I’ve found it very hard recently to get through two classes, at most, without wondering how many emails I have received (20-40/day is the norm) or if there are any new comments here. After looking at Blackberry and Treo solutions, I decided a PDA is the best and most cost effective. A Treo 700W would run ~$70/month! Campus is drenched in Wi-Fi so a Wi-Fi enabled PDA is the best solution. I had looked at the Windows Mobile powered ones but I won’t buy a Microsoft product so I quickly went to looking at Palms, the Apples of the PDA market. I’ve gone ahead and ordered myself a Palm 1044NA LifeDrive from NewEgg. What caught my eye was the 4GB hard drive – most PDA’s don’t have hard drives or anywhere near 4GB of storage. Oh and Bluetooth makes syncing with the Mac a breeze.
Now I’ll be completely wired and able to keep up with everything… maybe even blog from the PDA! However, I have yet to see how powerful the web browser is. I plan on taking the PDA everywhere with me as it’s so mobile, I rarely take my laptop anywhere these days – down the hall at most. What are your experiences with PDA’s? Have any killer Palm apps I should know about? Drop a line.
PaulStamatiou.com runs on the Thesis Theme for WordPress
Thesis is the search engine optimized WordPress theme of choice for serious online publishers. If you’re a blogger who doesn’t understand a lot of PHP, Thesis will give a ton of functionality without having to alter any code. For the advanced, Thesis has incredible customization possibilities via Thesis hooks.
With so many design options, you can use the template over and over and never have it look like the same site. The theme is robust and flexible enough not only to accommodate a site like PaulStamatiou.com, but also to enable the site to run far more efficiently than it ever has before.
I used the Scribe WordPress plugin and service to optimize this blog post for SEO.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
I recently got a Palm T|X and I love it. The wifi is great and the browser is fine as long as you don’t expect it to replace your laptop.
Killer Applications you require:
Quicknews: RSS reader, not perfect but the best if you want to update feeds on the go, also does podcasts.
Plucker & Sunrise: I use sunrise (on my PC to grab all my rss feeds in the morning and then dump them on to my SD card and read them on the train with plucker. Can’t update feeds from your palm but great for syncing with PC.
Bejeweled2: The most addictive game ever
datebk5: Essential datebook replacement
hope this helps
I would recommend downloading Due Yesterday. It’s a free application for monitoring school assignments and keeping track of grades. It has a desktop application which works on Mac OS X and allows you to edit that data on a computer also.
There are other good application out there that I’ve found through the years I’ve had a Palm. I’ll write about them later on my blog. Right now I have to get ready for school!
That’s funny because I was just considering getting a PDA. I had a Handspring Visor back in the day about 5 years ago (damn I’m getting old) and always liked it. I find myself now trying to keep track of appointments without any centralized organizational system. Maybe I’ll bust that old clunker out, though it might be time for an upgrade!
I bought a Dell Pocket PC when they first introduced them when I was in college, for something like $200 I think. As a general PDA experience, it’s been great to have one, I just need to do a better job of remembering to sync it. I know you already bought your Palm, but for future reference, The Missing Sync by Mark/Space is great for syncing Windows Mobile to OS X. They also make software for syncing the Palm, and Sidekick platforms as well, so definitely worth a look.
The only advice I have for all PDA users, is to regularly back up your PDA to removeable media, and back up your cal/contacts/mail, etc on your desktop regularly too…I’ve had too many experiences where I’ve needed to reimage the PDA (but I guess that’s what I get for buying an MS product!).
One more thing…see if there’s any NES/SNES emulation software for Palm. I think I use my PocketPC most for playing NES and SNES roms at work :-)
I’m a little bit PDA ignorant, but was thinking I might like one myself. Do you need to pay for an ISP for this, or can it just connect to any wireless connection?
Paul,
Love your blog and have added it to my RSS Feed. Check out my own, I have a writeup on my favorite PDA apps for my Treo, I am not sure they would work on the PDA you got, but you could try.
Here’s the link to my blog.
My favorite app is Verichat, by Iambic, which is also the maker of Missing Sync, which I love.
Cheers,
Taryn
Oops, typed this too fast :-) Here is the corrected comment, thanks.
I have been thinking alot lately about getting some sort of portable internet device. I’ve never even really had a laptop so I was leaning that way, but PDAs/Pocket PCs are alot more portable I guess. Why do you not carry your laptop anymore? Too bulky? Dangerous? If I wanted a mobile blogging machine I should go for the laptop, right?
Congrats, I hear it is a good model. Please post your thoughts on it after you have used it for about a month.
I just finished writing my guide to The Best Palm Applications for Students. I think you’ll find this rather useful, Paul.
I don’t want to make you sad but the bad thing with the wonderful LifeDrive is the delay when loading or switching applications :(
The Windows Mobile OS is not really all that bad, did that just happen? Did I use the word ‘Windows’ in a positive manor?
Seriously it is the only M$ product I would purchase, I tried Palm and whilst they are really good I just found the Microsoft experience just that bit better. Two compliments in one one post, next thing you know I’ll be beta testing Vista!
Paul, the last name might be a coincidence but it looks like you are in trouble with a family member for paying $400 for a PDA :-)
Must be a Paul thing, because I would spend $400 for it too …
Paul
oops…my e-mail said regina stamatiou posted a comment, but I do not see it yet….maybe it will appear soon :-)
I was seriously considering picking one up a while back, but I just don’t have the resources to spend time-wise, as much as I’d like to. What kind of looking around did you do? Any good shops/review sites etc? I’m looking with an open mind – Palm or Windows Mobile would work, but I need the Bluetooth and WiFi.
I’d appreciate a few pointers to websites and whatnot.
Thanks.
That pda looks awesome, 4GB of storage (3.95 or somthing available for use) plus it has wi-fi access you say? Get a portable web browser on it and you should be able to access the net from any internet hotspot and update website, check email and such like.
I dont know what sorts of software you can get for these things but it could be an idea to find software that does the following:
+ Viewes Websites over the wi-fi – giving access to the internet whenever your in a hotspot (sometimes its free)
+ Media player app – you have 4Gb space, having an episode or two of your favourite program or some podcasts, etc to listen to during the day is nice especially if your caught waiting on a bus or in a q for somthing.
+ voip – with wifi and and mic and speaker you could have a nice cheap phone as well.
Are you going to write a review? I would be very much interested to hear what you think about it.
Lifedrive
/me drools
It looks awesome – but how is the battery life? Keeping a hard drive churning consumes a lto of energy on the go
Titanas, and others who complain about Lifedrive ‘loading delay’.
Have you ever actually used a LifeDrive? There is no delay. I had a lifedrive for three months and just had to get rid of it because a) it was EXTREMELY prone to crashing and b) It takes over TWO MINUTES to soft reset. Combine those factors and I spent more time waiting on it than using it.
But the so called ’six second delay’ was the result of one VERY POORLY written and largely FALSE review, and has been discredited over and over again.
The TX is an excellent second choice to the lifedrive, and you can pick up SD cards for not all that much money to increase capacity. It’s not as pretty as the LD, but it is less chunky!
Side note: A few months after I sold the lifedrive, its hard drive failed. Got an angry letter from the guy I sold it to. Not my problem of course, but I feel bad for the guy.
I’m looking at getting one of these, I’m mainly after the fact that it has a 4GB HDD. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is also a must-have for me.