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In response to this column's invitation for readers to share their
experiences with products, I'd like to pass along my excitement about the U.S.
Robotics Pilot, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). With its of ease-of-use,
size, collection of applications, and seamless connectivity, the Pilot not only
is cool, but also is useful.
Nearly one hundred applications are available for the Pilot, from freeware
to commercial software--for fun, utility, and business. With the Pilot and a
modem, you can log on to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) via Point-to-Point
Protocol (PPP) and download your email. In addition, several tools are available
to let you develop custom applications. Soon, network administrators will stuff
Pilots in their shirt pockets while running out the door to the beach. They'll
perform all systems administration while lounging in a beach chair.
To get you acquainted with Pilot, I will introduce you to some essential
applications. Then I'll talk about application development and warn you of some
dangers.
Utilities First
The Pilot's operating system, Palm OS, is great, but it's not perfect,
especially if you're a power user. You'll want the HackMaster series, shareware
for the Pilot from DaggerWare (the HackMaster FAQ assures users that they have
nothing to fear despite the product's name). This series adds some features the
Pilot should have. First, go to http://www.daggerware.com and
download hackmstr.prc, the engine that all other Hack apps depend on. Next,
download MenuHack, which is especially useful because it lets you tap into an
app's title bar to access a sticky menu (this saves you at least half a second
from clicking on the menu icon--time is money!). If you keep secure information
on your Pilot, load PowerHack (go to http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/ jakr/pilot). It locks the Pilot every time it goes off and requires you to log in with a password. Two other Hack programs, SilkHack (available at
http://www.mindwell.com/pilot/musthave.html) and DaggerWare's AppHack let
you reassign the functionality of the soft and hard buttons--very useful
when you exceed the four included apps.
DaggerWare's drawing program, Dinky Pad, lets you use your Pilot to make
drawings that you can back up and view on your PC if you also use the Generic
Conduit Manager (go to http://cpu563.adsl.sympatico.ca/gcm.htm). This
program also fixes a bug related to backup of third party apps.
Cutting Edge Software's spreadsheet, QuickSheet (go to http://www.cesinc.com),
connects to both Excel and Lotus spreadsheets. For home and expenses,
QMate (available at http://www.wco.com/~johnr/steve/qmate.html), lets you
generate .QIF files to import into Quicken.
A couple of email packages cleverly connect the Pilot to Simple Mail
Transfer Protocol (SMTP) or Messaging API (MAPI) mail systems. With Palmeta
Software's Palmeta Mail (go to http://www.palmeta.com), you can connect to
Netscape's email application or Exchange to send and receive mail when you HotSync.
A Pilot application usually has two components: the program that runs on the
Pilot--the .prc file--and a "conduit" that runs on the PC. The conduit
application handles data interchange, including backup, between the PC and the
Pilot. The HotSync program is responsible for managing the conversation between
the Pilot and the conduits. Be forewarned: Not all applications have conduits;
also, like the Calculator, not all applications need conduits.
Also of note is Agenda. This useful calendar application shows you today,
tomorrow, the week, and tasks at a glance through a tabbed window. The Pilot
gets really exciting when you load Pendragon Software's PilotForms (at
http://www.webfayre.com) and Smartcode Software's Pilot HandStamp (at
http://www.smartcodesoft.com). As the Pilot progresses from a useful replacement
for day-planning calendars to a full-blown business tool, applications such as
these will lead the way.
PilotForms lets you design custom forms within Access and upload them to
the Pilot for data collection or review. You can download the collected data to
Microsoft Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, or ASCII .csv files. PilotForms Developer Kit uses
an OLE custom control (OCX) to hook data coming and going into VB or C++ for
very sophisticated apps. For example, many physicians use the Pilot to jot down
patient notes and information.
Smartcode Software's HandStamp, with a modem connected to your Pilot's
serial port, lets you dial in to an ISP (or your local Net) via PPP and read
your email. With the U.S. Robotics Pilot clip-on modem, you can log on to your
Windows NT network with nothing but the Pilot.
Writing Applications for the Pilot
If the available applications don't meet your needs, you can create your
own. Developing a Pilot application, while not an elegant process, is
straightforward and requires only a reasonable amount of effort to achieve some
very cool results. A variety of freeware, third-party Pilot development tools
are available for Windows 95 and NT. A tool set called the Alternative Software
Development Kit (ASDK--go to http://www.massena.com/darrin/pilot/asdk/asdk.htm)
combines many of these tools. The tools offer
command-line Help, and you can integrate the complete development process into a
single set of makefiles and procedures. The Windows Pilot emulator, Copilot (at
http://www.massena.com/darrin/pilot/index.html), is a very nice piece of
work.
Caveat Emptor!
When you are ready to download a new application to your Pilot, you must
beware of the risks of "unsafe computing." Treat your Pilot
application, until proven otherwise, as a deadly infection, and always make sure
that you synchronize your pilot before you download any new application.
Palm OS is not a protected operating system; if your application messes up
memory or doesn't handle an event correctly, you can do significant damage to
other applications and data inside your Pilot. To illustrate the danger, let me
tell you what happened to me: I had an application that worked marvelously in
the simulator, but as soon as it got into my real Pilot, it froze up the little
PDA. The only way to regain control of the Pilot was to hard reset it--which
also just happens to reset the memory, thereby flushing all data.
The Pilot development environment is a little funky but ultimately
effective. The best documentation for learning how to develop Pilot applications
is on the CodeWarrior CD-ROM from Metrowerks (at http://www.metrowerks.com).
—Jared Vogt
jaredv@metainfo.com
Turn Off AutoArchive in Outlook
If you have started migrating to Outlook 97, you probably have noticed the
AutoArchive feature. By default, the AutoArchive system will wake up every 14
days and, following a brief warning message, scan the Calendar, Tasks, Journal,
and Sent Items folders for old items (the cutoff date varies), and then move
them to a Personal Folders file in the user's profile directory.
This feature can be very useful if you don't have a lot of space on your
mail server and want users to archive old messages to their local hard disks. However, this feature can be very frustrating if, say, you have plenty of space on your mail server and would rather not deal with explaining the AutoArchive feature to users, or would rather keep mail on your mail server where you can back it up easily.
Turning off AutoArchive is easy enough: Go to the AutoArchive page of Tools, Options, and clear the check box. However, unless you clear the AutoArchive option for the Calendar, Tasks, Journal, and Sent Items folders, a user stumbling into the Properties for those folders can accidentally turn on AutoArchive by simply looking at the AutoArchive page and then looking at another page.