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

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

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
combinaiton 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 miht
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.
View Source: PalmNotes

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