Palmpilot The Ultimate Guide

3Com's PalmPilot is the world's bestselling hand-held PC. In two years, its incarnations as the Pilot, PalmPilot, Palm III, and IBM WorkPad have captured 70 percent of the palmtop market. About the size of a playing card, it's lightweight (5.7 ounces) with a touch-screen display. PalmPilot is elegantly designed and fast.Dense with previously undocumented information, this bible for PalmPilot users contains hundreds of timesaving tips and surprising tricks, plus a CD-ROM containing over 900 PalmPilot programs. It covers the PalmPilot, PalmPilot Professional, and the new software and features of the 1998 PalmPilot model, the Palm III, as well as OEM models such as the IBM WorkPad.This book is divided into five sections:

• Section One details every hardware and software aspect of PalmPilot as it comes out of the box: the stylus and the screen, the buttons, and the current line of Pilot models. A tutorial takes the reader through the palmtop's preferences and settings panels, teaches the Graffiti alphabet, and unearths surprising features of the Pilot's eight built-in programs.
• Section Two explains step-by-step how your PalmPilot can work with your PC: how data gets from your Pilot to your desktop computer and then back to Pilot (HotSyncing), as well as what happens to the data when it reaches your PC. Special coverage is given to Pilot Desktop, the Windows or Macintosh program that duplicates the functions of the Pilot (calendar, phone book, to-do list, memo pad, email, and expense tracking) on the PC.
• Section Three takes the reader beyond the built-in Pilot software to the best of the 900 add-on programs included with the book. They include such graphics programs as DinkyPad, PalmDraw, and the amazing ImageViewer (which unlocks the "black-and-white" Pilot screen's grayscale features); electronic texts with the AportisDoc teleprompter/reader program; and music programs that use the Pilot's built-in speaker. A chapter on learning to write software for the Pilot includes a tutorial in using Metrowerks' Code Warrior Lite, a programming kit included exclusively with PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide.
• Section Four takes the Pilot online, where it's ideal for reading and replying to email -- a great time-shifter for anyone who'd otherwise consider plane, train, or automobile time as downtime. Chapters cover the four Pilot Web browsers, paging, faxing, and (on the Palm III) infrared beaming features.
• Section Five explains simple ways to troubleshoot both software and hardware, including HotSync snafus and various software glitches. Special chapters cover Pilot fans' options for upgrading and accessorizing their palmtops.

PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide is the most comprehensive Pilot book yet written. With the cooperation of Palm Computing, 3Com, and Metrowerks, bestselling computer-book author David Pogue succinctly answers every conceivable question, unlocks Pilot features most users never suspected, and radiates the fun, passion, and sense of community shared by Piloteers the world over. The enclosed CD-ROM (which runs in Windows 9x, NT, and the Macintosh includes over 900 programs -- the entire contents of ISO Productions' "Everything PalmPilot" CD-ROM (a $25 value) -- plus Metrowerks' Code Warrior Lite programming kit.PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide is the essential guide for the PalmPilot owner.

The best general-interest book about that most-adored Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) clearly came about from a lot of thought and effort. With a book richer in facts and better focused than the original edition, PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide shows David Pogue's thoughtful consideration of his dedicated audience.

Of course, Pogue includes information on the Palm IIIx, Palm V and Palm VII. (And it's substantive information too, not the jive stuff--derived from press releases--that many books pass off as "coverage".) He also shows how to take advantage of recent advancements in Macintosh connectivity and brings in a Linux expert to show how to HotSync under that environment. He pays extra attention to the burgeoning universe of AportisDoc publications and helps untangle the confusion over getting your e-mail via your Palm.

In addition to how-to information--both basic stuff that everyone needs to know and cool tricks that will surprise more experienced Palm users--Pogue catalogs a lot of Palm add-on hardware and software. The CD-ROM contains more than 3,100 programs for PalmOS. True, they are all on the Web (possibly in newer form), but this disc earns its keep by making it a cinch to screen more Palm software than you'd ever care to download. --David Wall