Eric Liu:

Recently got a Palm m100 and having quite some fun with it! The biggest challenge is figuring out what you want to use it for. I got mine to be a "virtual printer". When I have information (contact info, maps, directions, etc..) to go, instead of printing to paper or jotting it down, I want to send it to the PDA and take it with me.

Plucker makes this possible. It can take a local/remote web page, gather it and its related links and images (this process can be controlled), and package it up for viewing on the PDA.

I like to sync my PDA with several sources of information from the web every night:

Comics

Yahoo! News runs comics such as FoxTrot and Garfield. UComics runs Adam@Home. There is also the Dilbert and Ben comics.

News

Yahoo! News has text-only news summaries for categories such as Top Stories, World, and Technology.

Movies

Yahoo! Movies gives zipcode and theatre based showtimes. CalgaryMovies.com has an Avantgo version.

An alternative to Plucker is Avantgo, where content providers can offer a "channel", which is a version of their content customized for viewing on the PDA. I liked their service and would recommend it to anyone with a fast connection to the internet and a >8MB PDA. On my 2MB m100, the AvantGo application takes up a significant amount of RAM and the synchronization process can be slow at times (connecting with their server).

While exploring my public transportation options in the SF Bay Area, I came across PalmOS-based schedule applications for the BART and the Caltrain. Nifty!

Abacus is a PalmOS spreadsheet. Hi-CE has an easy-to-use concept mapping tool called PiCoMap.

Eric Liu
Last modified: January 05, 2002