.KEYWORD demo
.FLYINGHEAD THE ULTIMATE GUIDE
.TITLE PalmPilot: the ultimate demo
.DEPT
.SUMMARY 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.
.AUTHOR David Pogue
Who was the person who first showed you the PalmPilot? The fact that you probably remember illustrates what’s so special about our favorite palmtop. Nobody talks about the first time they saw a Micron desktop computer, or injket printer, or cordless phone. But the PalmPilot is a technology virus: it spreads by face-to-face demo, from one enthusiastic owner to the next. Most people don’t buy one because they read about it or heard about it–they get one because they’ve seen it.
I first saw a PalmPilot in the hands of a friend at the 1997 Macworld Expo. He flipped open a very cool-looking leather cover and showed me how his entire speaking and meeting schedule had been sucked out of his Mac and onto this handheld. He had all these little shareware add-ons and his life was in order — I rushed straight out to buy one. And since that fateful day, I’ve perpetuated the PalmPilot bug myself, passing it on to so many friends and acquaintances, I’ve lost count.
This "You gotta see this thing!" syndrome was recently brought home to me when I was interviewed on a radio show. "You can say anything you want about the PalmPilot," the interviewer said on the air, "but just don’t give me a damn demo." Apparently this poor woman was surrounded, at her office, by comrades who incessantly shoved their PalmPilots into her face to show her stuff.
The funny thing was, I had just been about to thrust mine into her face to show her stuff.
It’s too bad she didn’t let me show her, actually. I give an unbelievable PalmPilot demo. My little guy is loaded up with some of the most stunning and irresistible software doodads imaginable. If you, too, would like to become a more potent spreader of the Word of PalmPilot, stock up your palmtop with programs like these:
.H1 ProxiWeb
ProxiWeb is ProxiNet’s free grayscale Web browser. It’s amazing for two reasons: first, most people are shocked that a machine the size of an audiocassette can browse the Web at all. And second, most people think that the PalmPilot is a black-and-white gadget — it’s not; the screen is actually grayscale, but very few programs take advantage of it. Show people a few Web pages in ProxiWeb and shatter their preconceptions on both counts. Figure A shows a great example. Imagine, The New York Times on your PalmPilot.
.FIG A Imagine, The New York Times on your PalmPilot!
ProxiWeb requires a PalmPilot modem and an Internet account. At home, load up (and save) a few Web pages onto your PalmPilot, so that you’ll have something impressive to call up later when you’re not connected to a phone line. Be sure to include, among the Web pages you’ve stored for offline use, at least one nice grayscale photo.
If you don’t have a PalmPilot modem, you can still wow people with photos. Convert the pix of your loved ones into ImageViewer format, and view them on your PalmPilot using ImageViewer or TinyViewer. (All of the shareware mentioned in this article is available on the "PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide" CD — or from http://www.palmcentral.com.)
.H1 PocketSynth
Music on the PalmPilot? Sure. Install this little shareware gem, and you’ve got the tiniest synthesizer, complete with onscreen piano keyboard on which you can tap out — and even record — monophonic melodies.
I carry mine around with a pre-entered, difficult-sounding piece — "Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring" — which I play for my astounded demo-ees. The PalmPilot speaker isn’t what you’d call a boom box; don’t try to demo this baby on the subway. But if you’re in a relatively quiet room, or have an onlooker who’s not above holding a palmtop computer up to his ear to hear the music, PocketSynth makes a fun and surprising demo.
(P.S.–If you’re showing a musician, show PocketSynth’s Metronome command to call up a live, audio/visual metronome. It’s the equivalent of an expensive electronic metronome.)
.H1 QuickTip
For painting an instantaneous picture of the PalmPilot’s utility in everyday life, it’s hard to beat QuickTip. This little program lets you specify how much your restaurant bill was, what the prevailing tax rate is, what percent tip you’d like to leave, and — when appropriate — how many people are splitting the tip.
The program instantly calculates what each person’s share is. No more arguing or lingering feelings of bitterness by diners who don’t think they got a fair shake.
Show PalmPilot virgins a sample calculation, and every time they ever go out to eat thereafter, they’ll long for a PalmPilot.
.H1 TealEcho
TealEcho adds a unique feature: whenever you draw a Graffiti character in the writing area, the line you’re drawing actually appears on the main display portion of the screen, as shown in Figure B.
.FIG B You can see what your Graffiti stroke really looks like with TealEcho.
TealEcho’s original purpose, of course, is to help you master your Graffiti trouble spots by showing you exactly what the PalmPilot is "seeing" when you draw. But TealEcho is also ideal for showing onlookers what Graffiti is all about. Now they can see exactly what you’re doing with your stylus down there in the writing area.
.H1 PocketChess
Frankly, I have no clue how to play chess. But I carry PocketChess around on my PalmPilot simply because it’s among the most beautiful and impressive-looking games I’ve ever seen. People connect instantly to it — they know what chess is supposed to look like, and this looks like it. You don’t have to explain this software to them.
And then you tell them that the program takes up only 17K of the PalmPilot’s memory, and they suddenly understand the compact, tightly coded nature of Palm OS software.
.H1 Tricorder
PalmPilot newsgroup junkies already know about Tricorder, but it’s an absolute must–especially on those occasions when somebody’s looking over your shoulder and says: "What’s that thing?"
Turn around, flip open the cover (if it’s a Palm III), point the PalmPilot at her, and press one of the scroll buttons. The PalmPilot makes impressive, Trekkish scanning sounds. Complicated 3-D modeling animations flitter about the screen. Finally (when you release the button), an analysis of you person you scanned appears: "No intelligent life forms present," it might say, or "COMPOSITION: 29% DOUGH, 28% EXTRA CHEESE, 25% TOMATO SAUCE, 13% ANCHOVIES."
Sure, the readouts are hilarious, and the complex-looking info screens are very cool. But the best part is that for a few seconds there, nine out of ten demo victims believe that they’re actually being scanned by your little gadget–and get just the tiniest bit freaked out.
.H1 Tips for demoing
Once you’ve got your palmtop loaded up with demo-worthy software, you’ve got to master the art of showing it.
You’ll quickly discover, for example, that the PalmPilot simply can’t be viewed by more than one person at a time. The screen technology simply doesn’t permit it. So you’ll have to sacrifice your own view of the screen when you give your demo–or at the very least find a position that permits someone to look over your shoulder. But do make a conscious attempt to solve this problem–there’s nothing worse for an onlooker than your hogging the screen so that they get only a diluted idea of what you’re showing.
.PAGE
Most PalmPilot demos are casual, informal, unscheduled, one-on-one affairs, the kind that goes on in thousands of grass-roots, face-to-face encounters every day. But if you’re ever asked to show the PalmPilot for a larger group–to show your DinkyPad product sketches to your design team, for example–don’t sweat. Because it has an LCD screen, the PalmPilot looks great on camera, free from the rolling lines that appear when you video a computer screen. Put your PalmPilot in its HotSync cradle to hold it steady; set up a tripod with a camcorder zoomed way in; and route the camcorder’s signal to a big-screen TV or projection system.
That way, dozens of people can see what you’re doing. But be careful: the PalmPilot virus just might become an epidemic.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For a lot of really cool PalmPilot software, visit http://palmcentral.com.
ProxiWeb is available at http://www.proxinet.com/.
Image Viewer is available at http://members.aol.com/PilotApps/.
PocketSynth is available at http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~echeng/Pilot/pilot.html.
QuickTip is available at http://www.ablecom.net/~brad/.
TealEcho is available at http://www.tealpoint.com.
PocketChess is available at http://www.eskimo.com/~scottlu/pilot/.
Tricorder is available at http://www.mindspring.com/~jetton/pilot/.
DinkyPad is available at http://www.daggerware.com/.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO David Pogue is the author of "PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide." Visit his website at http://www.davidpogue.com.
.DISCUSS http://www.component-net.com/webx?13@@.ee6c128
