Below you will find reviews of software for the Treo that is (In My Humble Opinion) worth using. At least, I get good use from these items.

Palm Product Reviews

TreoAlarm
Planetarium
TuSSH
OnBoardC
Card Export II
Card Keeper
BackupMan
Directory Assistant
FileZ
SplashID
TreoHelper
Bellagio Horizontal Pouch
PalmOne Universal Wireless Keyboard

TreoAlarm

This is one of the most used applications on my Palm. It's the alarm clock you always wanted, but real alarm clocks never lived up to it. I wake up at 7:00 on weekdays, and 8:00 on weekends. I also have an alarm when my helpdesk session is about to start, and I program other alarms as needed, and a single click turns off the regular alarms if I don't nee those. With eight different alarms, I haven't come close to filling them.

Each alarm can also have it's own sound, and volume, and repeat times. If you really have to get up, you can start with a happy sounding alarm at 6:00, followed by a less happy alarm at 6:05, and a really obnoxious one (like "Loud Phone") at 6:10. It gets you up.

But wait, that's not all! (Is this sounding like a sales pitch? Well, I'm an engineer, and I can almost always find something to complain about, but this product is so well-designed, I don't have anything on my wishlist.) The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, is often checking the weather. TreoAlarm does this for me. It downloads the weather from one of three different services, and displays it in an easy to read format. It even stores different locations you've used in the past, so if you want to get one of those forecasts again, it's easy to bring up.

This product is so thoroughly well-designed, I can't say enough good things about it.


Planetarium

This is the first application I bought for my Palm, when I got a Palm IIIe in 1999. Basically, it shows you the sky from where you are (you can enter your longitude and latitude, or pick from an extensive database of cities worldwide), and at the time you are viewing, or any other time you care to choose. You can show the whole sky at once, or pieces as small as one degree, and you can scroll the view around.

It also has a "compass" view, which is handy for quickly figuring out where something should be in the sky (where on the compass, and at what altitude angle). I've used this view to find Venus in the daytime. You can also use the compass view as a compass - as long as you can find some object in the sky that's not straight above your head.

It has a good database of objects - galaxies, clusters, comets, asteroids, and of course thousands of stars. You can also add additional entries of any type to the database, and there are several pre-packaged add-ons available.

The program has continued to improve and has too many features to mention here, and many of them are even useful. It still sees regular use. I use it to teach myself the constellations, and to find objects in the sky. It doesn't have enough stars to plan for high-powered observations, but it is perfect for finding your way around with binoculars.


TuSSH

For my ssh needs, I currently use TuSSH. This is a free program, which uses the ssh2 protocol, and provides a small terminal window. It's fairly limited, but it is the best I have to work with right now.

The screen is obviously pretty small, but I don't think that TuSSH makes best possible use of the available landscape. It gives a 40x12 display. It would be trivial to use the full screen, and decrease line spacing, and get 20 (or even more) lines out of it. And a smaller font could also increase the width. It would be nice to optionally use proportional fonts, or a scrolling virtual terminal space. I've also had some terminal emulation problems with it that resulted in a crash, and had to change my login scripts for the Treo.

It doesn't handle special characters in the most convenient way. The Treo Alt key doesn't directly work (you can bring up a window and type some text, use the Alt key to get the character you want, and then send the text). It would also be nice if the app keys could be set to generate your favorite special characters.

The most annoying thing is that it doesn't preserve the connection if you switch to another application. This may be due to underlying PalmOS issues -- I don't know if any other ssh clients allow this. It really limits the usefulness of this tool, because an incoming phone call will trash your connection.

I've also tried Top Gun SSH. It uses the ssh1 protocol, but I can work with that on my systems. It's user interface for saving login settings is a bit primitive, but not unworkable. It has a super small font that gives more data on the screen than TuSSH. But the really annoying thing is that ALL data entry is done through a separate text entry widget where you type in your text and then send it. This isn't really acceptable.

pssh is also available, but it is my understanding that it only works with higher resolution palms.


OnBoardC

Review to come.

Card Export II

This handy little program lets me export the data on my SD card to my desktop machine (a Sun Blade 100 running Solaris 8), using nothing more than a standard USB Sync cable. The Palm acts exactly like it is a card reader. This is teriffic for me, because It also lets me easily shuttle data back and forth between my (dialup) mac at home, and my Sun at work, at much faster than dialup speed.

Of course, it really isn't as fast as a hardware card reader would (or should) be, and a USB card reader can be purchased about as cheaply as this software. But my butt was here, and the store with the card reader was not here, so I downloaded this. Then I got used to it and decided to pay for it when the trial period ran out. Besides, you never know when you might be without a card reader anyway. The whole idea for my owning a Treo is to carry less stuff: no pager, no separate palm device -- so why would I want to need to carry around a card reader?

There's also another program like this that comes with the Missing Sync software (for improved Mac syncing), so if you are going to get that, you can probably skip this.


Card Keeper

This free little app can be a lifesaver. If your card comes out, this will sound a repeating alarm until you either disable the alarm, or put the card back in. Yes, if you drop a palm the wrong way the card WILL pop out, and could easily get lost. It is true that the palm makes it's own sound when the card is removed - a single little "dee-doo" that is easily missed.

Install this free app, and find something else to worry about. (For example, google "Deep Vein Thrombosis").

Another tip: place a file on your card called "Picture_of_me_naked.jpg". Make the file a jpeg image containing text that offers a reward (presumably monetary, but you could also offer a real picture of yourself naked) for the return of the card.


BackupMan

First, I tried VfsBackup. It always produced errors on backup that didn't inspire confidence. I bought BackupMan, and I have to say it does exactly what it is supposed to do. It has bailed me out of trouble on more than one occasion. I have it set to do automated backups 3 times a week. I've used it more than once for full recovery of the system, and also to recover individual files.

It does what it's supposed to do, and it's easy to work with.


Directory Assistant

This is free, which is a good thing, because it would be hard to sell -- it's basically a pretty interface for web-based lookup. So it doesn't seem to offer any functionality that you don't already have.

But the surpising thing is, that now that I have it, I WOULD buy it. Never underestimate the importance of a good interface. It's much faster and easier to look up addresses than it would be using Blazer. And it let's you accumulate results (useful for instance if you are getting a list of restaurants while on the road).

It's an excellent demonstration of the importance of a good user-interface. It's also an application that gets used a lot, especially when I'm traveling.


FileZ

This is a very popular piece of software. I personally don't think this is a great interface for doing the things it does. But it does do a lot of very useful things. It let's you move files around. But it also gives you lots of other tidbits of useful information. It's great for someone trying to figure out the internal secrets of their palm device.

SplashID

This application came with my Treo. It's the only free extra that came with the Treo that I use regularly. I only have the "light" version (I think this just means no desktop software). This lets me store all those secret numbers I have to remember nowadays, and it has predefined templates for all kinds of different data, like web logins, frequent flyer numbers, etc. It also lets you make your own templates.

Good enough.


TreoHelper

Review to come.

Bellagio Horizontal Pouch

I picked this pouch because it looked good for headset use. After having it for a week, it's working out great, but it isn't quite perfect (I am a bit of a perfectionist).

The pouch lets you put the phone in four different ways: antenna on the top front, bottom front, top rear, or bottom rear. The nice thing about the two positions where the antenna is on the top is that if you are on the headset, you can take the phone out or put it into the pouch, while keeping the headset plugged in. Very few cases allow you to do this. You can also access the volume buttons only by opening the pouch.

And if you use treohelper to enable dialing your favorite number via the headset button, you probably know that the phone has to be on. You can (barely) reach the top button and turn on the phone while it is in the pouch (on my Verizon Treo 600, it will dial without having to disable the keygaurd, your milage may vary).

You can also pull out the stylus while it is in the pouch, although that's not very useful unless you have one of those pen/stylus combos (which I just bought also, works fine, a bit more snug than the original stylus). And if you struggle enough you can switch to vibrate mode, but it isn't really designed for this, so it is easier to just open the pouch, rotate the top out, and then back in.

You can't access the charger/usb port while it is in the pouch. But that's not a feature I wanted anyway.

The case is snug enough that I've had it pop out the SD card - of course the case itself keeps it safe from falling out, but you have to be aware of that when you remove it from the pouch. I use CardKeeper, so I don't really sweat it.

The clip could be a bit stronger - it will twist off of your belt if you push it on enough. It's also pretty much just a belt clip, and not a good clip for any other situations (since the clip is removable, it would be great if there was an option to attach a different style clip also - are you listening Bellagio?). The clip does easily and securely attach to and detach from the case.

Also, there are no holes in the case where the speaker is. It can be hard to hear the ring in the case in noisy environments. To be fair, this would not be easy since the phone can be in any one of four orientations. But I think I might punch my own holes in the case in my favorite position.

Bottom line - it's great if you like to use a headset. And a good, easy to use case if you just want something to hold your treo. The clip is probably the weakest link on this case.


PalmOne Universal Wireless Keyboard

Review to come.

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