayed, as shown in Figure C.
.FIG C PopUp Names is a quick and easy way to access your Address Book information.
Once you hit OK, PopUp Names closes, and you’re returned to whatever application you were working in when you opened it.
According to Benc, there’s a new version coming soon with added features such as the ability to reorganize fields on the address edit screen, a method to speed up data entry, and the ability to move all rarely used fields to the bottom.
Evidently, this is an ideal tool for the enterprise user, as indicated by one satisfied customer who dropped a line to Palm, Inc. saying, "I didn’t know where to send this email, but I just wanted to send you some information on a great program I have discovered called PopUp Names
