We Interrupt your Regularly Scheduled Programming…

Before I start giving this site a taste of my sarcastic and cynical look at the world of writing, ebooks, and mobile technology, I think an introduction is in order: I'm Sam Kleinman, and a chunk of you have probably seen my name around. I've written a fair number of articles for Palm Power Magazine, I used to be on the Pocket PC Thoughts team, and anyone who's been on the WOYP Yahoo Group list-thingy for any length of time has probably witnessed at least one (friendly) argument between me and Jeff. I'm also involved in Free-ePress and half a dozen other projects.

My PDA history isn't as long as it might be, but there is an interesting tale about it that I might tell some day about it, but for now you'll have to make do with the short version. I currently use an HP Jornada 565 for an assorted array of tasks, and in the past I've used a Compaq iPaq H3630 and a 2 meg Handspring Visor. I have a tendency to be fairly particular and demanding of whatever device I'm use, due at least partly to the fact that I tend to focus on faults and short comings. Sometimes this has helped me in becoming more productive, and at other times it has really gotten in my way.

Like Jeff, I'm a writer. Based upon past and in-progress work, Jeff tends to be a little more epic than me, but other than that we tend towards the same areas. In recent months I've been concentrating on fiction (specifically a novel project I'm calling Circle Games), but I've ventured out of my fantasy land from time to time to share thoughts on mobile technology and writing.

I hope you all enjoy my take on things, and I hope you aren't too terribly offended or confused by them either. If you have any questions, comments, corrections, or pointers to things that you think I might enjoy ranting or raving about you can contact me by e-mail at sam@collectivearts.net. Stay Tuned for your regularly scheduled programming.

Watch for the Rise of Low End Palms

That Business 2.0 article Jeff mentions below includes this line: "For people who don't need as many gee-whiz features, Palm also plans to introduce a device that will retail for around $100."

Before you sniff and guffaw, consider the following.

Prediction: The low end of the PDA market will get a boost from the introduction of the Tablet PC, due for release November 7 of this year.

Rationale: The Tablet PC is a light, portable device with nearly instant on that happens to have a full size screen and runs regular, full Win XP programs.

So why also own and carry an expensive, tiny-screened, poser-PC with software that's "almost but not quite"?

The Tablet PC could play into Palm's hand (so to speak) as people once again find that it's just fine to have a little "data playback & quick thoughts" device to slip in a pocket or purse on the go.

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin..."

Business 2.0 has a really interesting article on Palm and how they might be able to rebound from their bungles of the last three years. While I agree that OS 5 will be an interesting stop-gap on the way to an OS that might rival the Pocket PC in OS 6, Palm needs better designs, and fast. They can't keep riding on the Palm V design forever (one of the last models spearheaded by Jeff Hawkins before his departure). The Oslo is an interesting design, and I hope Palm has more of the same up their sleeve. Current Palm designs are "old and busted" compared to Sony's ever-changing "new hotness."

Clié SL-10: At first Glance

(This was actually written on Friday, which is why it may seem a little late.)

---

A few days after the news was leaked via PalmInfoCenter, Pen Computing carries the story of Sony announcing a new low-end Clié. Touted as an entry-level PDA for students, the Clié SL10 is retail priced at $149.99; it will replace the Clié S360, which is being discontinued. Like other Clié models, the SL10 will come with PictureGear Pocket and Documents to Go.

The SL10 appears to be a cross between the discontinued Clié T415 and the old-style Palm PDAs—offering the PalmOS 4.1 operating system, 8 megabytes of RAM, memory stick port, jog dial, and 320x320 high-resolution monochrome screen of the 415, in the AAA-battery-powered "brick" form factor of the Palm III or Visor Deluxe-type models. However, looking closer, there are some interesting differences.

Sony has changed the buttons yet again; the SL10's buttons are wide and flat, harking back to the Palm III or Visor Deluxe. This can only be an improvement over the T415, whose buttons were stylish but uncomfortable.

In addition to the standard Sony hotsync port, the SL10 has what appears to be a standard USB port built into its lower left corner. Though this port is not even mentioned in Sony's announcement or its SonyStyle specifications webpage, it opens up some interesting possibilities for the device's use. Could the device be attached directly to a computer's USB port to allow files to be uploaded and downloaded directly? Could it enable two Cliés to link up for direct file transfer or head-to-head game competition? What will the cadre of hobbyist PalmOS hackers be able to do with this feature?

The SL10 fills a niche in Sony's PDA price/feature spectrum that had long been conspicuous by its absense. For months, PDA pundits such as Memoware's Kenneth Rhee had been remarking on Clié's lack of concentration on the lower end of the price spectrum. Now, the SL10 brings to beginning or budget-conscious users the double-resolution screen that only Sony has been able to offer—the screen that makes an ordinary Palm or Visor look like an etch-a-sketch. Now the PalmOS PDA competition is fully joined...and may the best PDA win.

Hello, everyone!

Hello, everyone; time to introduce myself. My name is Chris Meadows, though on the Internet I tend to go by the handle Robotech_Master. I'm honored and privileged to be invited to join the Writing on Your Palm blog, and I hope you'll find my writing interesting, or at least worthy of debate.

To give you some idea of my PDA-wise origins, I first fell in love with the Palm Pilot several years ago. I read several interesting articles in Salon Magazine about how they were becoming the new cool electronic reading machine and hand-held device, succeeding where the Apple Newton had failed. That suited me just fine. It was a couple of years before I could get one; I started out with the Palm IIIe, then moved up to the brand new Visor Deluxe almost immediately. However, since I wanted to take notes in college class with it, and there was no keyboard available for the Visor yet, I ended up owning and carting around two Palms for several months...plus a Happy Hacker cradle and a full-sized PS/2 keyboard—the very height of nerdiness.

Within the last few months, I broke the screen on my Visor for the final time, and upgraded to a Sony Clié T415 immediately. The 415 was everything I had ever wanted in a PDA...until it malfunctioned, and I had to send it in for service three times before Sony finally fixed the problem. (I plan to write about that in an upcoming column.) Still, now that it works again, I am quite happy with it, and expect to be into the near future.

I have never owned, nor had any desire to own, a PocketPC/Windows CE/Windows Powered/whatever they're calling it this month PDA. That being said, I intend to stay away from "sucks" advocacy flames—I'll leave that to my readers. Instead, I will simply write about news and views on the Palm as I see them. Granted, my vision may be limited by my budget...but at least that also means the Palm fans out there can count on me not to make a sudden Windows CE purchase and undergo a radical conversion. Palm user I am, and Palm user I expect to stay.

If you like or dislike, agree or disagree with what I have to say, I hope you'll let me know...by email, on the discussion board, or in the Yahoo Group. (Why the heck WOYP needs both a discussion board and a Yahoo Group, I have no idea. You'd think just one forum would be sufficient, wouldn't you?) Feedback is, after all, how a writer improves.

Next up: my audition column, on Sony's new low-end Clié.

The Shameful Details

Being that the super secret, ultra powerful Writing On Your Palm Team has finally been formed I am compelled to inform you that there in a new thread on the WOYP Discussion Board to let you know all about us. Now you can learn all the sordid details in the lives of the new scribes. Shameful Secrets Revealed! Closeted Skeletons Interviewed!

(Just click the old "Discuss" link here...)

Forms Meet Function

New HanDBase 3.0 Released: Bring Forms, color, and style to your handheld databases.

In the making for more than two years, this ambitious enhancement to DDH Software's very popular handheld database program for Palms and PPCs has been released for demo downloads and purchase. But not without some catches.

Gotcha #1. Early reports from those earliest of adopters indicate that the new Forms-enhanced version has corrupted some complex databases. DDH has publicly acknowledged some nasty bugs and promised a swift fix.

Gotcha #2. Pocket PC users must wait several more weeks before they can create forms on their devices. The new version 3 for PPCs can read forms created by the new desktop version, but will require another, free, update later to actually craft forms on the Pocket PC platform, which is taking a backseat to the larger installed base of Palm users.

Gotcha #3. DDH's slick new web design is long on pizzazz and a bit short on details surrounding the new version release.

Here's the not-so-well-told story: To make forms, you need a NEW desktop version of the software, HanDBase Pro, available for a very reasonable $15 upgrade for current Palm and PPC users.

All things considered, the new release, when the kinks get worked out, looks like a great addition to a superb little program that many of us find addictive in simplifying life (or at least codifying it).

If you write articles for fun or profit, watch the HanDBase Gallery for a couple new applets from yours truly to track article submissions and manage quotes!

Greetings, Fellow Scribes

Quick introduction to your latest intrepid correspondent: Don Blohowiak, a business writer who pens columns, books and more.

PDA pedigree: goes back to the HP 100LX --- before we knew what a PDA was.

Closet shelves contain HP 200LX, Palm Professional (the original reflective brick), Palm IIIx, Psion 5, TRG Pro... I can't bear to go on. Current electronic li'l buddy: iPAQ with his best friend Stowaway.

Looking forward to posting useful perspective for fellow mobile writers in the Kirvin tradition!

New Recruits

Everyone give a shout out to the new members of the Writing On Your Palm team! Thanks to everyone to submitted a piece, the final cut was a hard one to make. Helping me out (okay, carrying me) are Rick Padgett (who you've already met), Chris Meadows, Don Blohowiak and Sam Kleinman. Welcome aboard, guys!

Journaling, Critique, and Developing The Craft

As I begin my first, tentative steps back into the mantle of "Writer" I consistently sabotage my own efforts. Sitting around as a slovenly heap of fiction gobbling biomass, I fill thousands upon thousands of gleaming blank kilobytes with the useless drivel of my Journal. Smug in the knowledge that I can convince, even myself, that "this is crucial to the writing process," I drearily pour out the most trivial of thoughts.

But journals don't force upon you the creative spark known as The Deadline, nor do they offer the harsh critique of a stranger. They are like the forgiving puppy, accepting all of the extra words your mind generates through the day without a whine of boredom. A junk drawer of useless sentences. Journals are good for the hand muscles but they can easily be a crutch for the mind.

My mother recently said that to be judged is the mark if the artist. The artist who keeps his works to himself has no right to the title; to be judged is to be brave enough to improve. Like any grown adult I can’t stand it when my mother is right but it’s hard to dispute when her paintings adorn not only her home and mine but also the homes of some rather important people.

At thirty years of age I have honed myself into a crude wordsmith, now let's see if I have the courage not to punch the critic in the kisser.

News At 11

A little known fact is that, as a result of the hp/Compaq merger, the Office Max chain of stores will soon be dropping the Handspring line of PDAs and replacing the space with iPAQs.

Until now the availability of PPCs has been rather sporadic at O-Max stores with the Jornadas and Casios being only being available at certain select locations or via special order. Now the iPAQs will take the display spot beside the Palm devices allowing the customers the broadest range of solutions for their needs. Can a full array of accessories on those lovely little pegs be far behind? The army of silver beauties should appear on the shelves mid-August.

So the Pocket PC is finally gaining "mindshare" in the eyes of the rather conservative environment of retail purchasing departments. Will we soon be seeing PPCs at Target? After all the original iPAQ was available through Sears.

Casio, We Hardly Knew Yee

Given the numerous problems with quality control on the Casio E200 PocketPC this should come as no surprise to anyone.

Casio in Texas has announced that they will no longer distribute the E Series of Pocket PCs in the US, instead opting to push the BE Pocket Manager more. The Casio Pocket PC will survive in Japan where they hold a larger market share but the US will be left high and dry and will be forced now back into a 3 manufacturer market. (Source: PocketCity.Org)

The Casio E200 held high promise for the purpose of mobile writing. Dual slots allowed for simultaneous use of a memory card and a communications card, the screen was decently bright and clear, and the innovative move of gifting the PPC with USB hosting capabilities opened the door to using full sized PC keyboards for the greatest input speed ever.

I for one looked to Casio to finally build the perfect PPC. A backlit Transflective screen (reminiscent of their old HAST screens,) Dual I/O capable expansion slots, and a standard USB sync connector allowing the connection of a USB keyboard directly via the hosting function. Instead I now have to play the “feature trade off game” in choosing between the LOOX, the Toshiba e740, the mythical Audiovox e550g, or the sleeve laden iPAQ. Yet again we'll have to factor in which defects we can live with and which features are not that essential. Wow, I'm growing a monster headache...

I'm Where???

Now how in the heck did I get here? Oh yeah, now I remember. Jeff suddenly can't handle the workload of spilling forth new tidbits on the blog form of "Writing On Your Palm" so he had to put out a call for help and I was the first to answer. So now I have to start pumping out little choice pieces of news, thoughts, and the occasional rant in order to keep everyone's attention.

Who am I to brag that I can spread my drivel across the web like this? To boast of my so called literary prowess when I have an article which has laid untouched for almost 3 months? I am the King of Procrastination! The Supreme Emperor of Putting Things Off.

I won't bore you just yet of my trials in the world of writing, my battles with writer's block, my rumored 6 year retirement from the craft, or my lengthy trek through several PDAs. But I soon will, so forewarned is fore-armed.

Speaking of Droolworthy...

Brighthand has a forum thread chock full of plump, juicy rumors about the iPAQ 5000 series. I know past iPAQs have sucked, but this one sounds more Jornada-like than a traditional iPAQ. Check out the thread and make sure you have a bib handy.

This Pocket PC Brought To You Courtesy of Eddie Haskell

Rumor has it that Dell is gearing up to offer a Pocket PC. They're reportedly in negotions with Asian manufacturer Compal to buy 1.5 million new devices to be sold under the Dell brand. I've heard wild rumors on this one from Dell shooting for the sub-$300 price point to readying a Pocket PC Phone Edition device. We'll know when we see it, I guess, and we'll have that annoying Dell guy waving the devices in our faces. The good news is someone with the requisite marketing clout will finally be able to go toe to toe with HPaq.

Told Ya So

The Register has an interesting article about the iPAQ, saying out loud what many of us have been thinking since HP canned the Jornada in favor of the post-merger HP iPAQ. Namely, "What the (expletive deleted) were they thinking?!?" The iPAQ might be a household name, but it's just as often cursed in the same households. The Jornada was a slick, well-executed piece of engineering. Now we're stuck with the iPAQ? This article's good readin', even for the Register.

Nothing for Something

c|net has an interesting article about Palm's requested reverse stock split. Palm (and presumably PalmSource) wants to exchange 10-20 shares of their existing stock for 1 share of a more valuable reissued stock. This move is seem by many as a stop-gap to prevent falling below $1/share and being delisted by Nasdaq. Is Palm in more trouble than they're letting on?

Droolworthy

Tom's Hardware has a great review of the new PaceBook Tablet PC. Unlike the "convertable" swivel-screen laptop design we've seen from Acer, this is a true slate-style tablet PC that comes with a matching wireless keyboard/trackpad combo. The end result is a device you can use like a laptop when you want one, or ditch the keyboard and carry around a much slimmer pen-based device. The review is the usual thorough Tom's Hardware fare, with lots of pictures of the internal workings of the PaceBook. It's a little spooky how much these tablet PCs look like oversized PDAs...

Technical Difficulties

Sorry about the dearth of posts recently. I've been swamped with the new job (I know, you've heard this all before) and my ISP had some IP address issues that confused the heck out of AvantGo for a while there. Since I know a great many of my readers read the site offline, it seemed of limited benefit to post a bunch of stuff that no one would see until that got straightened out.

(See, doesn't that sound a lot better than, "I was really tired..."?)

All should be back to normal now, and we're making a few additions to the Writing On Your Palm team that should pick up the slack when I drop off the planet for a few days. More soon!

Hardest Working Man in Show Business

Okay, I'm not James Brown. I don't even play him on TV. But I think I feel his pain.

As many of you know, I just started a new day job recently after a long bout of unemployment. The job's going great, but I was stupid enough to pull out the stops on content here just before I started. I need help.

So as ridiculous as it sounds, I'm holding tryouts! Do you think you have what it takes to join the WOYP team? Do you think ebooks are the greatest thing since sliced bread (don't underrate sliced bread-- think of a PB&J between two whole loaves; talk about carbo-loading...)? Have you ever been accused of having an affair with your PDA? Do you think mobile technology is the best thing to happen to writers since the move from chisels to quills?

Then send me a sample article, and show your stuff. Pick a recent news item, and write about 300 words on it, the same kind of stuff you see me post on the WOYP main page. The scribes of the best three entries will get Blogger logins and be able to post to Writing On Your Palm!

I'll warn you up front, the job doesn't pay well. Heck, it doesn't pay anything! But the hours are good, you'll have a good time, you'll have the rapt attention of an audience numbering at least in the dozens, and you'll feel like your obsession with mobile technology actually serves a useful purpose! What have you got to lose? Email me today!

Columns

iPAQ 3900 First Look

Just got my first hands-on with the new XScale iPAQ 3975. I have to admit, I'm darn impressed. I'm highly tempted to buy one-- but not today-- as my next device. It's that good.

It's Not As Useless As It Seems

Palm Digital Media has released Palm eBook Reader for
Windows and Mac platforms. While I agree that one of the primary benefits of ebooks is mobility, reading ebooks within the confines
of a desktop OS has a place. Not only does the desktop version of Palm Reader allow much more text on screen, but (hint, hint) it's
going to look really cool on a Tablet PC.

Expect a full review shortly.

Velocipede Sounds Like a Bug

If you've got 7MB or so on your storage card that you're not doing anything with, give Lextionary a try. This is a dictionary for the Pocket PC, but it goes far beyond what a print dictionary can do. It gives you definitions. It gives you pronunciations. It gives you synonyms. It also gives you related words, all hyperlinked together. Look up "bicycle" and you'll get more specific words like "mountain bike" and "velocipede", but you'll also get related words like "handlebar" and "pedal".

This is a great program for writers looking for that mot just or anyone who loves words and the quirky connections they make with each other.

The Columnless Column

Many of you may have noticed there was no column this Monday morning. (Hey, I gave ya two last week...) I had an idea all ready to go, but halfway through the writing of it, I realized it still needs to simmer a bit. So lemme ask yous guys something. The column is called "Author Up or Author Down," and it's about reversing the current business model and putting authors in the driver's seat rather than the publishers.

So my question is this. What role do you think publishers should have in the 21st century? Are they still valid "gatekeepers"? Is there any reason why publishing wouldn't work as a service to the writers, rather than the writers essentially working for the publishers? Let me know.

Everyone's Still Gonna Call It "Ubook"...

There's a new book reader out there for Pocket PC users. µBook (pronounced "microbook") is a freeware reader that's chock full of features. According to the website:

µBook is a simple and lean, yet powerful ebook reader for Windows and Pocket PCs that can read HTML, TXT, RTF, PDB and PRC (not secure) ebook files. It can read directly from inside ZIP or RAR files, and supports BMP, GIF and JPG images. It offers many customization options including: Portrait and Landscape display, Choice of font type, color and size, etc.... It Also has a resizable/skinnable User Interface. µBook is improving on a regular basis and best of all it's free!

While it supports font smoothing, it does not support ClearType. It also seems limited to internal fonts rather than using Windows TrueType fonts. But if you're looking for a good looking, full featured alternative to Microsoft Reader or Palm Reader, this could just do the trick.

One Good Blog Deserves Another

Check out PalmAddict if you get a chance. It's another blog like this one, and it has a wealth of links, news and opinions about PDAs. Good stuff.

The Incredible Shrinking Palm

PalmInfocenter still has a picture of the Oslo prototype leaked by Pocket PC Thoughts (who was later asked by Palm, Inc. to remove the image). This is an OS5 device with a Graffiti area that can be hidden by sliding the case up over it. Given that Palm jumped quickly to get Pocket PC Thoughts to remove the image, chances are this is probably legit. This could be the smallest, most portable PDA yet, but it doesn't look like it has a lot else going for it.

How NOT to Run a Media Business

Salon is running out of money fast, and probably won't survive much longer despite taking in a big of cash via subscriptions. What did they do wrong?

Well, for one thing, the subscriptions ticked off more people than they signed up. Rather than adding value (like, ahem, the subscription service here at Writing On Your Palm), the Salon subscription service took a lot of content that people had gotten used to getting for free and locked it up.

Salon also seems to spend a lot more money than they need to. They've got 1.5 million bucks, which is supposed to last them about three months. I could put together a pretty nice site for 500 grand a month...

Check out the article. It's a good read, and a nice cautionary tale.

Just the Text, Ma'am...

The folks over at The Gadgeteer have posted a review of MegaMemo for Palm OS. We've all seen a ton of memo pad replacements, but this one is free, comes with a desktop conduit, and allows memos up to 32k. Not as powerful as pedit, perhaps, but cheaper. If you're only concerned about writing text on your mobile device, prefering to do formatting and cleanup on the desktop, this is certainly worth a look.

Token Anti-eBook Article

Linton Weeks wrote an article in the Washington Post last weekend that poses the now tired and too-often-asked question: why didn't ebooks work?

Frankly, I expected better of The Post. Weeks trots out some pretty tired arguments, including the following:

But maybe e-books never really caught fire because there was never a deep desire for them in the first place. The 500-year-old book -- with white paper pages and night-black ink -- is a perfectly good technology for providing word-based information.

Electronic devices, on the other hand, can deliver words and more -- voices and video and music and interactivity. You can play Scrabble on a handheld. Or chess. Or rock-and-roll. You can chat. Or e-mail. Or you can call home or surf the Internet. Why use them to read vast chunks of printed matter?

Why? I'll tell you why, Linton, since you asked.

1. Because ebooks are portable. I have over 300 books on my Pocket PC, and I carry them with me everywhere I go. Do I read all of them at the same time? No, not even close. But if I decide I want to start reading one of them now, I don't have to wait until I get home. I have my whole library with me, ready at a moment's notice.


2. Because ebooks are durable. No matter how many times I read my favorite ebooks, they never get dog-earred, the covers never fall off, the pages don't get brittle.


3. Because ebooks can do things paper books can't, like hyperlinked endnotes, fast keyword searches, even included audio and video if necessary.


4. Because ebooks are more comfortable. I can read ebooks comfortably one-handed while lying on the couch or while walking. Additionally, ClearType on my Jornada is as comfortable to my eyes as print on paper.

When will these "pot-shot" articles end? I'll agree freely that ebooks were oversold and haven't yet lived up to the early "print is dead" hype. But just because ebooks haven't taken flight, there's little real reason-- aside from journalistic bandwagoning-- to declare them DOA, either.

Well, They Do Call It THE Book...

GodSpeed Computing has released a new "PDA." The eBible sports a 5.6", 320x480 grayscale screen and the usual PDA features (calendar, addresses) in addition to Bible-oriented features. The device also reads other ebooks, plays MP3s, and records voice notes. The device kind of looks like a cross between the Gemstar REB-1100 and the Franklin eBookMan. Those both flopped, but this has an interesting "built-in" market. GodSpeed is taking pre-orders now.

New PalmOS (no not that one)

Palm has released a patch upgrade to PalmOS 4.1 for m500 series handhelds. According to Palm, the new update includes:

The Palm OS Software 4.1 Upgrade resolves minor issues with Palm OS Software 4.0. The Palm OS Software 4.1 Upgrade includes the FATFS.PRC, which resolves recognition issues between the Palm handheld and memory expansion cards larger than 32 MB. It also improves performance when copying large files between the Palm handheld and a memory expansion card.

In addition, it includes Copy Update, which enables the Launcher's Copy function to copy user data associated with an application.

Help Me Help You

Since I started updating the site daily, lots of people have told me that now they have to visit the site twice daily instead of once a week. Far be it from me to be an inconvenience, so I have a solution. Instead of you coming to me, I'll come to you.

At the top of the main page, you'll see an option to subscribe to Writing On Your Palm by email. For the low, low price of $9.95 per year, I'll subscribe you to a special restricted Yahoo Group that will will resend each and every WOYP post to your inbox, complete with hyperlinks and formatting. Since it's a Yahoo Group, you'll also have the option to receive posts in a daily digest rather than individually if you prefer. Never miss a post again!

If you'd prefer the convenience of reading Writing On Your Palm by email rather than coming to the website every day, sign up today!

First Looks at FirstLoox

FirstLoox has posted a review of the Fujitsu Loox Pocket PC. It's only available in Europe right now, but it will be released here in North America soon. I'm not sure I believe everything in the review, though. The reviewer claims the screen is clearly transflective (a la the iPAQ 3900) but the photos in the review show the screen to be "sunken" a bit-- unlike reflective displays, transflective screens appear flush with the casing-- and the screen appears to be heavily sidelit from the left. But hey, it got good marks on ClearType, and that's what's important, right?

Someone Gets It

Janis Ian has written an excellent essay on her website about digital piracy and what it really means to artists. This is a must read for anyone who's heard the RIAA yapping about those darned pirates, and she makes some interesting parallels to ebooks.

Took Them Long Enough...

Softmaker is readying a beta of their full-featured word processor for the Pocket PC. The Handheld PC version works now, but it's only really usable with a landscape program. As soon as I see the PPC version go public, I'll post it here. It looks like by the end of the year we'll finally have a mobile word processor that can edit Word files with no conversion, lose no formatting, support tables, outlining, spell check... 'Bout frickin' time...

Protected From Myself

Anyone know how to prevent both Outlook on the PC and Inbox on the Pocket PC from inserting line breaks in emails? Blogger finally got their post-by-mail thing running, but it looks really weird on the page unless I go in an manually remove all the email's line breaks, which kind of defeats the purpose of posting by email in the first place. Is this one of those situations when Microsoft has decided that they know what's best for me, end of discussion?

Okay, Maybe a Cigarillo

Kopsis Engineering has released a new outliner called Streamliner that comes closer than any other Pocket PC app I've seen to the organizational Nirvana that is ShadowPlan on PalmOS. Like Shadow, Streamliner supports different numbering styles and both checkboxes and progress bars that reflect the state of child processes. It goes a step beyond in editing RTF files while retaining structural information about the document (headings).

Unfortunately, this beta of Streamliner falls short in a number of areas as well. While it's quite easy to look up information in Pocket Outlook based on selected text in the outline, there seems to be no way to actually link such data so that if you check off an item in the outline, the linked task would be checked off in Outlook and vice versa. While Streamliner does an admirable job of preserving structural data like headings in RTF files, it completely strips out all presentational data like italics, etc. Nice try, but we need both; it's not an either/or.

For the money ($9.95), Streamliner's a heck of an outliner already. The developer seems responsive to user suggestions, so it may only be a matter of time before Streamliner becomes the app to beat in the Pocket PC outliner market. Streamliner is available at Handango.

Images?

I found a great image of the HPHotKey app on Stellarmetrics's site, but decided to hold off including it in my post because WOYP has always been about small, fast, PDA-friendly pages. Was this the right decision? Would you guys like to see more screenshots and other meaningful images, or should I keep the site as close to text-only as I can?

I WANT WIRELESS

I'm in training this week, and largely cut off from email for most of the day. I've got my trusty Jornada at my side, but no networking connection access for it. Why can't someone make a GSM/GPRS CF card? Heck at this point I'd kill for a Blackberry or Palm i705...

Yeah, But Does It Come With a Cool Pole?

Just saw a segment on my local TV news here in Denver (no, my neighborhood isn't actually on fire) about Pocket Mobility Inc. They publish PalmOS software that firefighters here in Colorado are using to fight our various blazes more effectively.

Columns

The Perfect Writer's PDA

If everyone's needs are different, then follows that everyone's PDAs will be different as well. One size, as it turns out, does not fit all. So what would make a PDA perfect for mobile writers?

I got to thinking recently about what makes PDAs a compelling purchase for consumers. It's a tougher train of thought than you'd think-- or at least tougher than I thought-- because everyone has different needs. The perfect device for a doctor may be quite different from mobile nirvana for a construction foreman. A student's PDA might be worlds apart from that of a soccer mom. You get the idea.

So I narrowed my thinking to mobile writers-- after all, that's who this site is really for. As a mobile writer myself, I came up with a dozen features my dream mobile device would have to have...

Columns

The Price of Mobility

No matter how you look at it, mobility in computing comes at a price. Is it worth it?

I got an interesting questing last week. A reader who recently bought a Jornada for writing (among other uses) asked why a mobile writer would buy a PDA at all. Why not just go with a laptop?

To me, it all comes down to mobility. My Jornada 565, with or without a thumbboard or Stowaway as appropriate, goes with me everywhere I go. I've taken it to hockey games, amusement parks, parties, on my bike. I'm typing this sentence on my thumbboard in a local McDonald's. Slipping quickly and easily into the pockets of my cargo shorts or khakis, my Jornada gives me the ability to write and store my work digitally in places even the smallest, lightest laptop would fear to tread.

But mobility comes at a price...

Where Would We Be Without...

I just got done watching The Three Musketeers, and couldn't help noticing how much it resembled The Musketeer, not to mention characters from The Man in the Iron Mask, and that's just from movies within the last ten years. Of course, the similarity is obvious, as they're all based on the novels of Alexandre Dumas, written roughly 150 years ago. It's easy to see why Hollywood has used Dumas as a source again and again and again. The Three Musketeers may be THE classic adventure story, and it's hard to mess up a movie if you know the story has enduring appeal.

It got me to thinking. What if the current media congloms get their way, and copyright becomes essentially permanent, eternal? What if such changes to the law work retroactively, like the Bono Act, so that everything in the public domain reverts to the heirs of the original copyright holders? Would we have seen 10 Things I Hate About You and O if the studios had had to track down the legitimate heirs of "Wild Bill" Shakespeare and pay a hefty licensing fee?

Clearly, copyright must have limits. Anything over the term of a human lifespan does a disservice to humanity. Storytelling is an evolutionary art. We build on the stories that come before our own, and sometimes just retell those same old stories in modern language. New stories grow from the old, not from nothingness.

Administrivia

Well, the people have spoken. The responses in favor of more content, more frequent columns and just more of everything have been overwhelming. So, we go back to the beginning. In my very first column, I wrote, "This column will be published on the rigorously defined schedule of 'whenever I get around to it', but I hope to have them out weekly or so ('or so' in this case meaning anywhere from daily to monthly, depending on what other writing projects I'm working on)." (Yes, I realize I ended the sentence with a preposition; ah, the embarrassments of youth...) Well, from now on I'll play it even looser, posting columns as soon as I finish them. Since we no longer have to wait until Mondays-- and theoretically, I can post via email if Blogger ever gets their act together-- look for more breaking news, timely commentary, and a great deal more rambling from yours truly. In fact, look for not one, but two columns later today.

Closing the Digital Divide

CNN.com - India to roll out cheap, handheld computer - July 5, 2002 The Linux-based Simputer is almost ready for release in India, selling in different configurations for 10,500 to 23,000 rupees, or $214 to $469 USD. That doesn't sound like much for the StrongARM-based devices until you consider that the average income for an Indian citizen is about $450 USD a year. Still, the devices allow personal data to be stored entirely on expansion media, making it possible for an entire village to share a single device. The Simputer includes features like voicemail and text to speech, and is aimed at bringing more of India's poor and illiterate into the digital age. Thanks to Alert Reader Bill Tanch for the link.

Column Frequency

Now that blog posts make it (I hope) worthwhile to check the site every day rather than just on Monday mornings, should I post columns more frequently than once a week? I've got a few backlogged right now and enough topics to last the rest of the summer and well into fall if I wait seven days between them, and that's not counting news-oriented columns that I know will "bump" stuff in the pipe now because of timeliness considerations.

So what do you think? Can you guys handle more content? Give me a shout out and let me know what you think.

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

One of the cool features of Blogger Pro is the ability to post blog entries by email. I send a message to a special address, and the content of the email appears on the site. Quick, easy, and great for posting offline from my Pocket PC. The catch is that this feature isn't working right now, limiting me to posting when I'm at my desk. Regular readers know how much I try to be away from my desk, hence the dearth of posts over the last few days. Blogger's working on the problem, and when they get it fixed you won't be able to shut me up...

The Incredible Shrinking Site

I've changed the blog to only show the most recent 25 posts on the front page, instead of 50. This in turn has shrunk the size of the AvantGo channel from 144k to 43k. If you're still having problems with channel size, I recommend unsubscribing and then resubscribing using the link at the top of the main page.

Blast From the Past

Has anyone bothered to read the golden oldies at the bottom of the page? I set this up so that the 50 most recent posts would appear on the main page, thus guaranteeing that the two most recent columns should be in there somewhere no matter how much I run off at the... keyboard. A side effect, at least for the time being, is that there's a lot of posts from November and December of 2000 in there, the last time I regularly updated this blog. It's kind of weird reading those and realizing that the DRM and "Palm vs. Pocket PC" issues haven't changed much at all in 18 months, and that I've been "planning" on writing a fourth edition of the WOYP book for two years and still haven't gotten around to it...

BTW, the 50 posts thing is a guess that I'll fine tune over time. I want a good backlog so people who don't check the site every single day don't miss much, but I'm also mindful of channel size. I don't want this to turn into a 500k monster, especially since AvantGo still limits people to 2MB total channel size and 10MB of bandwidth a day.

Donations

Some of you may notice the new PayPal Donate button in the upper right corner of the site. I'm not begging for money, and the site's not going anywhere. But someone in one of the many discussion threads supporting Wes Salmon suggested that he and the former moderators of PDA Buzz could get together, set up a new site, and busker-like, ask for donations if people liked what they found on the site.

Given my fondness for the busker way, I thought I'd try the same thing here. I'm not asking for money and there's certainly no obligation on your part, but if you're feeling particularly generous and the stuff you find at Writing On Your Palm informs or entertains you, don't be shy about kicking a buck or two my way once in a while.

Power-sucking Keyboard

Is it my imagination, or has the battery life on my Jornada taken a sharp turn southward since I started using the HP Pocket Keyboard? I saw mine drop to 25% today for I think the first time ever since I've owned the device. Jornada and thumbboard owners: do you see a decrease in juice when the thumbboard is attached? Email me with your impressions, or post on the discussion board.

Make Your Feelings Known

If you're as outraged as I am about Handheld Media Group firing Wes Salmon, drop them a line and let them know how you feel. While they claim it's just a financial decision, nothing more, I'm not sure I buy it. Wes was given the choice of being fired or doing what had been his full-time job without pay for six months to regain ownership of the site. Essentially, it looks like they gave Wes an offer they knew he'd have to refuse. This way they can say they tried to keep him while acquiring one of the web's leading community sites without having to pay much for it. This may backfire disastrously for them as most of the regulars in that community have quit the site in a touching show of solidarity, many of them taking refuge in the forums of other sites like Pocket PC Thoughts.

In the words of Dennis Miller, though, "Of course that's just my opinion. I could be wrong."

Given that I'm only 60 miles north of their offices in Colorado Springs, I'm tempted to drive down there and give Rick, Denny and Dave a piece of my mind in person. For now I'll avoid any potential time in the hoosegow and stick with the rather formally worded letter below.

I can't express the level of my disappointment in learning that Handheld Media Group ousted Wes Salmon from the web site he created. Once a great community for PDA enthusiasts, PDA Buzz will be a shadow of its former self without Wes and the diligent moderators who quit in a show of loyalty after Wes was let go.

I realize your official stance on the matter is that due to the depressed tech economy, PDA Buzz can't pull in enough ad revenue to support a full-time employee to run the site. I respectfully suggest that if that were indeed the case, HHMG should have forseen than back in February and either not purchased the site, or at least not made the pretense of keeping Wes on and that PDA Buzz would be business as usual.

I will remove the link to PDA Buzz from my website, and I will encourage my readers to voice their opinions to you on this matter as well. While I used to make it a habit to visit "da Buzz" twice a day or more, I see no reason to return in the future.

Sincerely,

Jeff Kirvin
Editor, Writing On Your Palm

Happy Independence Day

To all my US readers, have a happy and safe Fourth of July!

Giant-thumbed Mutant

Okay, maybe I'm just into change for the sake of change. (Not that there's anything wrong with that...) Despite the fact that I stopped using my hp pocket keyboard shortly after writing a glowing review back in February, I'm back to thumbing away.

What changed? First off, I finally got Stellarmetric's HPHotKey app to work properly. This little $5 gem adds many of the navigational features I missed before, like access to the Start Menu, Today screen and hardware buttons without using the stylus.

Second, I think I decided, "I own the dang thing, so why not use it?" So far, it's been far more useful to me than earlier in the year, and my typing has been more accurate. Who knows, maybe this will convince me to invest in a SnapNType if I spring for an iPAQ 3900 down the road...

Building a Better Mousetrap Dept.: Knowing all the bone-headed mistakes publishers are making today, if you were going to invent a new kind of publishing company, how would you do it? Seth Godin mentioned recently some of his ideas for a new kind of record label, but a lot of those ideas (like Internet-only sales and no radio airplay) don't translate to publishing very well.

I sat in a restaurant over lunch recently, reading my copy of Preston & Child's Thunderhead on my Jornada. (Good read, btw.) The waitress walked over and said, "Got a new toy?"

"I'm just finishing a good book," I said.

She was amazed, and asked me if I could download whole chapters at a time. When I explained that I had nearly three hundred complete ebooks on my Jornada, that just about blew her mind. She said it was the coolest thing she'd ever seen. I get that reaction a lot. Most people don't even know you can carry hundreds of books in your pocket.

That's the audience I want to reach: "normal" people that have never really thought about ebooks, who might not even know ebooks exist. Would you try selling ebooks to the "un-teched," or does a new publishing company have to sell books on tree pulp in brick & mortar stores to reach the masses?

Join the discussion in the WOYP forum.

Zoom, Zoom

No, this isn't a Mazda commercial. I highly recommend reading Seth Godin's new book, Survival Is Not Enough. I listened to it via Audible, and I'll buy the unabridged copy as soon as Palm Digital carries it. The book is about a new way of doing business, using principles from evolutionary biology to adapt or die. And if you're wondering why I'm posting this here, think about my comments recently regarding the publishing industry.

z

A Little Help? Dept.: Anyone know what I'd need to do to add Plucker to the list of offline browsers at the top of the page? Plucker enthusiasts, it's time to show your colors! Email me with the goods!

More Winds of Change Dept.: I've switched again.

No, not back to PalmOS. I've switched from Agenda Fusion to Pocket Informant 3.1. The new version of PI fixes so many of the annoying quirks that caused me to prefer AF over it in the first place, and adds several new features that I wish AF did. Among other things, PI has alarm notes that work with both the built in Notes app and SuperAlert, it includes a graphical day view so I can see free blocks of time easily, and it can dynamically reprioritize my tasks via drag and drop (okay, I mentioned this last one in my review months ago, but I still think it's really friggin' cool). If you've tried out PI before and found it lacking, you owe it to yourself to give it another try. Really. Now.

Welcome Aboard Dept.: In other news, everyone check out PDA Avenue, a new additon to our links page!

Say It Ain't So! Dept.: Wes Salmon, a PDA nut and all around great guy, has been fired by the new owners of PDA Buzz, Handheld Media Group. In response, all the forum moderators have resigned as well. This is a sad, sad day for the PDA community. PDA Buzz was one of the few sites I checked every day without fail, and I've learned so much from Wes and through the excellent forums on his site (unlike some other boards I could mention, PDA Buzz typically had a very low noise to signal ratio).

We'll miss ya, Wes.

Changes Afoot Dept.: Not sure I have to mention this, but the site has undergone a sizeable facelift. The links that used to be on the main page are now at the top of this one, and the rest of this page is a blog that I hope to update daily. If you have any news, tips or questions about ebooks or mobile technology, email 'em to me at the link above and I'll try to get them posted.

Needless to say, for those of you that have AvantGo or Mazingo channels for Writing On Your Palm that update once a week, you might want to change them to daily. :^)

Used Books Dying Anyway? Dept.: ChrisW brings up an interesting point in the WOYP discussion forum about used bookstores. He points out that pirate ebooks might not be lost sales directly to the publisher, but could be lost sales to the used book market. He states that this is also damaging to the book market overall because the "resale potential" of the used book market allows publishers to price books higher for first sale, making more money for themselves and the authors. I completely agree that used books are important to new book authors, but I disagree about why, and if the practice will be allowed to continue.

Notice what the RIAA is doing in regards to used CD stores. They've been pressing Congress to enact legislation that would require the original music company to be paid a royalty on the sale of every used CD. Their argument is that people are listening to music they paid to create without paying them in return. First Sale Doctrine doesn't seem to hold water with them. Most big content providers hate the First Sale Doctrine. They believe they should be paid for every item consumed, not every item manufactured.

If the RIAA gets their way, it will spell the end of used music stores. Given that the used CD stores will have to tack a music royalty onto the price of their disks, the prices start to approach new CD prices. Consumers, given similar prices, will opt for new CDs with complete liner notes and disks presumably unmarred by scratches or blemishes. Retail store space is expensive, and used CD stores won't be able to make enough to stay in business.

Used bookstores will be next. I can guarantee that if the RIAA succeeds, the AAP will use that as a precedent to attack used bookstores. Look how much flak Amazon.com has taken over their policy of offering used books on the same page as new copies.

But the fact of the matter is that this is another tragic example of why the big content companies don't Get It. Used bookstores are a boon for authors-- and publishers-- but not for the financial reason ChrisW states.

Used bookstores provide an important service for authors. They allow consumers to "try out" an author with whom they're unfamiliar without risking much money. Although the author doesn't make a penny on that sale, if the reader is sufficiently impressed they'll be more likely to buy the author's next book, or even start collecting the author's backlist. The used market is way to built future customers, if not present customers. And publishers are hell-bent to kill this golden-egg-laying goose, as they have so many before.

Interestingly, the pirate market serves the same purpose as the used market, and probably does an even better job at it. Pirate newsgroups and peer to peer networks allow readers to download books at no cost at all, from the privacy of their own homes. And again, if they like the pirate edition, they'll be more likely to buy your next ebook.

Columns Dept.: 02/07/01 - The Truth About Piracy

We've heard a lot about media piracy, but the truth about why it happens and who is really at fault may surprise you.