PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide, 2/e

3Com's PalmPilot is the world's bestselling hand-held computer platform. In three years, its 16 models from 5 different manufacturers have captured 80 percent of the palmtop market. About the size of a playing card, Palm devices are lightweight (under 6 ounces), offering two-month battery life, handwriting recognition, Internet connectivity, and a touch-screen display. Above all, these devices are fast and elegantly designed.

PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide was an instant classic when it debuted in 1998, becoming, and remaining, the bestselling Palm book (and a top ten title among all computer books) every month since. Dense with previously undocumented information, this newly updated bible for Palm users delivers hundreds of timesaving tips and surprising tricks, plus a CD-ROM containing over 3,100 Palm programs. The second edition offers exclusive insider coverage of all models, including 1999's Palm IIIx, Palm V, laser-equipped Symbol 1500, and the revolutionary, wireless Palm VII.

The 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 screen, the buttons, and the current line of models. A tutorial takes the reader through the palmtop's preferences and settings panels, teaches the Graffiti alphabet, and unearths surprising features of the machine's eight built-in programs.


• Section Two explains step-by-step how your PalmPilot can work with your PC: how data gets from your palmtop to your desktop computer and back again (HotSyncing). New chapters give special coverage to the separate Windows and Macintosh (Mac Pac 2.0) versions of Palm Desktop, which duplicates the functions of the PalmPilot (calendar, phone book, to-do list, memo pad, email, and expense tracking) on the desktop machine.


• Section Three takes the reader beyond the built-in Palm software to the best of the add-on programs included with the book. They include such graphics programs as DinkyPad, TealPaint, and the amazing ImageViewer (which unlocks the "black-and-white" Pilot screen's grayscale features); electronic books in Doc format; and music programs that use the hand-held's built-in speaker. New in this edition: how-to advice for using PalmPilot database programs to collect data in the field, and syncing them with such popular PC programs as FileMaker and Microsoft Access.


• Section Four covers the new Palm VII, the first one-piece, pocket-sized, wireless Internet device ever marketed, offering cell-network-based email and Web access anywhere in the country. As this section makes clear, any PalmPilot model can access the Net when equipped with the tiny PalmPilot modem. Such an arrangement is ideal for reading and replying to email--a great time-shifter for anyone who'd otherwise consider plane, train, or automobile time as downtime. Additional chapters cover the five Palm Web browsers, paging, faxing, and infrared beaming features.


• Section Five explains simple ways to troubleshoot both software and hardware, including HotSync snafus and various software glitches. Special chapters cover Palm fans' options for upgrading and accessorizing their palmtops. Two new appendixes debut in this edition; one explains how to write Palm VII Web-querying applets; the other, for the first time, covers the PalmPilot's synergy with Unix and Linux machines.

PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide, 2nd Edition is the most comprehensive Palm-platform book yet written. With the cooperation of Palm Computing, and 3Com, bestselling computer-book author David Pogue succinctly answers every conceivable question, unlocks Palm features most users never suspected, and radiates the fun, passion, and sense of community shared by Piloteers the world over. The enclosed CD-ROM (for Windows 9x, NT, and the Macintosh) is a disc-based version of the #1 Palm-software Web site, palmcentral.com, offering over 3,100 programs organized in a searchable, sortable database catalog with auto-install features and web links. PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide is the essential guide for the PalmPilot owner.