Skip to main content

My Palm TX: truly one device to rule them all?

Most of you know I am quite addicted to my PDA, the Palm TX. I've attempted to consolidate multiple devices and functions into it's use every day, and, in my ongoing Mobile Life Tips, I figured you should have an update.
The Palm TX

Let's take a look at my typical day. At about 4AM, my Palm "wakes up" and does a HotSync with my computer, thanks to EZSync; that HotSync allows Sunrise to grab the latest RSS feeds I monitor (I'll publish a separate list of those some time) so I can read today's San Francisco Chronicle, for instance, on my ferry ride, with Plucker. My Palm continues to work hard in the wee hours of the morning, with Quick News connecting to my WiFi network at about 5AM, and pulling down any new podcasts I subscribe to.

Later in the morning, after I have woken up, I check to see if there are any new episodes of the Daily Show, Colbert Report, or 24 that are downloaded to my PC (I was using the Democracy Player to do this automatically for me, but it was just too unstable, so I do it by hand). If there are new ones, I put them onto my 1GB SD card, so I can watch them at my leisure with TCMP.

During the day, I'm using ZLauncher to see my schedule and to do's, as well as manage my various programs. When I get a few minutes of downtime, I play a little Bejeweled 2, but I am close to getting two emulators to work on my Palm: Palm MAME, and GuineaPig, a Sega Genesis emulator.

Finally, for my ferry ride home, I usually want to get into a book, so I fire up eReader, and lose myself in one of my library. Currently, I'm reading Olympos, by Dan Simmons, the sequel to Ilium. When I get into the car, I connect the TX to my stereo and listen to my podcasts for the short ride home. The Palm is pretty much done for the day, unless Woot messages me at 10pm with a great deal; if so, I fire up the browser, connect with WiFi, and we're in business.

Overall, I think this device has done a hell of a lot more than I thought it could. I sometimes regret not getting the Treo, but the WiFi and big screen have the Treo sincerely beat. One of the best devices I've owned, and, for my Palms, it rivals the venerable Handspring Visor for flexibility, but with most already built in.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Loyalty Review: Kohl's Yes2You

 As some of you know, I've spent over 15 years in the customer loyalty space. So, when I come across a new retail loyalty program, I can't help but see the pluses and minuses. After this many years, it's kind of ingrained. Periodically, I'll share my thoughts with you. Today, it's Kohl's turn under the scope. Let's have a look, shall we? I've divided the review up into three sections: what's good about the program, what's bad about the program, and what I'd change about it. That last one has some actual value: I charged hundreds of dollars per hour for loyalty program consulting, and had over a dozen clients, before I moved to JustAnswer FT. But, being a pandemic and all, I'm giving it away for free here. Kohl's, you're welcome. Here we go! The Good Sign up is opt in Seems odd to praise Kohl's for this, but in department store loyalty, this is a rarity, and a smart one. It means the customers who are opted in are already prime

2020 CV19 Lockdown: Winners and Losers

It is said that in any time in history, the winners and losers are determined when a unique set of circumstances arises the requires an unprecedented response. How a company responds to those conditions can often propel them to new heights, or sentence them to an ignominious end. This post is meant to be an ongoing and often updated list of those that may come out of the Great 2020 Covid19 Lockdown as champs...or chumps. Winners Zoom How is it that, with all of the video conferencing choices in the market, a relatively obscure one (and a freemium one, to boot!) ran away with the title? Think of it: you had entrenched competitors like Skype and Facebook, as well as work-focused like Microsoft Teams , Google Hangouts , and Amazon Chime , any one of which had far greater reach than Zoom . Yet Zoom won, to the point that they achieved the exalted state of having their product/platform become a verb ("I'll Zoom you later"). More amazingly, they even continued their gro

The Icarus Effect

This morning's news started with the latest grim proof of overdevelopment in a tough sector: SkyBus Airlines shut down , less than year from when it started. Never heard of Skybus? Not surprising; they chose to focus on trips from Ohio to the West Coast for ridiculously low fares. Yes, you read that right: the airlines' unique niche was that they focused on trips from Ohio . Was air travel such an amazingly profitable business that we needed that much segmentation and focus? Of course not. A year ago, when Skybus was just getting off the ground (har har), fuel costs were at an all time high. United was still in bankruptcy; Delta, a fellow airline with a major hub in Ohio, was just exiting Chapter 11. And yet, "irrational exuberance" led investors like Nationwide Mutual Capital, Huntington Capital Investment Co., and Battelle Services Co. to ignore the obvious signs of risk, and dive into what was a dubious investment. Today, they, and the passengers who were lured by