.KEYWORD politics
.FLYINGHEAD RESOURCE GUIDE
.TITLE Political resources for your Palm device
.FEATURE
.SUMMARY A wealth of political resources for your Palm device can be found throughout the Internet. Staff Editor Steve Niles has taken a brief survey of what’s available, so whether you’re interested in political news, software, documents, or party information, you’re bound to find something of interest here.
.AUTHOR Steve Niles
A wealth of political resources for your Palm device can be found throughout the Internet. I’ve taken a brief survey of what’s available, so whether you’re interested in political news, documents, party information, or software, you’re bound to find something of interest here.
.H1 News
Both ePolitics.org and WashingtonPost.com’s OnPolitics page are great online sources for political news. However, you might not have known that they also have handy AvantGo channels.
.H2 OnPolitics
The OnPolitics page of WashingtonPost.com can be found at http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/. On the corresponding AvantGo channel, you’ll find political news, columns, the site’s Races to Watch and Today in Congress features, a directory of elected officials, and a database of online political sites. The channel is pictured in Figure A.
.FIG A OnPolitics provides more than just news.
.H2 ePolitics.org
If you’re a fan of the ePolitics.org Web site at http://www.epolitics.org, then you might also want to try ePolitics.org’s AvantGo channel, pictured in Figure B. It has news and ePolls, and you can search its Database of American Politics for academic, campaign, government, media, and policy Web sites.
.FIG B With ePolitics.org, you get news, polls, and a database of political Web sites.
.H1 Documents
There are a number of locations where you can find various politics-related documents. I tried out just a handful.
.H2 The Political Palm
Mark Gribben is Director of Newspaper Affairs at the Michigan Press Association. He is also the creator of The Political Palm. The Political Palm can be found at http://www.markgribben.com/politicalpalm.html, and it’s devoted exclusively to providing political resources for Palm devices. As Gribben describes it on the site, "The Political Palm is a non-partisan site devoted to converting political texts and laws into a format readable by Palm devices."
There you can find a great number of historical documents, laws, speeches, documents, political writings, and commentary you can download to your Palm device in the form of .PRC files, as you can see in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C Mark Gribben’s The Political Palm offers numerous document downloads.
As a test, I downloaded Ronald Reagan’s famous "The Evil Empire" speech. You need a document reader application to view the files you download from The Political Palm, so in Figure D, I happen to be using CSpotRun to read Reagan’s condemnation of totalitarianism.
.FIG D Reagan’s attack on the Evil Empire is just one of the many valuable documents available.
.H2 MemoWare
If documents are what you’re looking for, there’s another well-known place you can find them. MemoWare offers an extensive library of Palm device-compatible documents in a variety of file formats. The company’s Law and Government reference section can be found at http://www.memoware.com/Category=Law_ResultSet=0.htm.
The excerpt in Figure E gives you a sample of what you’ll find.
.FIGPAIR E Here are just a few of the many Law and Government documents you’ll find from MemoWare.
I made use of MemoWare’s site once before to download a Three’s Company episode guide, but for the purposes of this article, I wanted to find something more appropriate. I chose to download The Constitution of the Republic of Liberia. Again, I was able to view it using CSpotRun. The document is pictured in Figure F.
.FIG F The Constitution of the Republic of Liberia has provided hours of reading pleasure.
The resources available from MemoWare and other online libraries like it were reviewed in more depth in the December 1998 issue of PalmPower at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199812/politics002.html.
.H2 Zimmermann.com
Random searches of Palm device hobbyist Web sites can also turn up the occasional politically themed document as well. Among the other miscellaneous odds and ends accumulated at Palm device hobbyist Keith Zimmermann’s Web site (at http://keith.zimmermann.com), you’ll find the six historical speeches pictured in Figure G.
.FIGPAIR G Keith Zimmermann has six historical speeches available.
.H1 Software
If you’re not just interested in politics, but actually work in the field, you probably already find your Palm device invaluable. However, third-party software exists that might actually make your Palm device an even more efficient tool.
.H2 PoliticsOnlineStore
PoliticsOnlineStore at http://www.politicsonlinestore.com/polstore2000/palmpilot.asp is offering what it calls "The Political PalmPilot," designed for lobbyists and government-relations managers. The site is pictured in Figure H.
.FIGPAIR H At PoliticsOnlineStore, you’ll find The Political PalmPilot.
If you were to purchase the Political PalmPilot for $99 per month or $995 a year for a prepaid contract, you’d receive a Palm device equipped with Gnossos Software’s Keep In Touch software. It will store dossier files on federal and state legislators and other people important to your work. As part of the package, PoliticsOnlineStore provides optional installation and training services.
Speaking of Gnossos, if you’re looking for political resources for the Palm device or otherwise, the Gnossos Software Web site would be a good place to visit. It’s at http://www.gnossos.com and is pictured in Figure I.
.FIGPAIR I Gnossos Software offers Keep In Touch for the Palm device.
Don’t let that maniacal grin scare you away before you have a chance to look into the public affairs and government-relations software Gnossos creates using their self-attributed expertise in managing political action committees and grassroots programs at the federal and state levels.
.H1 Party information
If you’re looking for information on specific political parties that you can download onto your Palm device, then depending on your position, you might need to consider changing camps. At the moment, few parties seem to have acknowledged the handheld revolution.
.H2 Democratic National Committee
The Democrats seem to be somewhat on the ball when it comes to handheld computing. Not only does Al Gore’s official site provide an AvantGo download (see this issue’s PalmPower Site of the Month), but you can also find an AvantGo channel set up at the home of the Democratic National Committee as well. The Web site’s at http://www.democrats.org/extras/avantgo/index.html and is pictured in Figure J.
.FIGPAIR J Get news from the Democratic National Committee on your PDA.
On the Democratic National Committee’s AvantGo channel, pictured in Figure K, you’ll find the latest news on the state of the presidential election.
.FIG K The DNC AvantGo channel will keep you up to date on the latest election news.
.H2 The Libertarian Enterprise
If your political sensibilities are outside the two major parties, you might be interested in checking out "The Libertarian Enterprise for the PalmPilot." At http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/ppformat.html, Peter R. Petronello, Master Sergeant USMC, (retired), has reformatted The Libertarian Enterprise to .PRC files for reading on his Palm device. He then submitted them to the folks at Webley Web Works, hosts to The Libertarian Enterprise magazine.
The Libertarian Enterprise is an online publication "dedicated to spreading genuine and unabashed Libertarian opinions on the Internet and elsewhere." On the magazine’s Welcome page, they’re quick to point out that the publication is not an official tool of the Libertarian Party, nor is it "about the insides of a subculture, which, like many another of history’s intellectual movements, often resembles nothing so much as thousands of shrieking eunuchs frantically beating each other to death with shoelaces."
With that clear disclaimer in mind, I went ahead and downloaded the latest issue’s .PRC file. It’s pictured in Figure L.
.FIG L The Libertarian Enterprise opens by defining what a Libertarian is.
.BEGIN_KEEP
.H1 Conclusion
Even if certain political parties haven’t yet realized the value of providing information you can read on handheld devices, there still remains a wealth of resources for you to use. Let your Palm device be your guide as, over the next month, you form your decisions about who should be America’s future leaders.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on The OnPolitics page of WashingtonPost.com, visit http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/.
For more information on ePolitics.org, visit http://www.epolitics.org.
For more information on The Political Palm, visit http://www.markgribben.com/politicalpalm.html.
For more information on CSpotRun, visit http://www.32768.com/bill/palmos/cspotrun/.
For more information on MemoWare’s Law and Government reference section, visit http://www.memoware.com/Category=Law_ResultSet=0.htm.
For the article on documents from MemoWare and other online libraries like it in the December 1998 issue of PalmPower, visit http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue199812/politics002.html.
For more information on Zimmermann.com, visit http://keith.zimmermann.com.
For more information on PoliticsOnlineStore, visit http://www.politicsonlinestore.com/polstore2000/palmpilot.asp.
For more information on Gnossos Software, visit http://www.gnossos.com.
For more information on the Democratic National Committee’s AvantGo channel, visit http://www.democrats.org/extras/avantgo/index.html.
For more information on The Libertarian Enterprise for the PalmPilot, visit http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/ppformat.html.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6e9b0
.END_KEEP
