.KEYWORD bcooltools
.FLYINGHEAD EDITORS’ CHOICE AWARDS
.TITLE PalmPower Editors’ Choice Awards – Cool Tools 1998
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY We continue our first annual Editors’ Choice Awards with the Cool Tool Awards. These are those add-on products that smooth out the rough edges, make your Palm organizer more effective, make it more fundamentally capable, and make it more fun.
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
When we started the planning process for the PalmPower Editors’ Choice Awards, we envisioned only giving out a few awards. It seemed — initially — obvious. Products like AvantGo and the GoType! keyboard (and our other Product of the Year winners) were world-beaters. They fundamentally changed how you’d use your Palm computer. We’d give the award to four or five products, we’d have done a nice feature, and then we’d move on.
But when we started the actual selection process, we began to think more deeply about what products deserved Editors’ Choice Awards. And we realized that there were some incredibly wonderful products that didn’t transform the overall operation of the Palm device, but rather, smoothed out the rough edges, made it more effective, made it more fundamentally capable, and made it more fun.
These weren’t necessarily the earth-shakers, but rather the products you use every day, almost without noticing they’re there. Software like TealPaint, HackMaster, ListMaker, and the like. These so subtly — but so wonderfully — extend the Palm computer experience that life without them doesn’t seem worthwhile. And then, there were the goodies. What about the cool games, like UBoat and ShadowThief, that make it possible to sit waiting for a plane without losing your mind? These too were deserving of recognition. And finally, there were the funky, interesting products. Those products that were sufficiently "out there" that we just had to give them awards for their innovation.
And so, we extended the PalmPower Editors’ Choice Awards and added two completely new topic areas "Cool Tools" and "Fun Gadgets".
It was tough choosing these products. As in all award nominations, there’s bound to be someone left out. Each candidate product came into the running in one (or more) of three ways: it was self-nominated, it was nominated by our readers, or it was something our editors found and considered worthy. Once nominated, the products were carefully evaluated. Then, once the winners were chosen, they were divided up into categories. You should note that the winners in each category carry equal weight. Just because a product isn’t listed first in the category doesn’t mean it’s not as fine a product as the others.
These are fine products. Table A, below, provides a short summary of the winners and categories. Be sure to check out the Product Availability section, at the end of the article, for contact information and Web URLs.
.BEGIN_TAB_TABLE Table A PalmPower Editors’ Choice Cool Tools Award Winners
.TAB_TABLE_HEADER Category Winner
.TAB_TABLE_ROW PIM City
(personal information manager enhancements) ListMaker (Synergy Solutions)
ToDo Plus and Memo Plus (Hands High)
DateBk3 (Pimlico Software)
BugMe! (Haus of Maus)
Action Names and Sales Warrior (Iambic)
Organizer 5.0 (Lotus)
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Be on the Outlook
(Outlook synchronization tools) Desktop To Go (DataViz)
PocketJournal (Chapura)
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Show me the money QuickSheet (Cutting Edge Software)
FCPlus Professional (Infinity Softworks)
QMate (Steve Dakin)
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Database engines JFile (Land-J Technologies)
MobileDB (Mobile Generation)
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Graffiti replacements TealScript (TealPoint)
Jot (Communications Intelligence)
.TAB_TABLE_ROW Most essential to putting out PalmPower Launch ’em (Synergy Solutions)
TealPaint (TealPoint)
.TAB_TABLE_ROW It wouldn’t be a Palm computer without Award HackMaster (DaggerWare)
AportisDoc (Aportis)
.END_TAB_TABLE
.H1 PIM City
The products that won the award in this category are those that extend the Personal Information Manager functionality of the Palm computer in helpful and useful ways.
.H2 ListMaker from Synergy Solutions
ListMaker is one of those tiny applications you’re likely to forget. It’s totally unintrusive and so immediately functional that it almost seems too simple. But we think that the ability to easily, instantly make free-form lists is an essential tool for the Palm computer. We’ve cheated by trying to make lists in the Memo Pad or by taking up a category in the To Do list, but the Palm computer really needs a general-purpose list-making tool. And ListMaker is just that. With ListMaker, you can keep track of everything: from shopping lists to what to pack on your next vacation. And the just released ListMaker version 1.5 adds hierarchical items, multiple databases, dates, and custom fields. It’s like a database engine, but without all the hassle.
.H2 ToDo Plus and Memo Plus from Hands High Software
ToDo Plus, now at version 3.0, is a powerful extension to your To Do application. It allows you to alarm any task, attach drawings to tasks (what a win that one is!), filter tasks by due date, and create repeating tasks. Unlike many of the other To Do enhancements, ToDo Plus allows you to HotSync with your normal Palm Desktop.
Like ToDo Plus, Memo Plus allows you to attach drawings and alarms to your memos. More interestingly, it includes the concepts of "templates". With templates, when you create a new memo, you can do so with pre-filled information already created. For example, you can create a template for a lesson plan, or to remind you where you parked your car. The company makes many user-created templates available on their Web site.
.H2 DateBk3 from Pimlico Software
DateBk3, also now at version 3.0, is a huge piece of software, especially for a "mere" Date Book extension. But there’s nothing mere about this program. The program adds five new views of your dates (weekly, two-week, list view, monthly with icons, and yearly). While it might seem weird that you can get a year view on your Palm device, it is surprisingly interesting to see, at a glance, how busy one month is in comparison to another. DateBk3 links the Date Book database with the To Do database, supports multiple time zones, a daily journal, appointments spanning midnight and lasting more than 24 hours, snooze alarms, and floating events. We can’t even begin to go into the more than 50 enhancements DateBk3 adds to the original Date Book application.
There are a few interesting notes. First, DateBk3 got the most reader nominations and the most raves from individuals on the PowerBoards of all our candidates. Second, the developer of DateBk3, C. E. Steuart Dewar, is using the money raised from this application to do something truly unique: he’s creating a haven for gorillas en-route to zoos.
One final caution: This is a huge product. If you don’t have a "bunchload" of memory free (245K+), you won’t be able to use it.
.H2 BugMe! from Haus of Maus
BugMe! is a cute little application by Iain Barclay. BugMe! is a pop-up reminder program that lets you quickly jot a note, then set an alarm for when the note should pop-up and it’ll "bug you" at the appointed time. BugMe! lets you scribble on the screen or enter text using Graffiti. BugMe! is great for when you need to remember something in an hour or so and don’t want to bother with the process of setting an alarm in the Palm device’s Date Book.
.H2 Action Names and SalesWarrior from Iambic
Action Names was a classic extension to the time management capabilities of the ill-fated Apple Newton MessagePad. But when the Newton was in it’s heyday, we used and loved Action Names. Well, thankfully, Action Names is now available on the Palm device and, although it’s had to be toned down for the smaller screen, it’s still a very useful tool. Like DateBk3 and ToDo Plus, Action Names uses the existing Palm To Do and Date Book databases, making it fully Palm Desktop compatible. The big benefit that Action Names offers is that you can view your information in clear and interesting ways. Our favorite is the view that shows multiple days and all the calls, To Do items, and appointments together.
SalesWarrior, shown in Figure A, is a sales tracking application for your Palm computer. Like ACT! or GoldMine on the PC, SalesWarrior allows you to track sales opportunities, leads, referral sources, actual sales, products and their part numbers, and commissions. This is the first integrated, fully featured sales management system we’ve seen for the Palm computer. We didn’t think it was possible to fit all this complexity into the tiny Palm screen, but it seems to work really well.
.FIG A You’ll conquer your competitors with SalesWarrior.
.H2 Lotus Organizer 5.0
Finally, we move from the Palm device itself to the PC desktop. Although the Palm Desktop application is a functional piece of work, it is not what you’d call a power-PIM. Lotus Organizer is, with an emphasis on the "power". Lotus claims that there are over 35 million Organizer users worldwide. Organizer looks and works like a manual planner — with tabs and pages that turn. Like other PIMs, it’s all-in-one tool that will schedule appointments, manage contacts, make to-do lists, keep notes, and share calendars.
What makes Organizer interesting to us are two elements: the Palm linkage and it’s connectivity. Organizer can schedule with other users across the Internet using iCalendar. And for those users who are Notes and Domino-capable, Organizer becomes a serious group working environment. Nice, but what makes it a PalmPower Editors’ Choice winner is that it also works well with the Palm computer, right out of the box.
.H1 Be on the Outlook
The products that won the award in this category are those that integrate with Microsoft Outlook. These products, in particular, are interesting because they also interact well with our PIM winners.
.H2 Desktop To Go from DataViz
Desktop To Go, as shown in Figure B, has long been respected as the leading connection solution between the Palm computer and Outlook and Schedule+.
.FIGPAIR B Desktop To Go allows you to control exactly how you want your data to HotSync.
Now, in version 2.5, the product has gotten even better. The new version adds support for Outlook Public folders; options for filtering private records; a priority list for synchronizing your most important phone numbers; control over the synchronization of Date Book alarms; a creative new option for handling contacts with multiple addresses; support for Outlook records with multiple categories; an option to rename Palm device custom fields to those in Outlook or Schedule+; and the ability to automatically record Outlook Journal entries for new contacts. We’re also particularly happy to see support for category synchronization in the Date Book conduit when using products like Editors’ Choice winner DateBk3. This is an example of the Palm developer community working together to improve the overall experience.
.H2 PocketJournal from Chapura
It’s tough to choose between two strong contenders. Chapura makes PocketMirror, another tool for synchronizing between Outlook and the Palm computer. In pure synchronization, we felt that Desktop To Go pulled ahead of PocketMirror because it also supports Schedule+, widely used throughout Corporate America. However, Chapura’s other product, PocketJournal, does merit its own Editors’ Choice Award.
PocketJournal synchronizes Palm computer with Outlook’s Journal, turning Outlook and your Palm device into a powerful contact management tool. PocketJournal also allows you to view a history of activities several ways. PocketJournal views include by contact, by company, by subject, by type and by date. It supports synchronizing to the same exchange Server folders from any PC connected to the server. One feature we were particularly impressed with was the ability to synchronize to the same Exchange Server-based folders from any PC, whether directly connected to the server or even through a dial-up connection.
.H1 Show me the money
The products that won the award in this category are those that help you work money magic on your Palm computer.
.H2 QuickSheet from Cutting Edge Software
If you count beans, you’re going to go ape over this product. QuickSheet, shown in Figure C, is a complete spreadsheet squished into your Palm computer.
.FIG C Yes, Virginia, there is a spreadsheet for your Palm computer.
This alone is pretty amazing. But the folks at Cutting Edge have taken it further — way further. QuickSheet, now at version 3.1, integrates tightly with Excel, including adding it’s own QuickSheet menu into Excel. This allows you work directly within Excel to open and save spreadsheets for synchronization with QuickSheet on your Palm computer. If you want to really feel the power, QuickSheet also includes a MultiMail Pro plug-in. This means that you can send a fully-functional QuickSheet spreadsheet from your Palm device to another user on his Palm device, via email, without ever either of you having to resort to using your desktops. It makes setting up those offshore, tropical banking relationships on the Cayman Islands seem more reasonable by the day.
.H2 FCPlus Professional from Infinity Softworks
If you ever wanted the ultimate financial calculator on steroids, FCPlus Professional is it. To make complex calculations easier, FCPlus Professional uses what the company calls worksheets, but what seem to us more like calculator templates. This worksheet design takes the focus off of data entry and calculating and shifts it to data analysis.
.H2 QMate by Steve Dakin
No matter where you go, you need to write checks and record the information. While it may seem overkill to use a Palm computer as a checkbook recording device, it’s not. Using the Palm device prevents math errors (and that means no bounced check fees). Plus, if you record your checking information into your Palm device, you can upload that information to Quicken without retyping it (avoiding the potential for even more errors). QMate is a well-designed product that records checkbook information on your Palm computer and synchronizes it with Quicken on both Macs and PCs.
.H1 Database engines
For such a teeny computer, you can hold a surprisingly large amount of information in the Palm device. While the normal PIM tools can structure most data well, sometimes you need a true database engine, complete with data types, field definitions, searching, and sorting. In this category, PalmPower’s editors honor two such products.
.H2 JFile from Land-J Technologies
JFile is quite popular among those Palm users "in the know". The new 3.0 version sports in-place editing of certain field types as well as field structure changes on the Palm organizer. We’re happy to see data types that include pop-up lists and check boxes in addition to the more pedestrian dates and integers. What makes JFile even more interesting are the add-on links available that connect JFile to products like Access, Excel, and FileMaker.
.H2 MobileDB from Mobile Generation
Like JFile, MobileDB supports a variety of database functions. It’s a bit lighter in the feature department, but it also takes less of your Palm organizer’s precious RAM. One feature we liked was the abundance of conversion options, including an HTML converter. The Mobile Generation Web site also has a wide variety of interesting databases you can download. Of course, we were most amused by the database spotlight, which highlighted the 1999 NBA schedule — which, of course, is locked out. Mobile Generation was not unaware of the NBA’s predicament, as this comment shows: "Ok, so the season is delayed but you can still see what you would have been watching!" It’s nice to see they have a sense of humor along with their cool products.
.H1 Graffiti replacements
Your esteemed Editor-in-Chief has never been a fan of Graffiti. While others here at PalmPower have had no problem with Graffiti, it’s always been a challenge for me. So, I’d like to do everything possible to encourage finding better ways to write on the Palm device. This year, we honor two Graffiti replacement products. Neither solves the problem perfectly, but progress is progress. Frankly, the best we’ve seen so far is the handwriting recognition in the old Apple Newton MessagePad 2000, which seemed to be able to interpret just about any stroke we threw at it.
.H2 TealScript from TealPoint Software
TealScript is a tool that tunes your Palm device’s ability to recognize Graffiti strokes. The idea is that Graffiti can handle most of your strokes quite easily. But there are a few you can never get it to recognize. Using TealScript, you can go in and "train" Graffiti to understand your specific strokes. The training process can be a bit tedious, but this is certainly one way to reduce the Graffiti-blues.
.H2 Jot from Communication Intelligence
Jot goes about handwriting recognition in a completely different way. Jot pretty-much recognizes your natural alphabet and numeric strokes, without learning a specific Graffiti-like language. It also allows you to write anywhere on the screen. You write mostly in lower-case letters, writing "a", instead of "A", and so forth. We found this variant on handwriting recognition quite effective, but got a bit confused because there are non-standard writing styles for "t" and "f".
.H1 Most essential to putting out PalmPower
Every month we crank out another issue of this glorious magazine. Because PalmPower is about the Palm device, we find ourselves having to integrate the publications production process with the handheld device. Two products have proven themselves invaluable for managing that process and deserve Editors’ Choice recognition.
.H2 Launch ’em from Synergy Solutions
Launch ’em is a launcher replacement for the Palm computer. Prior to upgrading to Palm OS 3.0, Launch ’em, with it’s category feature, was the only way we were able to keep track of all the applications we’d load each issue onto our Palm devices. When PalmOS 3.0 came out, the built-in launcher had categories. But because Launch ’em, now in version 1.5, offers a bunch of other features, it is still indispensable. Our favorite feature is the ability to add plug-ins to Launch ’em.
We regularly use two such plug-ins: the trash can plug-in to delete applications we’re done torture-testing, and the GetInfo plug-in to get quick application information. The other two features of Launch ’em that separate it from the built-in launcher are the ability to drag and drop applications between tabs (i.e., categories), and the ability to password lock categories (so we don’t take the chance of zorching the stuff we’re not testing).
.H2 TealPaint from TealPoint Software
Back for a second appearance in our Editors’ Choice Awards, TealPoint has a product that was, literally, a godsend to us. When we first started the publication, we went crazy trying to find a way to capture screenshots. We could use the CoPilot simulators, and then do a PC screen capture, but that was tedious and didn’t reflect our real-world use of the Palm device. Or we could (and this was actually suggested), put the Palm computer on a scanner and scan in the screen. Sheesh!
And then we discovered TealPaint. TealPaint runs on the Palm device and allows you to set a capture interval. Tell it to capture, go to the screen you want to capture, wait a few seconds, and voila! Your screen is now captured and is part of a named database. On the next HotSync, the database is uploaded to the PC and there’s a TealPaint Manager program that scans the image database and lets you export each image to .BMP files. TealPaint is also a complete, fully-function bitmap painting program, for those of you creating your own images.
.H1 It-Wouldn’t-Be-A-Palm-Computer-Without Award
There are two kinds of Palm computer users: those who use their trusty handheld straight out of the box and never add any functionality, and those who download new software to their machines. OK, there are probably other types of Palm computer users, but work with me here. While there are thousands of add-on products to download, there are two products that are so intrinsic to boosting functionality that they should probably be built-in.
.H2 HackMaster by DaggerWare
The PalmOS system software is fine as it is, but there are just some things that can only be done by bypassing it entirely. Unfortunately, writing and installing a system patch is a huge pain, and almost sure to provoke conflicts with other patches. HackMaster is Edward Keyes’ solution to these woes. It provides a standard method for managing, installing, and uninstalling system extensions. Virtually all system-level utilities for the Palm device use the HackMaster interface. Without it, the Palm computer would be a much less powerful and convenient device.
.BEGIN_KEEP
.H2 AportisDoc by Aportis
AportisDoc has become the industry-standard for displaying and interchanging electronic text and books of any size on the Palm computer. Text consumes large amounts of your Palm device’s limited storage space. The DOC format stores this text in a more efficient, compressed form, enabling you to carry larger and more documents. Thousands of electronic books and useful materials are available today in DOC format, including reference works, weather reports, HTML codes, the Bible, postal and country codes, bus and subway schedules, travel guides, and sports schedules. We cover some of these each month in the PalmPower Book of the Month Club column. It should be noted that TealPoint also offers a DOC viewer, called TealDoc. But we’ve had some problems with TealDoc and the "standard" was the original tool developed by Aportis, so we’ve decided to give them this award.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
.GRAPHICPAIR D The following products are our Cool Tools winners. We’ve arranged this section so you’ll be able to find the award winners according to category. There are loads of links here and some great products to check out.
.H2 PIM City
ListMaker is available from http://www.synsolutions.com.
ToDo Plus and Memo Plus are available from http://www.handshigh.com.
DateBk3 is available from http://www.gorilla-haven.org/pimlico/.
BugMe! is available from http://www.hausofmaus.com.
Action Names and SalesWarrior are available from http://www.iambic.com.
Lotus Organizer is available from http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/tabs/organizer.
.H2 Be on the Outlook
Desktop To Go is available from http://www.dataviz.com.
Pocket Journal is available from http://www.chapura.com.
.H2 Show me the money
QuickSheet is available from http://www.cesinc.com.
FCPlus Professional is available from http://www.infinitysw.com.
QMate is available from http://www.wco.com/~sdakin/qmate.html.
.H2 Database engines
JFile is available from http://www.land-j.com.
MobileDB is available from http://www.mobilegeneration.com.
.H2 Graffiti replacements
TealScript is available from http://www.tealpoint.com.
Jot is available from http://www.cic.com.
.H2 Most essential to putting out PalmPower
Launch ’em is available from http://www.synsolutions.com.
TealPaint is available from http://www.tealpoint.com.
.H2 It-Wouldn’t-Be-A-Palm-Computer-Without Award
HackMaster is available from http://www.daggerware.com.
AportisDoc is available from http://www.aportis.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?13@@.ee6c7f0
.END_KEEP
