Customer Reviews

The Little Palm Book

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Palm Pilot craze is clearly at full strength when you have to buy one for your retired father for Christmas. The unfortunate truth of this fact is that most people approach their Palm Pilots as glorified address books that make them look trendy.

The Little Palm book digs deep - deeper than one would imagine - to help you maximize the capabilities of your PDA. Even as a self-proclaimed Palm veteran, I was able to unlock features and functionality of my Palm VII that I was completely unaware of, with this book. Its for everyone from novice to expert.

For anyone planning to buy a Pilot as a holiday gift this year, this book makes a wonderful companion. Even if you just want to make the most of your investment, want to know how to download email on your Palm or beam files to a freind, pick up The Little Palm Book. It covers the III, IIIx, V, and VII.

The Little Palm Book is perfect for the new user of a Palm Pilot. I recieved my Palm III as a Christmas gift and my brilliant girlfriend included Collins' text with it. I'm not one to stop and review a book, nor am I cheap with a compliment, but this book is so well written and informative, I had to pass on my comments. Collins has produced an instructional text that is actually a pleasure to read. He has the rare combination of superior technical expertise and an easy readability that make neophyte technophobes like myself want to learn more. I read the first 40 or so pages before even taking the Palm out of the box and felt immediately comfortable and more importantly...confident. The folks at 3COM should have hired Collins to write their manuals. I can easily say that having Collins' text is the overwhelming reason I am now hooked on my Palm Pilot. Hopefully the next time I need to read an instructional text it will be as well written and easy to read as The Little Palm Book.

I bought and read this book before I bought my Palm V. I was looking for a simple and clear description of what a Palm was capable of before investing in one. And The Little Palm Book provides that and much, much more. So much so that I haven't even bothered with the handbook! If you're new to Palms or thinking of getting one, and want a straightforward guide, this is it! And although it may not be strictly relevant here, I think the cover design captures the zen of Palms! Excellent!

For a brand new user of a Palm Pilot, it can be a bit intimidating to look at the user guide. The Little Palm book tremendously eased the pain of learning a new technology.

Besides being entertaining and easy to read, the book provides a great comparison of the Palms so that the reader is aware of the strengths and room-for-improvement (like memory limitations)of the unit he/she has, or is planning to buy.

A chapter on other resources besides 3com was extremely helpful. Like any new owner, it is predictable to search all kinds of information for buyer assurance, and then some.

The book walked me through several "exercises" that I felt confident enough to use the Palm after just one reading.

This is an excellent reference. Thanks for all the other reviewers who reinforced my decision to get this book.

I got burned over a previous problem last year with hotsynching the Palm V with Windows NT (3Com didn't have a "fix" for it then), so I returned my first one. I waited almost a year before I tried again with another Palm V, and I wanted a quick indoctrination into the ins-and-outs of how to use it. This book was the ticket, and then some.

Only thing I was surprised about was that this book assumes the readers will opt for the Palm Desktop as their Personal Information Manager. I use Microsoft Outlook extensively, and don't want to switch, especially since I already have so much info programmed in Outlook.

Otherwise this was just perfect. So happy to note that even though there are later versions of the Palm, my baby has lots of room to grow!

In my opinion this book is a rewrite of the Palm Handbook. It's very basic.