[...] The "Hacks" series started off with some titles like Google hacks that were really loaded with good information. But successive titles have stretched the concept so far that they are nearly worthless. "Palm & Treo Hacks", while not worthless, is pretty lightweight.

There's nothing in the book that the reader couldn't easily find in one of the numerous websites, forums and newsgroups devoted to the Palm line, including the Treo smartphone. Much of the information in this hacks book is also found in the Palm user manual.

Twenty-nine pages are given to very brief reviews of various Palm applications. Anyone who is seriously looking for a replacement calculator program for their Palm can find several within seconds on the web: they don't need this book. Eight pages are giving to running Linux on the Palm. The section begins with the proviso that "Linux doesn't run on a lot of Palms." Excuse me, but I think you'd have to be a pretty die-hard tinkerer to spend a considerable amount of time getting Linux to run on your Palm.

All said, there's nothing here that can't be found elsewhere - and there is precious little that would qualify as a "hack." The writing is clear and the layout is nice. This book might be worth a quick browse, but in my opinion is certainly not worth $24.95. I noticed that at the time I'm writing this, Amazon has it for slightly less than $10. It's a maybe at that price.

Jerry