YouthPastor2000

Planning with the PalmPilot Professional
By James C. Moberg

I once read an advertisement that stated "The most powerful computer is the computer you actually use." The same can be said of contact/schedule software and day planners. I've used Symantec's Act! and CogniTech's Sharkware. These and other software programs like Goldmine are great if you are permanently chained to your desk or carry a laptop with you 24 hours a day.

I've been using a PalmPilot Professional for the past 4 months and am now ready to let you know what I think. Ready? Buy one now... er, or wait until you see Windows CE on the PalmPC. Either way, this new handheld technology is going to rock the world. I'll even be so bold as to speculate that it will soon be as commonplace as the microwave.

More than just a toy. More powerful than just a Rolodex™. Able to do full text searches in under 10 seconds. It's the future and it is here.

Ok... enough with the hype. Here's some of the things I've done with my PalmPilot.

• Compose, Send and Retrive Email.
• Surf the internet... including YouthPastor.Com (I'm trying to make the website "Palm-friendly".)
• Fax messages to the office.
• Download entire books of the Bible for later reading.
• Had a calculator whereever I went.
• Kept me entertained while my wife went shopping in a women's clothing store. (No disrespect meant or intended.)
• Created and prioritized a "to do" list complete with deadlines and alarms.
• Maintain sermon notes to go over during the week while preparing.
• Keep an hourly/weekly schedule (with alarms) and restore a little order back to my life.
• Tracked and organized my expenses and then automatically transfered them into an Excel (5.0 or higher) expense report form.
• Get rid of my pen, paper, and little sticky notes with phone numbers... all information gets entered into the contact database, is mirrored on my desktop PC, and is readily available whenever I need to access it.

Some other advantages to this hand-held technology are:

• The PalmPilot uses a type of handwriting recognition called "Graffiti" so there aren't any keys to mess with. You can still access an on-screen keyboard if you need to.
• It has a backlit screen so it even works in a dim-lit auditorium or on an overnight bus trip on its way to a conference.
• It operates on 2 AA batteries which you can purchase cheaply anywhere. (Don't scoff at this detail... our laptop battery just went bad and we can purchase it through only one vendor for a whopping $200.)
• You can keep your sensitive information confidentional by password protecting any or all of the information.
• It is only 4.7"tall and weighs 6 oz... small enough to fit in your shirt pocket or purse.

PalmPilot prices have currently dropped down to the $199, $299, & $399 range making it quite affordable.

The PalmPC with Windows CE should be available soon with even more available ram, wider connectivity, and... unfortunately, a higher list price.

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James has been fascinated with hand-held computers ever since the first "Speak & Spell" educational game asked him to spell c-a-t.

Other useful PalmPilot related links:

• 3Com's Palm Pilot Website
• PalmPilot Shockwave Demo
• Downloadable Shareware software for the PalmPilot
• PalmScape - FREEWARE - Multilingual web browser for the PalmPilot that supports multiple fonts, page and image alignment, offline browsing, much more.
• Microsoft's Windows CE for the PalmPC

Please notify me of any broken links and I'll immediately and gladly correct them. Email your questions, ideas, review requests and comments to .

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