Palmpilot: The Ultimate Guide, 2nd Edition (Unknown Binding)

~ David Pogue (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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, PalmPilot: 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

From Library Journal

As of this writing, Pogue's is just about the only book available on Palms, and though it will reward primarily beginners, experienced users can glean plenty of new tips as well. Detailing all the models currently available, the book ranges from Graffiti to web surfing to music composition. The book is well written, the CD-ROM has lots of goodies, and the audience is growing: not only are there many Palm users out there already, but people will want to read this book to decide whether to buy one or not.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Unknown Binding: 620 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; Book and CD-ROM, 2nd edition (June 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565926005
• ISBN-13: 978-1565926004
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,341,427 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

202 of 203 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Palm guide, with super CD of Palm software., November 4, 1999

By	Nathan Smith "Photographer" (Lincoln, California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought the 2nd edition the week it came out, and although I am on my second Palm (a IIIx), the first being a III, and consider myself to be a Palm guru of sorts, David's book is invaluable. For the novice, you won't find a better or more enjoyable tour through the Palm and it's features. For the accomplished user, you are sure to find many secret undocumented features that will enhance your Palm usage. The nicest prize, in addition to the book, is the new CD, which has over 3100 programs on it, just for the Palm. Yes, all the programs are available from PalmCentral, and individually from other places on the internet, but David includes a screenshot of almost all the programs, as well as a description of the program, and just by clicking an "Install" button, most of the programs are automatically placed in your Install folder. Finally, there is a link to the web site of each program developer's web site, so even months down the road, if you like a program, you can shoot directly to the internet, making sure you have the latest version of each program. This CD will be valuable for a long time, not to mention the ease and speed of browsing, which even my DSL connection cannot match.

88 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful book, August 12, 2000

By	magellan (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

Since there are lots of good general reviews already here of this book, I thought I would add a few comments I didn't see elsewhere.

Although this is an excellent book, I think most people who buy Palm Pilots and Visors are technically savvy enough so that learning the basic operation of the device or the built-in apps is not much of a problem, which is what most of the book is about.

That being the case, I think the best way for most owners to use this book is to do the following. The book has hundreds of undocumented tips and tricks that are worth the price of the book just by themselves. I would just go through each chapter and read these first, and not worry too much about the rest of the text for now. Then later, if you want to go back and read the full description of one of the applications or some other topic, you could do it then.

The tips and tricks are set off on each page with a little picture of an owl, so they're not hard to find. I actually read the whole book before this occurred to me, which was fine, but since then I have dipped back into many of the chapters just to refresh my memory on all the great tips and tricks, and I've found this to be a good way to pick up more time-saving short-cuts, or just new, fun ways to use the device.

In addition to all the tips and tricks there are several special sections I have to mention just because they're so much fun. These are the descriptions of how to access all the hidden "Easter eggs." There are more of these than I realized. You can learn how to bring up all of them, including the "dancing palm tree," and the little "taxi cab." (The Palm's original project code name was "Taxi"). Since there are several places in the text where these appear, the best way to locate them is to just look up "Easter eggs" in the book index.

There is one chapter, however, that I would read all the way through. This is the chapter on hot-synching. There is some good info here, especially on some of the more technical aspects of hot-synching, but perhaps most importantly, on how to avoid some of the pitfalls.

If you're an experienced Palm or Visor user, you may have noticed that this process isn't always as straightforward as the regular manual says, and sometimes it does some unexpected or even weird things.

Since we're on the topic, I have to mention one of these here. If you're one of those people who have two (or more) Palms or Visors, here is the most important thing you can learn about hot-synching. I experienced this problem before I encountered the explanation and fix for it in this book. (This was worth the price of the book just by itself.)

If you have two units and you hot-sync to the same machine or computer, you must give each of the them a separate name in the Palm Desktop software. You do this by clicking on the "User" box in the top-right of the Palm Desktop software program and selecting "edit users." Give the second Palm a different name from the first. Then always use the correct name with each Palm or Visor each time you hot-sync.

There is one more gotcha here. In the desktop program you can pre-select the name of which unit is to be hot-synched. However, if you do this from the cradle without the desktop program being launched, it will pop up another dialog box, and at that point you can select which name to use. If you just click on "okay" assuming that the desktop program knows which one you're using, you can still get into trouble.

If you fail to give different units different names, and furthermore, to select the correct one each time you hot-sync, the desktop software can become confused, and, as Pogue points out, may hopelessly thrash the information on one or both units. So beware.

All in all a useful book for any Palm or Visor owner.

76 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book just saved me hours of re-entering data!, December 16, 1999

By A Customer

The software CD that comes with the book is great! That's why I bought it. But once you start reading it...your realize the real value is the INFORMATION in the book. There is more in the first 3 chapters than in the entire user's guide that came with your Palm. I really feel like I'm getting the most out of my purchase. My Palm V froze up. I was about to do a "hard reset", erasing everything, but checked this book first. Sure enough, it contained a trick that saved me hours or re-entering games, hacks, freeware and other data.(The semisoft reset is not mentioned in the factory Palm Manual!) This book is well written, friendly, entertaining, and at 600 pages it's thorough. Get it!