One member displayed a special edition Palm III with a clear case.

One member raised a point about configuring multiple Palm PDAs in a work environment, where each needed to have the same application. We did not have an easy answer for this -- suggesting that Palm might preconfigure for a large order. Any ideas?

Another user presented his work application, which is a custom brewed time and billing application created in-house with CodeWarrior.

Bob brought his "cool and new" Visor with a color camera attachment - each "photo" was 320x240 pixels, about 187kb. The camera allows you to use the Palm/Visor screen as a viewfinder and as a display (B/W-greyscale unless color Palm). A GPS attachment was also shown with STreetfidner Deluxe.

A members thoughts on extended use of the GoType keyboard - new version for Handspring Visor - it is powered by the PDA, somewhat delicate, requires driver installed on PDA prior to use. A USB connector from the keyboard to the PC. It does not automatically turn on the Visor when it is placed in keyboard receptacle.

BackupBuddy, Penguin Backup, and Pilot-Xfer were all mentioned (see prior minutes) as alternatives to a desktop-hotsync for backing up Palm data. One member recalled an application wherein a web address could be a "virtual harddrive" for the Palm and referred to Excite for more detail.

As far as battery life is concerned, someone mentioned Rick Broida as a reference - his website is under construction, and a search of PalmGear revealed a Calvin's page on this subject which may be helpful.

For law legal uses, see this website .

Under somewhat wierd and bizarre - how about making your own keyboard for the Palm? Think about it - the keyboards available communicate through a serial port, a full sized keyboard is similar, so why not? If you can read German, check out "Tinker with the PalmPilot". It is fairly hysterical when machine translated, but a legitimate conversion of an AT style keyboard for use with the Palm. Needs external power, of course.

David Pogue's PalmPilot the Ultimate Guide, O'Reilly & Associates remains the most frequently referenced book in our meetings.

AVANTGO again surfaces for its ability to transfer web information from the desktop to the pda for later review.

Tap Magazine is now HandHeld Computing Magazine

See you in July.