First an apology for being late on my blog but it is being busy at work, I will try to post every Monday...

PalmOS Fun.

I have explained how I manage work in my PalmOS powered hanheld now it is time to see how I manage the fun.

Books.
I consider reading a pleasure, even though some people believe it is a turture. I love reading for fun in which case I love sci-fi or spy novels and I like to learn in which case I read self-improvement books and reference books. After a while of owning my palm powered handheld I started thinking it would be awesome if I was able to read in it, then I discover peanut books a company that created a book reader for the PalmOS and brought content from the publishers to the users of handhelds, I am in love, since then peanut books was bought by Palm Inc, then by palmgear, but still is the same level of quality so far. Another websites where you can find ebooks are: fictionwise.com and memoware.com.

Web.
Now there are two ways of browse internet content, off line or on-line. I prefer the off-line since it is the more simple of both options (and the least expensive). The way I do on-line browsing is by using a cable to connect my Palm powered handheld to my cell phone, it is nice but very slow so it is only for emergencies. I prefer the off-line option since it is my computer the one that gets the contect using my broadband connection, it takes around 5 minutes to create all the content that I read in day plus my emails, a big difference against the 10 minutes it takes to download the pags using my data cable!. There are a lot of software to do this task in the palm, but I think the best is Plucker , it is simple to use (if you use the desktop) and the viewer is simple to use but powerful.

Games.
Believe it or not I am not a big gamer, I do have some games but I use them rarely but I you can check the HUGE amount of games for the PalmOS in PalmGear

Gabriel Castellanos

Mobile entertainment.

This column is not only about PDAs although it looks like, it is about other stuff that I found interesting and I found that my cell phone could be an incredible source or entertainment.

I just upgrade my wife's phone from a LG5350 to a Samsung VGA1000 (A620), this affect my view of cell phones a lot, first I got my wife's old cell phone which provide me for the first time with an opportunity to really explore Sprintpcs Vision service, at first I wasn't that impressed, yes I can check my emails since Yahoo and MSN allows you to do this and yes you can download content like ringers and screensavers but I found the ringers and screensavers expensive since there are lease not bought and I can find a ton for free in the internet. I though about using the LG5350 as a modem for my Palm but Sprint explicitly prohibits this and since I have an awesome plan I don't want to jeopardize loosing it. So much for the "advance" SprintPCS network I said, but then I discovered two services that I love and I can see a future for the carriers that offer these services.

First I found RealOne, yes you read correctly, an streaming service for a cell phone, I though I won't like it and at first I found it expensive ($5 per month) but now I can't live without it, since RealOne is focusing this service on news I found incredible convenient to get my news from my cell phone, it doesn't matter where I am, I can get updates of the NFL scores, news, etc. Last weekend I was at the movies and I wanted to check the scores, not a problem, I just open the RealOne application, select the sports update and bingo knew what was going on. I can imagine that soon we will have those videophones that were promised to us long time ago. Now audio quality is so-so but doesn’t matter because the idea is to get your news, not to listen to music, I hope that future upgrades to SprintPCS network will allow music streaming, I'd love to use my Rhapsody service from my phone.

The second service I found worth it was SprintPCS pictures, which allows my wife to send me pictures to my email account from her cell phone (VGA1000) which is camera enable. This is so much fun plus convenient, she wants to ask my opinion in something she wants to buy, she sends me a pictures, a process that takes no more that 1 minute, plus when she is visiting family in the west coast she sends me pictures so in a way I share her vacation and help me not to miss her too much.

I know that there are multiple privacy problems with the camera phones, but let me tell you it is worth it. If you like gadgets and you can afford it, buy a camera phone you will not regret it.

Gabriel Castellanos

PS: My guide has been just published in PalmSource website, you can check it at: TimeTracking Guide

Task Management basics.
This week column is about how I implemented GTD using my Palm. But before that allow me to give you a brief introduction to GTD.

GTD

Getting things done is a way to be more efficient by trying to get us "in the zone", that zone describe by highly successful sportsmen and businessmen, basically "the zone" is that moment when we are so into our work that we just ignore the outer world and give our best. How to get there? I would recommend reading the book [Getting Things Done] to get a more detail explanation. For the purpose of this column we should say that there are 3 important steps to follow GTD.
- Keep track of ALL your projects and tasks; this includes work, house, etc.
- Select the "next action" for each project and classify it according to its context (house, office, phone, computer, etc).
- Prioritize what are you going to do based on the flow described in the book (I don't want to be sue for showing copyright material).

Now implementing this in a Palm Powered Handheld is not that easy, there are tons of tools to do this, but as I said last week, I selected the following tools:

- Built-in to-do
- Shadow

Shadow is an outliner that allows me in a very easy way to organize my projects and task, plus it can link individual items to items in the built-in to-do, calendar and address book. I link all my next action tasks to the built-in to-do, where I have them classify by context (@home, @office, @computer, etc) using the categories. Every week I review my list in Shadow prioritizing my task and adding any item to my to-do. When I am working I just look at my context and start working in my to-do, very simple yet very powerful.

I hope this information is helpful in your own quest to be more efficient using your Palm powered handheld.

Gabriel Castellanos.

Task Management basics.

I have talked about two importan uses for my Palm powered handheld, Keeping track of my calendar and writing notes, not it is time to speak about task management.

Strategy.

As any other use, this goes down to decide a strategy to organize your projects and tasks, I am very project oriented since that's the way I earn my living (I am a computer consultant) and after trying multiples approaches I selected "Getting Things Done" since this is closer to my personality. You should select yours first before looking for tools, there are a several strategies but I believe that the two most popular approaches are GTD and Franklin Covey (7 habits of highly efficient people). Both of them are supported by different tools, I guess it is just a matter of personal taste. Once you select your strategy the next step is to select your tools, here is a sample of tools you can use:

- Built-in To-Do
- Shadow
- Progect
- ThoughManager
- Bonsai
- Arranger

I selected Shadow and the built in to-do since I believe these tools provide me with the best combination between simplicity and features. How do I use them? that's the topic of my next column.

Gabriel

I know I haven't been able to update my blog as often as I wish (weekly) but I am getting better and hopefully soon I will keep it updated.

Writing notes.

As I mention in my last blog, my Palm powered handheld is a powerful tool to take notes, in provide me with an easy way to keep track of notes, no more post it, no more notebook that doesn't allow me to easily find my information... unless I have a lot of it!!!!

Now this is not an easy problem to solve, plus there is many ways to solve, so I took two approaches to fit my needs, hopefully one will fit your needs or at least allow you to find one.

First I decided to use a keyword system, how? simple: every Palm powered handheld has a very powerful search feature that allows to find anything that contains the text you are looking for. It is supported for most applications including you guess, memo pad and crypto pad. In order to have a simple way to find information in my memos I add in the second line of each memo a couple of keywords so it is easy to me to remember, this complements the categories, but this approach has two problems, first I need to keep track of my keywords so I know what can I look for, second I need an easy system to remember and to create my keywords. Not easy? you bet, my current keyword file (in Crypto Pad) has almost 50 keywords, which doesn't make it that easy to find something.

And here comes the second part of my solution, a database, yes there are database for a Palm powered handheld, there are two main competitors, although there is a lot of options out there, let me give you some names:

HandBase
Smartlist to Go (formely thinkDB)
pilotDB
MobilDB
etc.(For more information you can visit: http://applications.palmsource.com/Software/Solutions.asp?PCID=26&PSCID=79)

Now all of these programs will work, it is just a matter of taste, I personally like HandBase, which I own the complete suite, and SmartList to Go which I only have the handheld version, why two? There are a lot of applets for both of them and many times there is no equivalent between databases, so it is just safer to have both.

Now what do I do with a database? I am using an applet that exist for HandBase to keep track of projects, it is very handy, it can keep track of tasks, contacts and NOTES and here is the important part, notes, it is very easy to classify and to search in HandBase and with these applet is even easier. I use this approach mainly for my work notes, since I can easily classify them by project.

Probably this approach is not perfect, but so far it works, if you have a better one I'd like to hear about it.

Gabriel

I am happy to announce that I was accepted to be software champion for the new expert guides in palmsource, you can check it at:

http://www.palmsource.com/applications/

This doesn't mean that I work for PalmSource it just means that I will help them create a page with focus on time tracking. I will try to do my best and as always if you want to give me your input for this blog or for the new expert guide you can always drop me a line.

Now let's go back to topic of this column and I will finally continue writing about the use of my PDA. In my last blog I wrote about the calendar, now let's speak about my memo application.

Writing notes

One of my reasons to use a Palm Powered handheld was to be able to keep information with me and of course to be able to log information wherever I am. Obviously one of the first task to tackle is note taking, either in meetings, the ocassional restaurant information, etc. The memo pad included in my m505 was more than enough at first but as I grow on experience I saw the need for a more powerful yet simple tool. There are several approches:

1. A word processing program. For taking notes? nahhh too complicated.
2. A more powerful text editor, like PED, again too complicated.

What to do? basically I had only two reasons why I was dissatisfied with memo pad, first it didn't offer any protection to my information, second I need it color. So I was ok with the limit of 4k for memo pad since this is only for note taking not to write a novel, if I want to write a novel I will then take another approach (like a word processing program).

After some research I found CryptoPad a wonderful program that filled my needs at an excellent price, FREE !!!

Now after 2 years of using the program and after exhausting the category limit (16) I saw a fatal problem with CryptoPad, a correct reference system, how can I find what I need it? I use CryptoPad for taking notes at meetings plus taking notes at different events I assist, when I am in the street and I need to write something down, but after you have more than 100 memos you can start to see that I had a little problem finding what I need it in a timely fashion...

How did I solve it? That’s the topic of my next column.

Tomorrow I am due for my weekly comment, so I am going to take advantage of some time I have free today to publish my comment today.

This week comment is about PDAs. First I'd like to tell that I am a happy user of a Palm m505 PDA, it is being with me for over two years and it works great, I am starting to feel cramp with my m505 and I am planning in upgrading soon, but you know I am moving away from the topic, I want this weekly comment useful to a lot of people but one group in particular is the newbie’s in the PDA world, I think that people should be able to use the full power of their PDAs and don't feel overwhelmed for the amount of options out there, so I am going to layout a path to try to take advantage of the features of the PalmOS and third party applications, it is up to you if you want to follow it or not, what I guarantee you is that if you follow this path you will use your Palm PDA a lot and you will enjoy. There are like a thousand ways of using it, I am just offering what works for me in hope that it works for you.

The basics


As any path we should start with the basics, first there is a lot of PDAs out there, which should you buy? this is easy whichever you like the most and that fits your budget. As you know my PDA is old but still cover my needs, so I guess this should be a personal decision, you can go from the basic Zire all the way to the fancy Sony NZ, again this is a personal matter. Now the next step is how can I effectively use it?, again this is another tricky question but I hope I can be a lot more helpful with this question.

Calendar

Obviously you should have a ton of reasons for spending 100-800 dollars plus taxes and extended warranty, but I bet one of those is that you need an effective calendar, where you can input all the important events of you work and personal live, from birthdays to anniversaries to meetings and business lunches. Now the basic date book that comes with any PalmOS PDA is nice but after a while you will find it insufficient. Here I recommend that you get a date book replacement and here I know of three great options:

1. Datebk
2. Agendus
3. MyWeek.

I use to be a Datebk user and I liked the product but to me it offered way to many options as well as Agendus, my needs are basics, I just want to be able to categorize the use of my time, use colors so in a easy way I can see what I have to do and in which context (personal, work, to-do’s , etc) and I wanted to be able to hide some repeat events that I don’t care to see every time (like buying the lotto ticket every Tuesday and Friday). Based on these needs I ended up with MyWeek a simple and marvelous program that allow me to do all of this and a little bit more. This program uses little memory (I have only 8mb so I have to be frugal about this) and offers me all what I need. Obviously your needs could be different but my first recommendations to you, use the KISS principle every time that you can (Keep It Simple Stupid). Datebk and Agendus are great what with so many options that I doubt there is someone out there that use all the options, it’s like Microsoft Word, how many users really use the full power of this applications? How many of these same users will be more than happy with Microsoft Works? Or a simpler version of Word? Count me in, I do use a lot word but believe me, I don’t use 10% of its capabilities, same thing with Datebk and Agendus, great programs but since I don’t use all the features why should I use them? MyWeek gives me what I need and nothing less or more.

Now I know that probably you already know where you can buy Palm software, but anyway I recommend using www.palmgear.com great site, great prices.

I hope this comment was helpful to you, if you have any ideas or other comments please email me to micolumna@terra.com.mx

See you next week

My idea is that every Monday I will try to post the though of the week,with ocasional updates in between, ok, let's start with todays thought which is about PDAs.

Many people out there doesn't see the tremendous potential of a PDA in their life, it is amazing how they can help you with everything, from the simplest thing like keeping your schedule which I know for some people is critical, not only for the busy executive but also for the soccer mom, I mean I can imagine handling the schedule of 3 children without a PDA, I mean it is possible but with a PDA is just 10 times easier. I use my palm for everything, to keep my checking account balance, to keep my timesheet ( I am a contractor ), to keep the office telephone list, my customer phone list, my wife's tax deductions, to organize my life and projects, reference material, read books, write, internet access, etc, etc, etc. One of my goals of this blog is to allow other people check how I use my PDA (Palm m505) in improving my life, starting with the simple tasks like scheduling, address and to-do to the full fledge relational databases. So each of the people that checks this blog should be able to choose which of the different scenarios fits their lives. I hope you like, please email me if you like any of my ideas, if you don't like them, just don't use it ;)

Gabriel Castellanos

This blog is a space for me to vent my personal views about life, inmigration and PDAs and any other topic that flashes through my mind. I like the idea of a blog since allows me to express my ideas in a simple format without all the trouble of actually creating a homepage, I hope someone finds my ideas interesting.

Just as a background I am a software engineer, I was born in Mexico but destiny brought me to the USA, currently I live in Albany, NY a wonderful small city but as you will learn sometimes is tough to live in. I love life, mobile technology and the USA, that's the reason behind the odd title, but enough of me, let's start this journey.

Gabriel Castellanos