PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide with CDROM

by David Pogue, Jeff Hawkins

The best general-interest book about that most-adored Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) clearly came about from a lot of thought and effort. With a book richer in facts and better focused than the original edition, The Ultimate Guide shows David Pogue's thoughtful consideration of his dedicated audience. Of course, Pogue includes information on the Palm IIIx, Palm V, and Palm VII. (And it's substantive information too, not the jive stuff--derived from press releases--that many books pass off as "coverage.") He also shows how to take advantage of recent advancements in Macintosh connectivity and brings in a Linux expert to show how to HotSync under that environment. He pays extra attention to the burgeoning universe of AportisDoc publications and helps untangle the confusion over getting your e-mail via your Palm.In addition to how-to information--both basic stuff that everyone needs to know and cool tricks that will surprise more experienced Palm users--Pogue catalogs a lot of Palm add-on hardware and software. The CD-ROM contains more than 3,100 programs for PalmOS. True, they're all on the Web (possibly in newer form), but this disc earns its keep by making it a cinch to screen more Palm software than you'd ever care to download. --David Wall

Genres: Technical, Technology

597 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

David Pogue, Yale '85, is the weekly personal-technology columnist for the New York Times and an Emmy award-winning tech correspondent for CBS News. His funny tech videos appear weekly on CNBC. And with 3 million books in print, he is also one of the world's bestselling how- to authors. He wrote or co-wrote seven books in the "For Dummies" series (including Macs, Magic, Opera, and Classical Music). In 1999, he launched his own series of amusing, practical, and user-friendly computer books called Missing Manuals, which now includes 100 titles.

David and his wife, Jennifer Pogue, MD, live in Connecticut with their three young children.

Reviews

[Tao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now Palm is no longer chic. The company is tumbling. But back in the early 2000s, it is THE PDA. I owned four Palm PDAs, staring from Palm III.

Now I still use my Tungsten T2 and E, but I am now wielding Windows Mobile devices. It is fascinating to notice how Windows Mobile devices started as a joke, gradually became a venerable player in the PDA/Smartphone market.

David Pogue is my favorite technology writer. I love the way he digged out all the keyboard shortcuts for the OSes and applications, some of them are really arcane. His writing style is quite humorous and entertaining, at the same time, very informative.

[Bernie4444 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dated but useful

Well, it is time for a third edition (with an updated OS description). I bought this book for a "Mastering the Palm" class at the University of Texas at Arlington. The class was great. We used the book as more of a placeholder to be sure everything was covered. Some people had older Palms and the book matched. I was helped greatly as I was coming from ground zero and the only book that read previously was "how to install". The CD ROM and website information took us beyond the scope of the book.

One real advantage of the book is it encourages you to learn what you have. Then when you need that function you are already aware of its presence.