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A few notes I wrote to friends about Palm Pilots...

Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 14:20:51 -0800
From: "Philip J. Hollenback" <phil_at_hollenback.net>
Subject: visor notes

Hey, here's a few things I've been thinking about/playing with the last few days:

www.palmgear.com is a good place for downloads and reviews.

I've been experimenting with hacks (OS modifications). You have to run a hack manager and then install the various individual hacks. The hack manager I've been using is X-Master. Hacks I've been experimenting with:

Afterburner II - change cpu speed on a per-application basis. Seems to work really good and apps do seem to run faster if you choose a higher cpu speed. More battery drain, tho. On the plus side, you can set apps to run slower too, to conserve battery. Freeware

Daylight Savings Hack - automatically adjusts you system clock for daylight savings time. Free. Seems to work, although of course I won't know for a few month.s

PopUpFind - allows you to do a 'find' inside an app and grab results. For example, if you are in memo pad, you can do a find, see something in the datebook, and look at the datebook entry without switching apps. Shareware, seems useful but I don't know if I will buy it.

SelectHack - gives select more of an xterm feel - double tap selects a whole word, triple selects a whole line. Free and I like it.

TechSoundHack - adds a bunch of 'cooler' sounds to replace system sounds. Also gives you cool startup and shutdown screens. Shareware, don't know if I will actually buy it.

LapTopHack - you should check this one out. It doesn't seem to be to terribly useful w/o a keyboard. It mainly modifies various parts of the OS to make them more keyboard -accessible. Apparently with this one, you can do everything from the keyboard and not have to pick up a stylus. You should check it out. Also has a bunch of useful features, like it increases the copy buffer from 1K up to 32k, which I can see would be pretty useful if you are typing a lot. Shareware, I probably won't buy unless I get a keyboard.

Obviously these hacks could all potentially make the system more unstable, but I haven't noticed any real problems yet.

An aside: several times buggy programs (not hacks) have crashed my visor. Warm reboots (just press the reset hole) almost never seem to work! The screen clears and the Palm logo comes up, but then after a few seconds the logo flashes off and back on. This repeats forever, apparently the system can't initialize. Pressing the power button in combination with the reset for a 'hard' reboot (asks iff you want to clear all memory) seems to always work fine.

Is that something you have seen?

Other cool apps:

QuickBits - not a hack, but does similar things - modifies the system to make many memory and graphics operations faster (like text scroll). Seems to really work well. Shareware, I think I will buy it.

ClockFix - automatically corrects for clock drift. Run it once and set the time, then run it again a week later and adjust. It then tracks the system clock and applies corrections to make the time much more acurate on the visor. Freeware. Good.

Converter - converts various units of measurement. Free and good.

IrPad - freeware app to supposedly allow printing via IR port. Barfed on the one HP printer I tried it on. Would be very cool if it worked.

Bejeweled - fun matching/tetris game. Shareware, I might buy it.

Golf Solitaire - excellent simple solitaire game. Shareware, also might buy it.

Anyway, that's a long rundown on what I've been playing around with. I really like my visor. I see 8MB modules on ebay for around $30, I might have to buy one. There's a free decent dictionary called Noah that I could put in ther (5MB for complete definitions of 122000 words).

P.

CategoryGeekStuff