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I never thought I'd see the day that a machine outclassed the Sony Vaio .. this thing blows it away. I want one, bad.. this machine kicks some serious ass. 1GB of ram? eeek!

All we need is for some big Linux sugardaddy *cough* RedHat *cough* *cough* to pick up LinuxPPC and make this line of notebooks fully supported under Linux.. That would be sweet. It'd be nice if they did the same for something like the Apple G4 also, and then brokered getting hardware drivers set up and whatnot - that'd give Linux a "home" architecture to work from, and allow you to fully exploit the capabilities of the hardware.

Oh well, I can dream.. damn, I want one of those though :). Match a titanium PDA case from Rhinoskin really nice, too.

... but probably a III series. I started out using PDAs shortly after a friend in college got the Pilot 1000 (or was it the 5000?). Being a geek, and fairly trusting, he let me play with it for a while, and I picked up the basics of Graffiti in about 15 minutes.

By the time I saved up enough play money to get one, the PalmPilot Personal and Professional were out, so I picked up a PPPro. That was about 3 or 4 years ago. It really helped me keep track of assignments for classes, student government, etc.

It wasn't until I got to into the working world (and grad school part time), that I really started using it for anything "serious". I found using the Memo app for taking notes in meetings and classes, especially with liberal use of the built-in shortcuts.

I upgraded with the PalmIII expansion card when it came out (I was running out of space w/ just 1 meg of memory). It worked fairly flawlessly once I stopped downloading a lot of the "crap" applications that are out there. (Unfortunately, you can't really tell the cream from the crap except by using it, usually)

About a year ago or so, after my girlfriend of the time kept repeatedly sitting on it (I kept it in a special pilot pouch made by a place which disappeared a few years ago), it ended up dying a slow, painful death. Resets at random times, the screen would periodically get scores of vertical lines, graffiti input would get erratic, and I'd have to constantly realign the digitizer.

I spent a few months without a PDA of any kind, and being late for meetings @ work, missing appointments, etc. I finally broke down and ended up getting a PalmIIIc after I'd been admiring a coworker's for a couple months.

In order to protect it, I purchased a RhinoSkin titanium slider case to protect it. They add just a little to the dimensions of the IIIc, and very little weight. Plus, I no longer need to worry about someone sitting on it. I also ended up getting a RhinoPack 2000 to carry everything in. It's able to hold my IIIc in case, my cellphone, 3-5 3.5" floppies (like tomsrtbt, Debian rescue, etc).

The 8 megs in the IIIc (and IIIxe that others have recommended) is great, I haven't been able to fill it up yet. The color is fairly crisp. I really like the rechargable batteries and being able to charge from the cradle, since I was going through a pair of AAAs about every 2-3 weeks, and had to make a conscious effort to not leave my older PalmPilot in the cradle (there's a problem with them, where if you leave them in the cradle, the batteries drain...there's a few quick fixes out for that though, that involve modifying the cradle).

The other thing I like about Palms in general is that they use Flash ROMs, so it's fairly painless (if you have access to a Windows PC or a Mac) to upgrade the OS when Palm releases completely new ROM images. Apparently, Handspring doesn't have Flash ROMs in the Visor series, claiming that they'll just release springboard modules to upgrade the OS. That's great, except when you happen to want/need features in the new OS, but also want to use another springboard (pointed out by a coworker recently who bought one of the newer Visors).

Linux support (and unix in general, OS/2, etc) has been around for as long as I've owned Pilots/Palms, in the pilot-link package (usually available w/ most distros and on Palm software websites).

I'm still using the IIIc to basically organize my life, and take notes in meetings and classes still.
--

... but probably a III series. I started out using PDAs shortly after a friend in college got the Pilot 1000 (or was it the 5000?). Being a geek, and fairly trusting, he let me play with it for a while, and I picked up the basics of Graffiti in about 15 minutes.

By the time I saved up enough play money to get one, the PalmPilot Personal and Professional were out, so I picked up a PPPro. That was about 3 or 4 years ago. It really helped me keep track of assignments for classes, student government, etc.

It wasn't until I got to into the working world (and grad school part time), that I really started using it for anything "serious". I found using the Memo app for taking notes in meetings and classes, especially with liberal use of the built-in shortcuts.

I upgraded with the PalmIII expansion card when it came out (I was running out of space w/ just 1 meg of memory). It worked fairly flawlessly once I stopped downloading a lot of the "crap" applications that are out there. (Unfortunately, you can't really tell the cream from the crap except by using it, usually)

About a year ago or so, after my girlfriend of the time kept repeatedly sitting on it (I kept it in a special pilot pouch made by a place which disappeared a few years ago), it ended up dying a slow, painful death. Resets at random times, the screen would periodically get scores of vertical lines, graffiti input would get erratic, and I'd have to constantly realign the digitizer.

I spent a few months without a PDA of any kind, and being late for meetings @ work, missing appointments, etc. I finally broke down and ended up getting a PalmIIIc after I'd been admiring a coworker's for a couple months.

In order to protect it, I purchased a RhinoSkin titanium slider case to protect it. They add just a little to the dimensions of the IIIc, and very little weight. Plus, I no longer need to worry about someone sitting on it. I also ended up getting a RhinoPack 2000 to carry everything in. It's able to hold my IIIc in case, my cellphone, 3-5 3.5" floppies (like tomsrtbt, Debian rescue, etc).

The 8 megs in the IIIc (and IIIxe that others have recommended) is great, I haven't been able to fill it up yet. The color is fairly crisp. I really like the rechargable batteries and being able to charge from the cradle, since I was going through a pair of AAAs about every 2-3 weeks, and had to make a conscious effort to not leave my older PalmPilot in the cradle (there's a problem with them, where if you leave them in the cradle, the batteries drain...there's a few quick fixes out for that though, that involve modifying the cradle).

The other thing I like about Palms in general is that they use Flash ROMs, so it's fairly painless (if you have access to a Windows PC or a Mac) to upgrade the OS when Palm releases completely new ROM images. Apparently, Handspring doesn't have Flash ROMs in the Visor series, claiming that they'll just release springboard modules to upgrade the OS. That's great, except when you happen to want/need features in the new OS, but also want to use another springboard (pointed out by a coworker recently who bought one of the newer Visors).

Linux support (and unix in general, OS/2, etc) has been around for as long as I've owned Pilots/Palms, in the pilot-link package (usually available w/ most distros and on Palm software websites).

I'm still using the IIIc to basically organize my life, and take notes in meetings and classes still.
--

Ever thrashed a titanium computer?

Has anybody ever made such a beast?

I want a titanium cased laptop now though. :)

I thought the Panasonic Toughbook might've been such a thing, but it uses a magnesium case, not a titanium case. It's still an unusual feature, though...back in the day, NeXT clothed its boxen in magnesium, and that's the only other computer I know about that uses any kind of "exotic metal" as a case material. As for titanium, RhinoSkin has titanium cases for Palm organizers.

_/_
/ v \
(IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
\_^_/

I use the ShockSuit SportCase from RhinoSkin. I love it! The clip is great, and it provides a great mixture of protection and geekiness. Check out the reviews here.

I use the ShockSuit SportCase from RhinoSkin. I love it! The clip is great, and it provides a great mixture of protection and geekiness. Check out the reviews here.

I use the ShockSuit SportCase from RhinoSkin. I love it! The clip is great, and it provides a great mixture of protection and geekiness. Check out the reviews here.

I don't know where you're getting your data.

Palm V: Cute leather cover that turns the unit on when in your pocked due to bad design!

Get PalmV ButtonGuard v2. It turns off the button interrupts so even if you press it for a week the Palm won't drain the battery any harder. Much better improvement over the AlwaysOff hack.

Also about that leather case: I've had no trouble with it. It seems to displace the force against the screen very well. You could always get a PalmV RhinoSkin. I had one for my Palm Professional. Love it. Want one for the V.

Palm III: Flash upgradable
Palm V: Nope
Winner: Palm III

My PalmV seems to be flash upgradeable. Went from 3.0 to 3.3 (I think those were the version #s), and I have about 800K of apps in flash.

Palm V: Digs into the edge of my hand and has a habit of sliding out of my hand and plummeting to the floor.

You must have a very strange way of holding it, or you hold it too tight and have sweaty palms. I've never dropped my V because of the form factor. My Palm Pro, OTOH...

Palm V: Hot Sync contacts not compatible (won't even sync on an old Palm/Palm III cradle!!!!!)

Do you want backwards compatibility with everything? You can get a small device that connects your V serial port to any III-style accessory. Can't remember the name offhand but I believe someone has already replied with the link

For me, the V won. I needed something that was sturdy ((thin) aluminum beats plastic IMO), thin (the III is a pig) and wouldn't keep eating batteries. I get about 3 weeks out of my PalmV. I use it for appointments, phone #s, a programmable calculator (sorry can't find the link, it's by Gary Desrosiers), notes (and also BrainForest), DopeWars, diagnostic platform for the equipment I design, password storage, billing... It's a well used device.

BTW: All the apps mentioned which are replacements for standard PalmOS apps use the standard databases so I don't lose compatibility. Kudos to Iambic and Standalone Software for that feature, it was a big deciding factor when I chose their products.

Hopefully Rob won't get slapped with the bill for upgrading all of the "offramps" from the backbones due to his omnipresent and unpredictable /. effect. :-)

Slightly more on topic, it's too bad the little Pilot didn't have better protection from bumps and jostles. My rhinoskin is *great* for protection... Now if I could only program the little thing better :-)