Featured Content
|
|
||||
| Provided by: FreeTranslation.com | |
| Page Two of Security Revisited--Palm Tipsheet #18 |
|
The Tipsheet Interview: Leonard Burtscher In this month's Tipsheet Interview we'll chat with German Palm handheld user Leonard Burtscher, a soon to be university student, Macintosh consultant, Apple promoter and web developer. Leonard uses his Palm IIIx to manage his busy personal, school and work schedule, compute complex equations, convert units and to read the daily news with AvantGo. *PT: Leonard, thanks for sharing your experiences with the Palm Tipsheet. I am glad to support your great e-zine! *PT: You live in Germany -- I'm curious to know how popular Palm handhelds are there. Have they been gaining popularity recently, or have you noticed them being used by people for a long time? There are a few people who have been using Palm handhelds since the time when it was still called a PalmPilot (like me) but I think the demand for mobile devices has increased quite a bit in the last few months. When working for Apple Computer in consumer electronic shops as a sales manager/promoter I often hear people considering buying a Palm or a PocketPC-based device instead of a device that only stores contacts such as those sold by Casio, which look more like a pocket calculator than a mobile computer. But I am still surprised every time I see a fellow Palm user, since they are still quite rare here. *PT: Is your Palm an English version, or a localized German language operating system? My Palm is running under a German version of Palm OS 3.1, although I'm using an international English version of Palm Desktop on my Mac (which works fine, BTW). Every Palm device sold here has a built-in German-language version of the Palm OS. Unfortunately, there is no localized Palm Desktop application for the Macintosh, though there is one for Windows PCs. *PT: Is there a version of Graffiti which allows you to write special German characters on your Palm, or do you use other methods? The standard version of Graffiti already comes with built-in support for German characters. The only special characters which do not appear in the English language are ä, ö, ü and ß. These special letters can be written by first drawing a regular vowel and then a special character, something like a double shortcut-sign, while the ß or 'S-set' is created with a backslash-B combination. It is a bit tricky but you get used to it quickly. There is also a freeware Hackmaster hack called German Chars Hack: http://www.erisma.se/prod_gechars.htm This hack allows you to enter special characters more easily, though you have to get used to it -- which took me some time. However, once you find out how it works you will enter special German characters much faster. And there is of course my Palm Portable Keyboard with a German keymap, which I use quite often. *PT: When you're using your Palm, what kinds of reactions do you get? Are people intrigued? Do you have opportunities to 'evangelize' the Palm? I'm writing these lines sitting in an Inter-City Express train and the person sitting next to me looks at me quite interestingly -- as if he wanted to prove whether or not Scotty has already beamed me up... ;-) To be honest: The usage of Palm devices has increased tremendously in the last few months. When entering the train today I saw a man reading today's headlines on a PalmVx for example. But there are also many people who cannot imagine this can be done with a Palm. Even when traveling back from the German 'Systems' computer Fair last November, I was asked how that "Palm thing" worked. I always try to show other people what is possible with a good piece of technology today. *PT: How does the Palm help you in your everyday life? Most often I use the Palm for jotting down tasks or short notes and for offline-browsing with AvantGo. I use the Palm notepad application to store almost anything you can imagine to be written in text in my PDA: access codes for websites, ISPs or FTP-servers, opening times of stores, the partition table of my Linux PC, an overview of all mailing lists I'm subscribed to (and the info on how I can unsubscribe), jokes, info about what gifts I gave to whom and when (and what gifts I plan to give), my bus timetable, recording the time needed to complete my daily bicycle training route and other little useful tidbits like statistics or my clothing sizes. This comes in handy when I sit in an internet café and cannot remember my ISPs e-mail access password. :-) I've been planning to move to Wźrzburg to study physics at the university there (following my final school exam called the 'Abitur') so I've been using my Palm quite often lately. When I visit next time to get accommodated with the university, I will already have all relevant contact information, student information, important institutes and so on, right in my Palm -- so I won't need to query a telephone book. I am also using my Palm to store an overview of the upcoming costs and a list of things I want to take with when moving. Of course I could do this on my desktop computer, but the advantage of having it in the Palm is that I can add or edit an item whenever I think of it and not only when sitting in front of my Macintosh. *PT: Are there any programs which you use daily and couldn't live without? Well, of course this is AvantGo: http://www.avantgo.com/ This great free app lets you read websites off-line with your Palm device. For more information about AvantGo, see Palm Tipsheet 12.0: http://www.palmtipsheet.com/html.texts/tipsht12.html#avantgo For reading Doc formatted e-texts CSpotRun comes in very handy: http://32768.com/bill/palmos/cspotrun/index.html Doodle and MathPad -- For instance, on a trip to an open-house day some weeks ago my physics teacher and I were discussing how it was possible to determine an electron's radius. Neither of us had pencil or paper so I just got out my Palm and calculated it with Doodle and MathPad. We formed the equations (which took us three 'sheets' of Doodle) and then I entered all the info into MathPad to arrive at a result. Doodle (source-code available too!): http://www.elf.org/pilot/doodle.html MathPad: http://www.radiks.net/~rhuebner/mathpad.html Another very good utility is PalmPrint, which enables you to print virtually everything from your Palm to an IR-capable printer (like the HP 2100 series). This tool comes in handy especially when you have lots of interesting and important notes to print from your Palm: http://www.stevenscreek.com/pilot/palmprint.shtml Here are several astronomy related tools I use quite often... Location Manager, which is used by other apps to let them know where (on earth) you are: http://www.star-pilot.com/locmgr/index.html StarPilot, which shows the positions of Stars: http://www.star-pilot.com/ Planets, a very powerful app to compute the exact positions (RA/DEC), the rise, transit and set times and even the brightness and distance from earth of any planet in the solar system: http://www.star-pilot.com/planets/ Messier, which computes the position of the 110 Messier objects (enclosing the brightest galaxies and nebulae like the Andromeda galaxy or the Orion nebula): http://www.star-pilot.com/messier/ Sun Compass lets you determine where the north is by comparing the sun's position with the current date & time: http://home.snafu.de/tjawer/tjhome.htm#sun Last but not least I'd like to add YAUC (Yet Another Unit Converter) which lets you convert units like gallons into metric and vice versa. This converter knows 561 units in 39 categories and is a real must for anyone who must often convert units! http://www.blueneptune.com/~maznliz/marius/palm.shtml There are lots of other very useful apps for the Palm platform and I just want to encourage everybody to have a look at palmtracker.com, palmgear.com or the Palm section at tucows.com to see what is already possible with the Palm today. *PT: Are there any hardware or software items that you plan to buy in the near future? What functions will you use these for? The new Palm m500 series looks great. I think I'll upgrade to an m505 in the next few months because I'd like to have features like vibrating-alarm since the built-in speaker in the Palm IIIx is too weak to get me anywhere! ;-) I would also like a color-display and rechargeable lithium-polymer battery. Basically I will use the new device as I use my IIIx now but I could imagine reading and writing e-mail on my Palm with a Palm e-mail conduit, available for either Linux or MacOS. *PT: Would you share a funny story that relates to your Palm with us? :-) One math lesson we were talking about solving a complex equation. When we did not find a solution to the problem, a class mate of mine said: "You cannot solve this equation without a huge, powerful computer!" Well, I said: "I can with my Palm!!" and solved the equation with the really great $10 shareware tool, MathPad (mentioned above). MathPad allows you to solve almost any equation -- even equation-systems! Buy and register it! :-) *PT: Thanks for taking time to share your Palm using experience in Germany with the Palm Tipsheet. Are there any final comments you'd like to share? With new mobile devices and much faster mobile connections provided by the UMTS technology in Europe and Japan for example, I think we Palm-users can look forward to a great "information future" coming up. Just imagine surfing with your Palm even faster than with today's standard cable-bound Internet access speed! The tech news say that you will not only be able to read some text on your Palm with AvantGo but to see live broadcast news in full color and motion for example... I'm sure there will be even more possibilities for mobile devices in the next, let's say five, years from today. Long live the Palm! :-) Interview Slots Still Available! -- If you're a Palm user outside of the US and are interested in being interviewed by the Palm Tipsheet, I invite you to check the list of past and upcoming interviews (to make sure your country isnŐt already represented) and send an email to for consideration. Currently the list of upcoming Palm users includes: Ireland, Costa Rica, India, the Netherlands, Spain, Israel, Switzerland, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Thailand, Venezuela, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Italy, The Philippines and Belgium. The list of past interviews includes users from: Australia, Brazil, Britain, China, France, Japan, Norway, Poland, Turkey and Germany. If you are from a country *not* represented on either list, feel free to apply with an e-mail to interview@palmtipsheet.com for consideration. END NOTE Thanks again for reading another issue of the Palm Tipsheet. I sincerely hope security issues raised in this issue will encourage many of you to tighten the security of your Palm handheld. My thanks to Leonard Burtscher for his sharing his perspective and information on the popularity of Palm handhelds in Germany. Hungry for more? Check out the Palm Tipsheet website for archived issues, article and interview listings, Tipsheet FAQ, the new 'About the Tipsheet' area, our unofficial AvantGo channel and the handy search tool: http://www.palmtipsheet.com/ Feel free share the Palm Tipsheet website with new Palm users. If this issue was forwarded by a Palm friend, you too can get the Palm Tipsheet sent to your e-mailbox free each month. Follow the subscription instructions below, or use the subscription tool on the website to join the mailing list. Auf Wiedersehen! :-) Mike Rohde mike@palmtipsheet.com Copyright 1998-2001 (C) Mike Rohde. All rights reserved. There is no guarantee of accuracy in articles. The mention of a product or service does not imply an endorsement. Company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. This document is freeware and may be redistributed freely without modification with written permission. No portion of this document may be altered, reprinted, or sold to any person or entity without written permission of Mike Rohde. This copyright applies to all versions of the Palm Tipsheet, whether in plain text, HTML, AvantGo or Palm doc format. "You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles." -- Miracle Max, The Princess Bride SUBSCRIPTIONS To subscribe, send an email to tipsheet-on@palmtipsheet.com Comments or questions: comments@palmtipsheet.com --------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted with the authors permission |
|
|
|
Email
Print
Comments
(0)Last 5 Articles From This Catagory
A Future With Nowhere to Hide?
Configure GPRS and WAP Settings for an i-mate / O2 XDA II / MDA II (Updated)
Guide to Wireless Internet Access Through the Cellular/PCS networks
How to Buy a Great MP3 Player
How to Buy a Great Notebook