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Domain: landware.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to landware.com.

Comments · 15

  1. Palm can't be a calculator by ispel · · Score: 1 · on Calculators vs. PDAs in the Classroom

    I have a Palm, a TI-86 and capable calculator software for my Palm. I carry my Palm around all the time, but would never attempt to use it for any calculations, simple or not. The form factor of Palms make them useless for data entry. The Palm is limited to grafiti and pecking with the stylus...either way, it takes two hands, and is clumsy and slow compared to the keypad on the TI-86. The Palm makes a passable calculator with my attached keyboard, but by itself, it just isn't very useful as a calculator.

    As a note, with a keyboard, my Palm is a great tool for school; I can take notes all day...it would be nice if there was good free graphing calculator software that can replace the funcationality of the TI-86/89.


  2. Re:I wonder if a palm would be a good replacement by call+-151 · · Score: 3, Informative · on HP Calculator Department Closing
    There are some reasonable Palm apps for RPN calculators:
    • RPN 2.46 is a freeware RPN calc for PalmOS
    • MathU from creativecreek.com is a $20 program which is basically an HP 15C emulator
    • Financial calculator from landware.com is a $30 calc app that has the financial stuff built-in from the 12C built-in as well
    • RPN an $18 shareware RPN calculator for Palm with scripting and nice features as well

    There is a comparison page on geekazoid about various Palm calculators, RPN and otherwise.

    It should be a good indication of the excellent design and utilty of the HP calculators that it has been so imitated... Of course, some of that has to do with the sturdy hardware- it is quite remarkable what can be done to an HP calc and still have it work perfectly...

  3. Re:this is what a palm really needs by Aldreis · · Score: 1 · on Talking Palm

    you need to be able to say, "New apointment with whoever, whenever" and it needs to be able to accurately record that.

    No need to wait. :-)
    That's what a Palm add-on, called GoVox, does... 99 messages or 8 minutes of total record time.

  4. Re:eHolster to the rescue! by arban · · Score: 1 · on Is This How to Carry Your Gadgets?

    I must admit, I looked into this a while ago. I think it looks neat and comfortable. I think I would buy one if I wore sportcoats alot. In that way it wouldn't look so bad, and you wouldn't get side ways glances from cops. But if I were the type that wears sportcoats all this time instead of tee-shirts, I probably wouldn't want to have something so geeky.

    But, just to let you know how much of a weirdo I am, I did buy the BurroPak a few years back, just because I thought it was cool. It ended up being a little too bulky under a jacket, so I didn't use it too much. But it is good for holding other items besides a Palm unit. It was quite nice for holding my wallet and a grenade a few times when I played paintball.

  5. PDAs in the Health Sciences world by GMFTatsujin · · Score: 2 · on The Evolution Of PDAs

    I work at the Health Sciences Center in our local university, and I've become something of a campus go-to-guy for handheld computers. We've got entire departments buying these things up by the TRUCKLOAD, deploying them to the staff and faculty, getting all hot and bothered over having these little things (mostly Palm M505s, but a few visors here and there... fortunately few iPaqs)... but no idea what to do with them. They jump the gun on the technology curve, and have a hard time settling in when their wallets catch up with their brains.

    Part of the problem is that I don't think the user base in general doesn't even know what these things are, what they're designed for, and what they're really like to use day to day. The idea of the tricorder may have given use a heads-up on what technology was capable of, but the flip side of that is that people expect all tricorder-like things to be FUCKING TRICORDERS.

    Here's what I tell people who ask me what kind of PDA to buy and what it's for:

    • The Palm Pilot is best likened to a collection of self-organized Rolodex Of Many Colors. Anything you can put on a post-it note, put it on a Palm-compatible device. It will serve you well, but you'll have to start thinking of information in bite-size chunks (like a fun-size Snickers bar).
    • Windows-CE devices are a scaled down version of Windows on a screen the size of an index card. Want a free demonstration? Go to your desktop. Change the screen resolution to 640x480. Now block half of that out and fire up Word and write your grant proposal. I mean, that's what you're buying a micro-PC for, right? To work on those important things in the few off-minutes you have in your busy lifestyle? Write write write. Erase erase erase. Squint squint squint. Happy with it? Fine, buy an iPaq.

    I can't imagine why Joe User would want to turn a Palm-type device into a replacement for the desktop. I've got apps (ThoughtManager comes to mind, Pocket Quicken too) on my Visor Prism that have done more for organizing my thoughts, ideas, presentations and life in general than ANYTHING my PC has ever done for me, and it's simple to use. I also don't have to worry about loading my Visor up with apps that, for some inexplicable reason, hate each other's guts and duke it out in the form of GPFs and incompatible DLLs (Outlook and GroupWise come to mind). I don't have to rebuild the OS everytime I add a bit of hardware with screwy drivers.

    I turn it on, and the information is instantly there in fun-size form. No wading through menus. No waiting for the desktop to come up. It's just THERE. With the right hacks and a little finger-training, I can find any information I want in three actions or less.

    That's what I want out of these things, and I think it's a common goal.

    Relating this to the Health Sciences field - ePocrates is a beautiful little app that maintains a portable drug interaction database. Our residents and other medical-type people swear by it, and it updates itself every time the user does a sync.

    Instant info, on demand. That's the Information Age - not MP3s, Powerpoint presentations (dear God, don't even get me started on these fucking wastes of time), voice recognition doo-dads that talk back to me and sound like HAL, or whatever. Just give me a place to put and organise my ideas until I get to the resources I need to make them a reality. Everything else is just a distraction - not bad per se, but it doesn't contribute to my productivity. Until you can fit something like that directly into my brain, you can replace my Visor with anything trying to be more PC-like when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

    The Visor also has the added advantage of being a great platform for hobbyists to develop on - being able to beam a program around has, I think, done wonders for the shareware concept.

    /me ducks,
    Tatsujin

  6. Re:Hardware issue with ipaq by zootie · · Score: 1 · on Quake For The iPaq
    Yeah the multi-button issue is a problem with the iPAQ. However, developers are getting creative working around it. And with the attention the iPAQ is getting, Compaq should be planning to address this issues in one of the upcoming models.

    PocketNES is the first game to do a good job with on screen controls. Jimmy's J-Five does an even better job, since you can use the stylus for movement, speed, and weapon selection, and the buttons for firing.

    PocketQuake is being worked on so it supports the stylus for movement (mlook). The new version with this might be available on Monday, or later this week. Once mlook is implemented, you'd have most Quake movement functionality implemented (just combine it with clever use of the existing buttons). Also, you should be able to use the upcoming iPAQ ThinkOutside and GoType keyboards for the iPAQ (neither is currently available for the iPAQ, but iPAQ compatible versions of each are expected soon).

    (Per the developer, Dan East) Monday's release will first address running it from a storage card (right now you can only do that with a patch), and allowing for task switching (right now it doesn't play nice with the CPU and doesn't allow switching to other apps). It might have the mlook feature available by then.

    And once it has more speed improvements, it'll be very playable. And then think about enabling the multi-player features with the upcoming 400 Mhz iPAQ (maybe by September). A quick IR game of PocketQuake sound quite possible (not to mention using Wireless Ethernet or Ricochet Wireless 128 Kbps).

    And when Palm comes out with their StrongArm Palms, it might be possible to do a port to the platform. But that might take one or two years...

  7. Re:Pocket Quicken and others by beagle · · Score: 1 · on What Are Your Ten Best Palm Apps?
    These are in no particular order, and many are repeats from earlier in the discussion. I went through much of Palmgear when I first got my Visor Deluxe and thought the enclosed list of companies made some pretty cool products.

  8. Pocket Quicken and others by beagle · · Score: 1 · on What Are Your Ten Best Palm Apps?
    Oh, where to start? The Visor is so useful, I've got it loaded with stuff. Some of these (AvantGo and RPN) were already mentioned but I'll list them anyway.

    I have never used it, but a friend of mine is trying out the Geode at http://www.geodiscovery.com.

    Someone mentioned DateBk3/DateBk4, and I agree, but know that the Visor includes this software as Date Book+ (thanks, Handspring!).

    I've got a list of about 50 places that I think make cool software and will post them if desired.

  9. Palm 3 and Novatel Wireless by Bob+McCown · · Score: 2 · on Looking For Wireless Handheld E-Mail And Web?
    Ive got my old Palm 3 with a Novatel Wireless modem on it. My shell account runs a bunch of .procmail filters and forwards any personal mail to my palm, and anything else (mailing lists, etc) off to my linux box.

    Oh, and I stuck on a goVox digital recorder thingy too.

  10. Re:Palm has Rogue and Infocom Interpreters by Mike+Miller · · Score: 1 · on "Tight" PDA/Handheld Console
    They actually squeeze a lot on a screen, and as for the keyboard issue, there are actually several options. I personally have the Landware one which is a bit on the small side for really fast typing, but quite useable.

    &nbsp - Mike

  11. has anyone seen the bigger keyboards? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2 · on Thumb Keyboard For PalmPilot

    i bought a go-type keyboard a few months ago and can input text into my pilot almost as fast as i can type on a regular keyboard. i say "almost as fast" because the go-type is a wee bit smaller than a standard keyboard, so i still have to adjust my typing. but i've heard about another keyboard that's going to be available soon from think outside that looks pretty cool too. this one has the added advantage of not wasting three times the space as your pilot like the go-type keyboard does. they also purport to have made the keyboard "full size". either way, using the keyboard i have beats the heck out of using graffiti, and certainly does a lot better than pecking out words with my thumbs.

  12. Re:Students need Palms. by abischof · · Score: 1 · on More details on the Visor/Handspring (Update)
    >particularly with the GoType, which lets me type notes in class

    FWIW, you can get the GoType keyboard here.

    Alex Bischoff
    ---

  13. Re:Eh. by Hallow · · Score: 1 · on Palm Pilots: Tools or Toys?
    go to http://wwww.landware.com - check out the GoType! keyboard.

    I have one. They ROCK. Instead of carrying around 5 different notebooks at school, I have 5 different categories in memopad. I can touch type on it. I can email my notes to friends, save them, print them out, back them up. Very nice.

  14. Re:First comment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Palm Pilots: Tools or Toys?

    Do you mean something like the keyboards for the PalmV soon to be available from Landware ?

    They already have a version for the older format Palms.

  15. Re:First comment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Palm Pilots: Tools or Toys?

    Do you mean something like the keyboards for the PalmV soon to be available from Landware ?

    They already have a version for the older format Palms.