I Took The Plunge

[Bob Russell]

Originally Posted by divajess

Bob, can you go over exactly what you will do/want to do with Your PPC? I know you have gone over some of it already, but that will help me even more. :-)

Congrats on the new PDA!
I'm not too sure what to add to my previous list.
Because there are AvantGo and iSilo on PPC, plus some of the things listed above, I'm covered for most of the "essentials". So probably the most important things I need in order to survive the switch to PPC are
[1] A nice looking 1-wk calendar view like DateBk5 that is also functional (you can tap an entry or day and start adding apptmts or details). This is critical to me because a one-day view doesn't help me see what I have planned for the week or help me find open time to schedule a meeting. I need to see all the apptmts with times and usually a location all on one screen. If I have to scroll for each new day to see the apptmts, I just lose track of the big picture.
[2] An outliner to be my Shadow replacement. I use an outline to keep track of projects and tasks in hierarchical form. Some of the items have notes attached, that can be expanded from the main view with a single tap. I tap a single link checkbox to create a todo item in the main todo database that's tied back to the Shadow entry, and use the built-in when I'm actually looking at todos. It's only the subset that I want to see. When I do a weekly review of everything I do it from the Shadow outliner side.[*] Here's one I forgot before... a launcher that allows me to start a program by punching one of the pda buttons. I currently use on that assigns a primary button. Then it shows a button map on the screen. if I follow that first button with any button held short or long, it launches the program I assigned to that button (one for a short push, one for a long push). I've seen another version that counts the number of button pushes to figure out what program to launch... eg a quick push, push, push of the memo button would launch the 3-push program assigned to that button. The idea is that it's really easy to get to any key program without the stylus, just by hitting the right button the right number of times.
Based on all the other input, I think I can cover most everything else I need. (I'll know more after I try things, of course.) And once I get "settled in", I'll surely want to know more about some additional things I might be able to do, like the game emulators.
Is that the sort of thing you were looking for with regard to more info??
Thanks! (Feel free to throw in suggestions and ideas here at any time.)

PS. Oh... and one more thing. Anyone know what I can use to move my data over to the PPC. The built in calendar, memos and address book database entries are the ones I'm most concerned about, but it would be neat if I could also move my Shadow data so don't have to reenter it all.

[divajess]

I highly recommend springing for Pocket Informant for a PIM replacement, if appointment setting and the like are that important to you. PI does SO much, including give you a really nice weekly view of things. I have a Today screen plugin called PIToday that is very configurable and lets me see what I've got going for however many days I want without ever opening up PI. The display is even shrinkable so I don't have to look at it 100% of the time.

As far as your hierarchical listmaking/outlining, I already recommended Listpro because it's so configurable. But I do know there are some outlining specific tools out there and I don't know what they are...let me do some research and get back to you.

As far as a launcher/button mapper, there is some functionality already built into the PPC OS. I keep my contacts and calendar buttons mapped to those functions, but my mailbox calendar brings up SmallMenu (hierarchical menu that is also really easy to navigate without the stylus), and my "Home" button that goes to the Dell Home utility goes to my Today screen. I had a similar set up on my iPAQ. I am fairly certain there are other button mapping utilities out there, so I am going to look into them as I am very curious myself.

One thing I have come to appreciate on my Pocket PC like never before has been Calligrapher. Not only does it offer excellent handwriting recognition (and I've used lots of text entry formats--the onscreen keyboard, Graffiti, Transcriber, Fitaly, the list goes on) but I have become obsessed with Pen Commander. Basically you can create macros for often typed text, program behavior, etc. If I write ypass and draw a circle around it, it types out my Yahoo! password for me. If I type net and draw a circle around it, it types out http://www..net and leaves the cursor in the middle of the dots for me to finish the address. Writing ubook and drawing a circle around it fires up ubook. It's pretty nifty and I'm starting to write my own macros.

This week I plan to get around to reviewing my Dell and taking pictures and stuff. I've been too busy this weekend spending my bonus and bonding with my new toy.

Moving data over to the PPC...if you can sync the PIM data you have with Outlook, then you can just sync it up with your PPC through Activesync. As far as Shadow, I don't know.

[Bob Russell]

I'll try out PI, and Calligrapher/Pen Commander (or is Calligrapher part of WinME?) I like the circle thing better than the Palm shortcuts. Seems more natural.

That makes sense about the conversion of PIM data.... I guess that's the way to do it... find a 3rd party Palm app that will sync to Outlook and then use Activesync to PPC.

I've heard in D-Roc's review of one of the HPs that there is a slower switch between apps and it takes longer to get into PIMs. Plus some slower on/off times with PPC (compared to Palm). That would be a bummer, but not a show stopper. Shame to see that with the slick hardware. I guess I'm starting to think about this whole thing kind of like going from Linux to Windows.

Thanks Jess. Enjoy the new toy!

[divajess]

Originally Posted by BobR

I'll try out PI, and Calligrapher/Pen Commander (or is Calligrapher part of WinME?) I like the circle thing better than the Palm shortcuts. Seems more natural.

That makes sense about the conversion of PIM data.... I guess that's the way to do it... find a 3rd party Palm app that will sync to Outlook and then use Activesync to PPC.

I've heard in D-Roc's review of one of the HPs that there is a slower switch between apps and it takes longer to get into PIMs. Plus some slower on/off times with PPC (compared to Palm). That would be a bummer, but not a show stopper. Shame to see that with the slick hardware. I guess I'm starting to think about this whole thing kind of like going from Linux to Windows.

Thanks Jess. Enjoy the new toy!

The switch time, etc. really depends on the device speed and on the software. It does take a few seconds longer for me to open Pocket Informant than it does the built-in calendar, but that's because Pocket Informant is way, way more beefed up than the built-in features. Once it's open, it is just as fast as anything. Of course, this doesn't really matter with my brand new 624Mhz processor but I did notice it on my slower little iPAQ. It's really not that noticeable, in my opinion, but it has been awhile since I worked with Palm.

Calligrapher is a separate program. As I understand it, the built-in Transcriber with the Windows Mobile/PPC OS is based off of Calligrapher, but doesn't have any of the nifty features and is comparatively quite a few releases back in time. I think it's worth it...the handwriting recognition shocks and astounds people!

[Bob Russell]

Just got my new toy! It's clearly going to take quite a while to try things out and get used to it. First impressions:
1) Really cool hardware, despite the lower resolution screen in comparison to my Clie HiRes 320x320. Put together nicely, fun to use, and solid. Has things like a voice recorder, voice command software (which I'll never use, but is a neat feature). It's uncanny how thin it is also.
2) Everything looks less business-like, more glitzy and cartoonish.
3) System stuff is a little more complicated. Like deleting programs, or stopping programs, etc. But I think with 3rd party sw and some familiarity it's no big deal.
4) AvantGo was really easy to set up (as was the PPC in general), but it runs really slow. For example to go to the home page in AvantGo takes a while which is annoying. This is a 300Mhz or so processor, much faster than my 33MHz or so Palm. But my Palm blazes in AvantGo in comparison.
The PPC fonts in AvantGo are much less readable also. They are very "busy" and weak looking, maybe because of the resolution of the screen. I'm anxious to try iSilo and eReader to see if it's software or OS or screen.
5) I don't like the way there are layers and layers of windows on the screen. And I'm always looking for that silly tiny "OK" circle at the top right of the screen (I wish it was bottom right where I keep looking first.) Things seem much less straightforward. More like desktop windows in a way. Palm seems "slicker". But these are first impressions and I need to take some time to learn my way around and find some more efficient usage patterns.
6) The conversion from serious PalmOS user to Pocket PC is both easier and harder than I thought.
Easier because there's really not much to it. Just an enormous quantity of little things to learn and try and get used to.
Harder because the move of all my data is taking some thinking, some tedious cut/paste and probably about $30 for some software. More about that later. Also just the surprising amount of activities that are second nature on the Palm, but take some time to figure out on the PPC. It's fun, but almost depressing to think how long it's going to take me to get comfortable enough to let go of my Palm for a while and be self-sufficient with PPC and Outlook. BTW, I'm new to Outlook also, so that doesn't help.
7) I don't like the continuous sync philosophy. I turned it off in favor of manual synching. Probably one is not better than the other, but you need to go with what you are comfortable with. I may try continuous sync again later.
8) Cases are almost as important as the form factor of the PPC itself. If I decide to stick with this, I may upgrade the case. (Of course, if I like it that much, I would prefer to upgrade the whole thing to a VGA version!) I really miss the convenience of my SJ33's built in flip cover. My Toshiba case is a decent leather flip cover (Krussell), with a flap and snap to fasten it so it doesn't move around too much from side to side and even maybe expose screen.
9) My first hour or two with it is utterly inconclusive! I may hate it or I may love it. Can't tell yet. But I think I'll be pretty pleased if the text fonts are better where needed, e.g. ebook reader software, and if I get my PIM and Shadow data over okay, and if the PIM/Outliner programs are adequate. But my thought so far is that PalmOS is a so much better foundation. But no matter how good the foundation is, you have to like the house built on top of it (the PDA). I hope Palm can continue to build us some good PDAs in the future.

As fun as this is, it's really really late here, so good night to all. The adventure has started!

[cbarnett]

Have you tried enabling Cleartype? If not, go to the start->Settings->System Tab->Screen, and check the Cleartype box. Do a soft reset, and see if that's not an improvement. I always have cleartype enabled, and am very happy with it.

See the attached screens with cleartype disabled and enabled.

Craig.

[Bob Russell]

Cleartype makes a BIG difference. It makes the letters look a lot "stronger", nicer looking and easier to read. Thks.
I think the lower resolution display is affecting things also. For example, some letter combos blur together a bit with cleartype, and the screen is not really nice to read ebooks with. I still need to try iSilo and eReader, though. Don't know if add-on font options are available like iSilo for Palm, but that might be helpful also.
This is going to be a lot tougher to transition from Palm to PPC than it would be for a new user to just start out with PPC, but I think it would be true the other way around also. Especially when you are well-entrenched in the other OS and programs.
The further I go, though, the more I'm feeling like there's not a huge difference when it comes down to it. Just a different style. I still like plain and simple and reliable, which is what I see in PalmOS. And the screen thing bothers me because reading on my PDA is one of my top activities. But I don't think that's a Palm/PPC thing. Probably more due to screen resolution.
Yet to come are comparisons of actual PIM and Outliner programs, and other program comparisons. It will be interesting to see how they differ.
So far, I can see being happy with PPC for a while until I decide which way to go in the future. Once I get things set up and synching working properly (and making sure the programs I depend on have both Palm and PPC support, plus hopefully data conversion between the two), then maybe I'll be able to hop from one side to the other based on what has the best devices available at the time!
But before I get too far ahead of myself, I need to remember I haven't even really hardly gotten started. Hopefully my experiences will help someone else out there also. I realize it's mostly speculation right now, but hopefully I'll have more "real" info soon. (But not too soon because I'm on vacation in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere to try to get away from the rat race for a while and chill out. Probably shouldn't be on the computer at all, but gee, how can I let this DSL connection go unused?!!!)

[cbarnett]

That was ereader pro I posted the piccies from, at the smallest viewable font size for Tahoma (in my opinion anyway). Fonts aren't an issue for PPC, just grab any windows ttf font you like and plop it into the \windows\fonts directory and you can use it on your toshiba.

I agree, the resolution took a little getting used to after my Clie, but with cleartype, I adjusted pretty quickly, and am very happy with the ipaq as an ebook reader now.

Craig.

[Bob Russell]

I tried the my.yahoo thing, and it didn't work for me, but I did find a great alternative...

Resync can be found at www.stratabase.com

It's FREE and it's wonderful!!!!!! My options were basically going to come down to purchasing a third party solution (a whopping $20, $40 or more depending on functionality and without trials available because they don't want people using he trial to do the conversion I guess.) This program saved me a lot of money and probably a lot of frustration.

A couple things to watch out for: 1. Make sure you have a full install of Outlook including the CDOs. Stands for something like Collaborative Data Objects. 2. If you get a security warning about some program accessing the mail file, just allow it, because it's the Resync program doing what it's supposed to be doing. There's even an option in Resync to automatically close that warning for you.

PALMONE USERS MAY ALREADY HAVE POCKETMIRROR!!!!!
I should mention that I'm converting from my Sony Clie SJ33 which is an earlier model. Therefore it doesn't come with PocketMirror like the more recent models from PalmOne. If you are lucky enough to have a program already to sync from Palm to Outlook, that's all you need. Like Jess said before, once the data is in Outlook it's ready for PPC, because Outlook is to PPC like Palm Desktop is to Palm PDAs. (Gee... all those SAT questions seem to have influenced my thinking. I'm writing like those analogy test questions from high school!)

So I'm all set. It went very smoothly for me. The only work required had to do with categories and task priorities. Take all this with a grain of salt, because I've never used Outlook before, but this is how I chose to handle things...

CATEGORY SETUP
The categories are maintained in a master task list for Outlook. They are then automatically included in the list of categories to choose for an Outlook item (like a task, note, apptmt, contact). That list was annoyingly populated with stuff from Microsoft that I never use, so I wanted to remove the stuff I don't use and add the categories I do use. Turned out to be easy because removing the category in the master list doesn't automatically move the items in that category to unfiled like on the Palm. So I fixed the master category list and then viewed the items by category-organized view. Then for each category I selected all the items and right mouse clicked to set the new category assignment in a mass change operation. Slick! In my case I mostly just had about a dozen memopad categories and a few apptmt and contact categories, so it was easy.

BACKUP OF OUTLOOK DATA
Once all this was done, I did make a point of copying my outlook data to a backup directory. What I did was choose, File.... Data File Management... and then I opened in the indicated directory. Two files were there including an extend file and a .pst file. That seems to be all my data, so I just copied them to a backup folder on my pc and assumed I can recover now if necessary. (Hope that's right... I didn't see any documentation on that!)

TASK PRIORITIES
I was saddened to see that Outlook only uses 3 priority levels for tasks. Apparently this is based on Redmond culture at Microsoft and high priority means it's for Bill, normal means it affects your performance review and low means you'll get to it when you have some extra time.

Well, it may work for Bill, but I wasn't thrilled that I have to convert my system to fit Bill's system! Turns out, though, that I was able to adapt, and I think I like the new method better than my old one. What I'm doing now is making two categories for each previous todo category on my Palm. In my case, that's just Work and Home. So now I have Work, Work_Queued, Home, and Home_Queued. The idea is that priorities 1,2,3 are fine for tasks that are really current and for the day at hand. All the other tasks that clutter up everything are now in the "_Queued" categories so they don't get forgotten. Then they move to the main category when I'm ready to attack them.

There's another expected benefit for me with that because now I'm not as dependent on the outliner to be able to link todos. That was a key feature in ShadowPlan that I wasn't quite sure how I'd do without. It was nicer in Shadow because the todos could live inside of my outlines dormant until they came up for current todos, and then all I had to do was click a checkbox and they popped up on my todo list in the Palm PIM todo app! I'll miss that funtionality, but I think it will be okay now that I have a "_Queued" category of todos. The top-level vision and project info can be in an outliner and/or memos. The dormant todos that I don't want to forget can live in the "_Queued" category. And they move to the active todo list when I'm ready for them. You never know how something's going to work until you try it, but I am satisfied that it's a reasonable approach for my needs.

ADDRESS FIXES
One more item that needed care and feeding manually was the contact database. Even though the items showed as if they were migrated properly, and even though the "File As" item was populated in the screens for the item, Outlook didn't seem to know that the File As item was there. As a result, the PPC Contacts application wasn't showing any item that was entered with a company but no (person) name. I had to open each item and add a space to the name and delete the space and then save the item. It was corrected once that was done. If you are trying this conversion yourself, I'd set the Outlook File As option under contact options to be something that includes both name (last,first) and company. Maybe that would cause it to understand the proper file as on the first sync.

MEMOPAD FIXES
Seems the notes didn't come over properly. Not sure why yet. I'll edit this post with the solution or workaround if I find one.

WRAPUP
Sorry this post is so long, but I figure the info is essential for anyone converting from Palm to PPC, so we'll just leave it here for reference even if people don't bother to read it all right now. I don't think this kind of info is available anywhere else but MobileRead.com, so when the time comes, you'll be glad it's here!

[Alexander Turcic]

Wow you are really going into it, BoB!! Perhaps split that tutorial to a new thread and make it sticky, for instance in the PPC section.

I am curious, what are you using more often now, your new PPC or your old Clie?

[Bob Russell]

I'm in a desperate never-never land until I can get the basics working

I really wish that PalmOne had just made the T5 work in the first place. That's really what I wanted to get. But now I'm into this too far to back out now. As a result I decided to get PocketInformant. It seems really nice. Hopefully I can get comfortable with it. Next I'll splurge for eWallet.

But back to your question, Alex, I currently use the Palm for stuff like:
* passwords
* ebooks
* shopping lists
* Bible reading
* project information in ShadowPlan

So far, the PPC is for:
* Basic PIM stuff only -- Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Addresses
(because that's all that I've got converted so far despite many hours!)

And I'm not real happy with even that part because of the goofy way it handles notes (memos). I hope it gets better when I get more familiar.

I've got my screen protectors with one installed, plus a nice case and sync/charge cables. But this whole data conversion and getting things set up in a nice routine is TOUGH!!! Not the way I had planned to spend my vacation, but I'm sunk if I don't get things working by the time I get back to work. UGH!

Everything seems harder with PPC, but if I can find a way to manage, I have to admit it's cooler. Not sure how to describe why. But I can sure see why the debate about Palm and PPC rages on. And I also recommend that if you are entrenched on one or the other, DONT SWITCH!!! (Unless like me, you're tired of waiting for PalmOne, and just a little bit crazy, and very curious!)

I still believe PalmOS is the better way to go, but you know when it comes down to it, I think I'm happiest where there's the best software available.

When I'm done with this experiment, I hope to extract a summary of my adventures and lessons learned and post that as a front page article.

In the mean time, can anyone give me some tips on the following:
1) Notes seem to be organized under MyDocuments on the PPC as files in folders. But Outlook seems to try to organize them by categories. How to keep them organized, and how to not have to look at all the other MyDocuments folders intended for entirely other purposes?
2) If I do a backup using the ActiveSync program, what do I get and what is missing? I assume it backs up RAM, but I'm missing internal Flash ROM and the SD card contents. Is that right?
3) Where's a good PPC forum where I can get answers to questions and find discussions about software?
4) Those using PocketInformant... what's this thing about having to export the link/hierarchy info? Does that only happen when I close PocketInformance completely? I must be missing something because I don't want to be that vulnerable to data loss!

Funny thing... the faster I type the longer-winded I get

[cbarnett]

Bob,

I'll try and answer your issues as I can.

1. I don't use the PPC notes much at all, so I'm not much help here. I store most of the relevant info as notes for tasks, appointments or contacts. Anything else goes into a CodeWallet Pro database as notes. It doesn't sync with Outlook, but I use Virtual CE with reproduces my ipaq screen on the PC desktop and lets me type and use the mouse to do anything on the device, so data entry and editing it easy.

2. When you do a backup (I've only done full backups, but do one every day - has saved me on a couple of occasions ), the entire contents of the devices RAM is archived into a single Backup.stg file. If you had a hard reset, you just plug the ppc back in with a guest connection and restore. To back up the cards, you'd need to manually copy them across to your HD, either with activesync (effective but slow) or with a dedicated card reader. I back my card up probably once a week or so.

3. One of the best PPC sites is Pocket PC Thoughts (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/index.php). It's a great resource, very friendly, and has heaps of great discussions on software, hardware, etc.

4. Can't help with this as I don't use PocketInformant.

Hope that helps a little bit. Don't get discouraged. Have a look at my post elsewhere about what I've got installed on my ipaq, and do a little googling and installing. You'll be feeling better in no time

Craig.

[doctorow]

Originally Posted by cbarnett

3. One of the best PPC sites is Pocket PC Thoughts (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/index.php). It's a great resource, very friendly, and has heaps of great discussions on software, hardware, etc.

Wait until more of us MobileRead users own a PPC... it's obvious which site will be the best resource then

[cbarnett]

I'm working on it.... feel the power of the dark side....

lol

Craig.

[doctorow]

*grin*