Well, I'm thinking it might be a good idea to get a keyboard for my iPaq. I spend a bit of time writing stuff on it, probably much more if I had a better way than with the little onscreen keyboard. I think it would make it much easier to take notes in meetings at work, too, if I just had a nice little keyboard. So far, the Targus Universal Wireless Keyboard is the front-runner. Their price is $79.99, Pricewatch has it for $69, Amazon has it for $59 (plus free shipping), Buy.com has it for $63.73 and, of course, there is always eBay. Maybe I'll bid on one, see if I can get it for cheaper than Amazon has it.

Well, for those of my ever-so-many readers who have been following my PDA stuff, I believe that I have found a winner in the great PIM search. And the winner is.... Pocket Informant.

This program is really pretty awesome. Yes, it seems to have earned its many awards. Lupin's Diary, which was the other contender, suffered from being just a pretty face over the default calendar/task/notes database in Windows CE. Pocket Informant, though, takes the whole concept of organization to a new level, giving me exactly what Lupin's Diary was missing: links between tasks, calendar entries, notes and contacts. So, I can set up a task, such as moving all my stuff from Seattle, then link it to notes regarding my research on moving companies, then add a note for the company I chose and link it the original task. Then, when I finally get a date for pickup, I can create a calendar entry and link it to the task. This way, I can keep all of the information together.

Another outstanding feature is hierarchical tasks. The afore-mentioned “move my stuff from Seattle” task has several subtasks that need to be completed, so I can actually make child tasks that comprise the parent task.

As I've been reading the manual, it appears that the views in it are totally customizable. I've played a tiny bit with it, and it definitely does seem like I'll be able to come up with a bunch of custom views to show my business stuff and my personal stuff.

So, I'm still on the 14-day trial, only on the first week of it, but I am pretty sure this will be purchased.

IanW recently got a new iPaq, as well. Everyone seems to be getting them. I wonder what the future holds for Palm.

Very neat. This information manager, Pocket NoteTree, touts that it saves you from the “mind control” of other information managers, allowing you to keep your contacts and tasks in a much more free-form style. The list is kept as a tree, allowing you to add any type of node under any other type of node. For example, you could have a contact under a task or a task under a contact or a note under a task under a contact. With a system like this, it would be essential to have very good reporting and viewing capabilities. I like the idea of the freedom this would give. I wonder if my mind would be more suited to this style of information management.

Continued looking on the handango site for the pocketpc brought up Lupin's Diary, a schedule and contact manager. It emphasizes that it looks good in addition to having a bunch of functionality. Mary and I are playing championship euchre right now, so I haven't had time to really get into the program. I wanted to put a link here for myself, though. And, with their mildly humorous english, I like them already.

Contrary to brilliant looks of Pocket PC, the looks and function of Pocket Outlook what is default software from MS is such a shabby. You can manage your schedule and contact easily and conveniently with Lupin's Diary because it expanses the shabby function of Pocket Outlook and has user-friendly interface. In addition, Lupin's Diary makes your PDA more splendid and stylish with maximum using of multi-media fact of Pocket PC.

[Update: I installed the trial version of this tonight (Friday). I'm going to use it for a week and see how I like it. If I am not totally in love with it, then I'll try Pocket Informant, as well.]

[Update: 1/19 - I've been using this for a couple days now, and it really just seems to be a pretty face over the standard task/appointment/contact functionality that comes with CE. Yes, it looks better, but the information still doesn't seem to be incredibly related. I'm going to keep using it for a couple more days (the trial runs out on Friday), then, unless it does something to knock my socks off, I'm going to uninstall it and try pocket informant.]

[Update: 1/22 - Well, as I use it more and more, it definitely is just a pretty face over the standard calendar/tasks/contacts. So, uninstallation has happened. I guess this is not going to be the PIM for me.]

Hmmm.... The Tracker Pack (by InfoDev Technologies) looks interesting. It is actually four applications in one: Home Tracker, Health Tracker, Vehicle Tracker and Personal Tracker. Basically, they are programs to keep track of things. Home Tracker tracks inventory, maintenance records, media library and room information; Health Tracker keeps track of health information, most of which I don't really need, since I don't have asthma, no diabetes and my blood pressue is okay; Vehicle Tracker maintains your records for your car, including fuel usage, travel, maintenace and services; finally, Personal Tracker has notes, diaries, contacts, day, parties, wow, lots of stuff, is anyone still reading this.

While I actually think I might buy this just for the other tracking stuff, I'm not sure that personal tracker will be what I need from an organizational point of view. Looking at the list of features, it doesn't really seem to focus on the task-oriented functions.

Daily Notes: User can take down the daily notes,wishes and his experience in this section. Daily Notes is an elegantly simple application. It lets you record our thoughts and feelings into a file on your PDA. The date is automatically saved in the My Documents, and you can use a retrieve the notes to reflect your mood or feelings for the day.You can review your daily entries by date and time wise.
Appointment Tracker: Holds Information about Events,Appointment and Schedules on the Day with alarm.
Personal Diary : Used to store all your personal informations.
My AddressBook: Helps to store the details about Business, Personal and Emergency Services.
Contact Tracker: Personalised to store the Contact information with alarm.
Day Tracker: Used to remind the user in special ocassion.
Vehicle Tracker: Holds information about the Auto Type, Model, Insurance, License and also their Expiry date with alarm.
Book Tracker: Holds the details of Books and a special note for remembrance of articles.
My Buddy: Used to store a wide Variety of information about your beloved Friends.
My Pets: Takes care of all the information that you would like to know about your pets.
My Wardrobe: Used to store the purchase details of your favorites.
Party Tracker: Holds the information about the party details, occasion and date with alarm.
Renewal Tracker: Holds renewal details and dates with alarm.
Hotel Tracker: Holds the information about your favorite Hotel, place, table with ratings.

Wow, though, this program has an amazing amount of geeky things you can keep track of.

Well, anyone who has been ready for a while knows that I recently got a new pocketpc. The main reason was to start keeping my life in better order, especially when it comes to the tasks that I need to do to maintain my two houses. I had tried keeping lists in notebooks, but I never seemed to have the notebook with me when I needed to make a note (random calls from the tenants or meeting them at the store), so I would make todo lists all over the place on many different pieces of paper. Needless to say, this wasn't very efficient, and I would always lose these lists. Bad news when I'm trying my best to be a good landlord.

So, the idea behind the pocketpc was that, being a computer geek, I'd be more prone to keeping up with stuff if I was doing it on a computer. So, after doing a bit of research, reading reviews, setting requirements and talking to friends, I decided upon the most excellent hp ipaq 5555. After hunting down a place to buy it, I ended up at compusa to purchase it. After getting used to it, I have started noticing that I am more productive, more organized and just plain happier with keeping track of things. Plus, it was great to have it always with me in case I needed to make a quick note about something or even a shopping list (I've already got three of them in the notes; I really should delete them after I go shopping). I've started putting my contacts on there, as well as using pocket excel to keep a running record of my car's gas mileage and gas prices.

Now, back to the main reason that I bought it, keeping organized. Needless to say, the built-in task manager is pretty deficient. I would like to be able to have a task-driven system which would allow me to attach contacts, notes, calendar entries, etc. Basically, I would like an application with all the grand promises of WinFS. I started looking around, mainly at the microsoft site, and I'm leaning towards Pocket Informant. It definitely looks to be task-driven, as well as allowing categorizations with priorities, categories and colors. I like the idea of it being a bit extensible, so I can add other functionality, as well. It is shareware, so I've downloaded the trial version to see how it works. I'll write up a review after a little bit of using.

I'm going to keep looking around a bit, but I think I'll end up with Pocket Informant.

[Update: 1/22 - Well, Lupin's Diary didn't work out for me, so I installed the 15-day trial of Pocket Informant. A quick running of it shows it be much more than just a pretty front-end to WinCE's calendar/task/contact database; it appears to have its own database, complete with some pretty free-form links between the items. I'll be printing out the manuals and going over them over the course of the next few days. Initial opinion (after seeing it for a total of about 30 seconds), I like it. I'll keep this updated, though.]

Well, now that I've had a few days to fool around with my pocket pc, I'm really liking it. I'm eager to sink my teeth into a few development tasks on it, as well as using it to make my life uber-organized.

Now, I went out to the download center and was looking around for things that I could download and install to help me; I'd even be willing to pay some money for something worthwhile. Unfortunately, there seems to be quite a bit of stuff, and I'm not sure where to start. I'd like to start collecting suggestions. Please leave any you might have in the comments section.

Plus, people are raving about Tablet PC's and their use of “ink.” The newest version of Windows CE (Windows Mobile 2003, or CE 4.2) seems to also support “ink,” which appears to be a way of writing directly onto the screen like it was a pad of paper. A couple people I've seen have actually set up a way to add ink-created entries to their blogs. Now, I don't really want to start uploading pictures of my terrible handwriting, but I noticed some people are actually getting handwriting recognition going. Is this something only in the domain of Tablet PC's, or can the PocketPC handle it?

I'm also looking to write a small w.bloggar-like application that will let me write my entries on my pocketpc, then, when I'm within range of a wireless network, upload it to here. Easy to do? Doesn't seem like it would be too bad. That might be the first project.

Well, the HP iPaq 5555 was the winner. I bought it tonight and spent an hour setting it up, installing a couple more apps, getting activesync installed, putting a new picture on the back of the today page (a picture of Mary and me while christmas tree hunting) and just sort of playing. The thing looks great and feels great. Of course, I sat on my sofa, turned on the wireless and surfed the web a bit. Hurra! I'm very excited. Now, the organization starts!

As I get more used to it and set it up properly, I'm sure I'll be updating the blog fairly frequently with more details.

Many thanks to RoryB and ABC for their help.

The major driving point behind the Great PDA Search of 2003 was to give myself a good way to manage my todo list with regards to my properties, as I tend to lose track of all the tasks I need to do. I've been thinking about how I'm going to do it most efficiently even after I get the PocketPC, and wouldn't you know it, other people have the same problem. :) Dave Thomas (of pragmatic programmer fame) has a great idea!

The only thing about this is how to manage some of the metadata associated with tasks, such as when you completed it, time it took, money spent to complete it and perhaps some other stuff. I suppose that if I wrote this in RSS, then wrote a little app that allows me to add some metadata to the RSS file, it would work. I'm going to have to look into this a bit more.

Well, I was talking to my friend, ABC, who knows way too much about everything, and it appears that the HP h5555 looks great. It is a slight bit out of what I wanted to spend, being $649 on the HP site, but it definitely looks to be worth it. Plus, with a big enough memory card (I know, a couple hundred more), I can watch divx movies on it. :) And, with an expansion (I think), it can read compact flash cards, which is what my camera uses. So, I can view my camera pictures on a decent sized screen easily and use it as a backup if I take too many pictures and don't have my laptop with me. :) I could also make use of the 12 months no interest deal, which I always like doing. Just pay it off within a year and no worries!

Plus a quick look on some of the comparison sites shows it for around $560, which isn't too much over what I wanted to spend. The one thing I'm not totally sure about though is whether the h5550 and the h5555 are the same? On this site, they don't differentiate. I guess I'll call customer service and make sure.

Well, as I'm educating myself a bit on PDA's, it appears that the PocketPC is the type that I want. I'm inferring that the Windows CE / Windows Mobile 2003 (which it looks like the ipaqs are running now) operating system-based PDA's all come under the PocketPC category.

I've been a little bit nervous about the idea of built-in wi-fi, mostly for future compatibility reasons, but I've got to get over that. I mean, if they are 802.11b, or g, which they appear to be, then those protocols will be around for a while, at least in backwards compatibility mode, and my desired time frame for this to be used and not upgraded is 3-5 years. So, if I can have support for the built-in wireless for 3-5 years, I'll be happy. I'm confident that will happen.

There appear to be two manufacturers of iPaq, compaq and hp. Except, if you go to compaq.com and click on their pocketpc category, you get sent to the hp site. So, I guess hp is the only manufacturer.

I'm curious to see other people's opinions of their PocketPC. Do you have one? Let me know what you think of yours.

RoryB has a post pointing to the latest issue of PocketPC magazine where they talk about quality, low-cost (relatively) PocketPC's. As we all know, I'm in the market for one, and it looks like Dell and HP just released new models which I may just have to investigate further.

The Dell Axim models look okay, although the article does mention only a single SDO port, which probably will end up getting on my nerves, since I want to be able to have a single card dedicated to music and then have an open slot to hold other stuff. Scrollbar! Good amount of software and a better processor.

The HP h1935 part of the article led me to the HP h1945 model which looks very nice.  It doesn't have a scrollbar, which is sad, since I got used to one when I had a blackberry. It has a bunch more software. The processor is a bit worse with less ROM memory, though.

Aesthetically, the HP looks a bit cooler. The Dell, as it says in the article, is a bit boxy looking, although the silver looks cool. Really, this isn't a huge consideration, since they both kind of cool looking.

If you don't know about the great pda hunt of 2003, check here.

[This is a follow-up to my Great PDA Search of 2003 post]

This is the list of requirements that I am compiling for the great PDA search of 2003. This is intended to help me narrow down the search.

1. I must be able to keep track of things to do, money spent on things, etc. So, I'd like to have some sort of office suite, preferably microsoft office, although I'd take a compatible system.
2. I must be able to use it as a music player, mp3's and the like.
3. I must be able to program for it, preferably in .net, but I'll do java if necessary.
4. I must be able to play at least simple games on it.
5. It must have the ability to connect to the wireless network in my house to access the internet.
6. It must have the ability to sync up with a calendar/organizer on my laptop.

[Update: Are they even called PDA's anymore? Pocket PC's, or are those just the windows CE ones? I haven't really looked at these in a long time, so I don't know much about them.]

Well, I am finding myself a bit over my head, organizationally, when it comes to the apartments and all the little things that need to be done. There are several small little tasks that I need to do. I keep them written down in a notebook, but, being me, I don't really look at the notebook too often, plus having the tasks scattered around on different pages doesn't work either. I tried using a spreadsheet on my computer, but I then have to remember to print out the list, prioritize it, and, most importantly, type the tasks in when I get home or get a phone call (wherever I may be).

So, I've decided to buckle down and buy myself a pda-type device. My initial thought would be to use this to justify purchasing a tablet pc, but I can't really afford it right now, especially since I just bought this laptop. So, I'm going to get a normal pda-style device. Now, I'm starting to compile the list of requirements I have for it, so I can start to refine my search. My timeframe for purchase is the beginning of January (hopefully I can get some sort of discount at an after-christmas sale).

I'm going to keep a list of requirements in this entry, so that I can keep track of what I want and need. This will make it a lot easier to choose one, as I can make sure that it satisfies all my needs, then get maybe the next higher model. :) I've still got to have a little geek fun.