The theme for this month’s View is Mobile Computing. And while I’ve used the iBook, and numerous PowerBooks, I’m devoting most of this column to my new favorite way of mobile computing, the Visor by Handspring. While there are places for laptops, I use my PDA more than I’ve ever used a laptop. And for ease of operation and flawless connectivity to my computer, nothing beats the Visor.

Why a Visor?

To begin with, it comes standard with a USB cradle to communicate with your desktop or laptop computer. If you have an older machine, there are serial connections available. I’ve had to use both, and find the USB to be quicker and easier to use.

Some may wonder what I do with this small device. The question should be, what don’t I do? I use it to keep track of my schedule, contacts, and even to read the latest news. A couple of months ago I mentioned AvantGo, a program that allows automatic downloads of the latest news, commentary and web pages. Several times a day I check the news from the New York Times or read jokes. I also peruse articles in Salon and review my own web site.

The Spice of Life

I like AvantGo so much I’ve assigned it a button at the bottom of the Visor. Since I don’t use the "To Do" button, I went into the preferences and changed the button to launch the program.

So Many Programs... So Little Time

There are several other programs I use frequently, and as mentioned in last month’s column, use the portable Stowaway keyboard to enter text while away from my trusty Mac.

The thing that makes the Visor unique is its ability to plug in other helpful hardware and software modules in the back. Any time I’m spotted with the Visor in public by anyone under 25, they immediately think I have a Nintendo GameBoy, as the back of the unit has a black plug-in just like the portable game machine.

I’m waiting patiently for the pending release of the MP3 plug-in module to make this device, in my mind, complete. Forget the pager or GPS, I want my tunes. The company, innogear, has just announced shipping by early August of this year. With this addition, my Visor becomes a WalkMan complete with on-screen equalizer. I’ll be able to use a program like Casady and Green’s Sound Jam to turn any cuts from my CD collection into MP3s and bring them with me.

With the program, and site, Album to Go, I’m able to subject hapless victims to pictures of my grandchildren. This cool freeware palm os program even has a slideshow option with cool transitions.

There’s also a free service to host your images at the site and a cool free program called Living Album that helps to organize and upload your images. It also has a built-in slide show.

Favorite Ways to Kill Time

You may wonder if I ever bring a laptop with me. I do, but only when really needed. I literally wear the Visor on my belt and feel naked without it. (Insert your insult here, please.)

Two more real cool programs are Snap Shot and Palm Smear. Snap Shot allows a screen capture on any Palm OS device that can then be opened on your computer and put on a web site, printed or used to illustrate things in publications like Macintouch.

To read books, I use the shareware program Aportis Doc. There’s also a freeware document reader called CSpotRun. I’ve actually read a couple of books and plays on my PDA, but in all honesty prefer the paper variety of literature. If in a pinch, it’s nice to know you can have a variety of reading materials on the device.

You may wonder where the Mac comes in this homage to the smaller palm computers. All these programs are installed from my Mac. The literature is poured out, and in some cases into Apple’s finest. (And yes, Windows machines can do the same thing.) I think of my Visor as an extension to my regular computer, sort of like a shuttle that takes you from the mother ship to different locations and back again. Consider it a small digital suitcase for information. When docked information is exchanged, so if there’s a problem with either device data is not lost. If you set the alarm, reminders flash on the computer screen to notify you of upcoming appointments. An audible alarm sounds at the same time on your Visor. Now there’s little excuse for missing meetings. I have to come up with better excuses, I guess. There is a random excuse generator for my Visor. I can always use that!

While exploring sites for this story I came across a new web cam. It’s like the one I reported about a couple of stories ago, that can be controlled from the browser. Where the one that I mentioned was in upstate New York, this is in my current hometown. The Padres, in the midst of an unfortunate season, have an awesome home run with a web cam of the new ballpark. The camera can pan the area, zoom in and out, but only allows visitors 45 seconds to control the movements.

Hugh Peebles

July 2000

 

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