Beginning my Palm OS to Pocket PC journey
I've had a Palm TX for over a year, and prior to that model, several Palm devices; basically, I was a die-hard Palm OS fan. I recently decided to move to Pocket PC for various reasons. Since I've just about drained the battery setting it up/playing with it; while I'm waiting for it to charge up again so I can continue playing; I just thought this was the perfect time to blog my experiences so far.
The model I have is the Cingular (aka AT&T) 8525. I really love it so far. The only issues so far is the phone jockey at the store said "we just got these devices in, I'm sure they have the latest ROM update"--yeah right. So I first had to update the ROM before I started playing with it.
Once I got that out of the way; configured work e-mail to push to the device (easy for me--since the process is thoroughly documented in an internal document) Since the documentation was quite clearly for the company email (step 1 was get a file from the intranet, step 2 was input a company internet-facing web address), I won't go into it here.
Also quickly setup a few more pop-enabled personal mailboxes. Again, pretty easy; as long as you know your own accounts/passwords and the pop/smtp settings, you're golden.
Now for the hard part... making decisions. I had started researching what I really needed for applications when moving from the Palm to a PPC. I'm still in the eval mode for these; but for most of them I'm sure I'll be buying them when the eval is over (or sooner). below is a quick chart, Palm app --> PPC app.
- HandyShopper --> List Pro hands down, no question
- SmartList to Go --> eWallet ; since I primarily used Smartlist for keeping track of web usernames/passwords. ListPro will cover the other databases I had in there.
- Automobil --> There's 2 I'm looking at: Auto3in1 and AutoFile+. Auto3in1 seems like too much; autofile+ seems like too little... not sure yet on this.
- iSilo --> iSilo (that was easy)
- Datebk6 --> builtin calendar so far. I've heard of PocketInformant; I might check out the demo. I might be OK with the built-in.
- nothing --> Resco Utilities. It's 1 of their Suites: file explorer, enhanced keyboard, and photo viewer.
- BackupMan --> SPB Backup (not sure yet, testing; I know I want an emergency restore capability; just not sure if this is it)
As I said; it's just the beginning of my journey; I haven't even read the manual yet (I suppose I could have done that instead of blogging). The one thing I'm really curious about is whether or not I can get the ICA client for PocketPC to work with our internet-facing citrix apps. It should, but I haven't tried yet. I might wait til our Citrix expert is back from vacation before attempting that.
Accessories purchased: WriteRights (to protect the screen); Jawbone Bluetooth ear thing; Krussel case (on order). The Write-rights will be temporary. After I put it on, I remembered why I hated them for the Palm. I'll have to go back and see what I ordered for the Palm TX 18 months ago, which is still perfect, can't even tell I have a screen protector on there; and never had to replace it. Hope they are still in business--if their protectors are that good--it's probably 1 sale every 18 months (like me).