Meeting #4
December 3rd, 1998 | December 5th, 1998 |
General
President’s message:
Well, this is it! The last meeting of Canada’s Premier PUG. For 1998 that is! September of 1998 saw the first meeting of our group and since then it has grown significantly. We now have over 70 members total from both Participating Members and Newsletter Members. When I started this group, I had no idea it would take off quite like it has, but I have enjoyed every minute of it. I look forward to what 1999 will bring us both as a group and as members of the PalmPilot Community.
Handspring, Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky’s new company, will be bringing us some treats using the PalmOS. That won’t be until the end of the year, though.
3Com is sure to show us that they still know what they’re doing with the Palm Family. We’ve all heard about the PalmVII due out late next year. If you’ve heard about it, I’m sure you know that the price of it basically excludes the majority of Palm users. I find it hard to believe that 3Com would do that to us loyal users. I’m sure we will see a PalmIV early this year and from the cries of PalmIII users, perhaps 3Com will listen and make the PalmIV quite a bit more of an upgrade from PalmIII. Only time will tell.
I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this group to make it what it is today. Without our sponsors, there would be nothing to give away at each meeting. Of course, without you, our members, there would be no Canada's Premier PUG. So, it is to you that I offer a toast. A toast to a happy, prosperous and successful 1999! Cheers!
Attendance
We had 5 members join the Thursday meeting and 9 members join the Saturday meeting this time around. The following is a list of those members who attended:
Some attendees forwarded membership and partial membership fees. We now have over 70 members in both participating and newsletter sections. Kyle brought one of the first commercially published copies of his "Kyle's Quest" adventure game and signed the box as the first (and currently, only) autographed copy of the game, to be given out at the meeting.
As usual, there were many topics of discussion at the meetings. It's impossible to capture everything discussed, but the following gives a flavour of the talks.
Landware's GoType! Keyboard
Sean showed the group his new GoType! keyboard from Landware. He recently took it on a business trip, where it proved very useful. It holds the Pilot upright like a small laptop computer, unlike other keyboards on the market, and can fold compactly into a pocket.
Publications: Pen Computing, Tap Magazine, New PalmPilot Books
Sean passed around a special edition of Pen Computing magazine, which overviewed the year in pen computing; it is a comprehensive magazine. Sean also noted that review copies of Tap! magazine are to be distributed to members soon. A new book from O'Reilly on programming is in the works (see below). Another newly-published PalmPilot book is "Sam's Teach Yourself PalmPilot and Palm-III in 10 Minutes" by Michael Steinberg. It can be obtained directly from the author's website or from Amazon.com.
Handspring
Sam reported that Jeff Hawkins' and Donna Dubinsky's new company, Handspring, was now actively recruiting employees. They have obtained venture funding, and some articles seem to indicate that they may be targeting a youth market with a $100 device based on the PalmOS platform.
Palm-VII and Razor
One of the hot topics at the meeting was the recent announcement of PalmVII and the demise (or non-existence) of the Razor. The general tone was skepticism that PalmVII was the right way to go for Palm Computing. The major complaints was the high price ($1200 for Canada), the inability to upgrade from PalmIII, and the current availability of other Web solutions vis-a-vis AvantGo, HandWeb, TopGun Wingman, ProxiWeb, and others. People also lamented the fact that an incremental upgrade to the Palm-III line (more memory, new battery platform, better/color screen) seemed not to be coming, because of 3Com's denial of a Razor device. There was speculation among members that this denial was simply to spur Christmas sales of PalmPilot and PalmIII devices among those who would otherwise put off these purchases for a "PalmIV" device.
Clik! Drive
It was noted that Iomega has just announced the Clik!, a 40MB zip-type drive for mass storage, aimed at portable devices. Speculation was that this would pave the way for handhelds to store more data than currently available.
NiMH Batteries
A member asked about the use of NiMH batteries in Palm devices. These were thought to be compatible, except that the built-in battery indicator would not be able to accurately track the remaining charges on these batteries. Software add-ons such as BatteryHack, however, could enable accurate tracking.
Handheld Interfaces
Several members had recently been buying accessories from Handheld Interfaces - keyboards, Palm devices, styluses, books and accessories – and noted that delivery was always prompt, friendly, and that service was exceptionally good, especially compared with other services, including those from the U.S. Members were also reminded that Handheld Interfaces is giving all Participating Members free shipping on anything ordered from them (further inducement for those membership fees). Availability of items can be verified at their website. Ordering from HHI gets a definite two-thumbs-up from Canada’s Premier PUG members!
Scheduled Topic
PalmPilot Programming
The scheduled topic of the day was programming for the PalmPilot. On this topic, O'Reilly Publishing has just released the long-awaited "Palm Programming: The Developer's Guide" by Neil Rhodes and Julie McKeehan, and ordering information can be found at their website. O'Reilly is also sponsoring a Palm programming contest for those who have interesting programs to share with others, and want a chance to win Palm devices, accessories, T-shirts and O'Reilly books.
Perhaps the simplest "programming" that anyone can do for the PalmPilot is to use standard forms development software such as SatelliteForms. These are, however, expensive programs to start from.
GCC is a free entry into PalmPilot programming. It is available on many Unix (and Windows) systems and was the environment used for programming the original "Kyle's Quest".
CASL (Compact Applications Solution Language) provides a high level language for Palm development, which is simple to use. One caveat is that all CASL programs require the CASL runtime program to be available on the Palm device. This overhead is not bad if a user has several CASL programs but can take up a relatively large amount of memory if only one CASL program is used.
VFDIDE (Visual Forms Designer/Integrated Development Environment) is a new development suite complete with a Pilot emulator and a Visual Basic-like tool bar environment for use in development.
Cbaspad is a useful environment for those who are used to programming in Basic.
Metrowerks' CodeWarrior is the official development environment sanctioned by 3Com for development on the PalmPilot. It is a robust and complete environment, but is relatively expensive. CodeWarrior Lite, a sample freeware version, is available from several locations: Metrowerks, the Everything CD, or on various CDs that come with PalmPilot books such as "The Ultimate PalmPilot".
Some jump-off points for programming tips are the following sites: RoadCoders , PalmQuest Software , Massena.com , and Wademan's Home Page . Roadcoders brings together sources for both PalmOS and WinCE coding, and points to many other areas. Palmquest has a large selection of source code. Massena and Wademan host sites that were pioneers in coding for Palm devices, and still hold very active discussion groups which are available from their sites.
There was also some discussion on the difference between programming for PalmOs and WinCE. It was pointed out that while programming was less restrictive because of the larger WinCE active screen, the actual Software Development Kits (SDKs) are proprietary and very expensive. Documentation is also not very good. These facts tend to make third-party software more expensive on WinCE devices than on PalmOS platforms.
Web Site
Sean noted that many changes are being made on [this] website and that members are invited to send their comments in to make it better. Everyone is encouraged to use the accompanying Discussion Board for all issues.
We are also soliciting contributions from members for two new areas that may be put up on the website:
All programs, no matter how simple, are welcome for the first topic, and interesting stories (My PalmPilot survived the laundry! or My PalmPilot flew from my hands onto the GO Train tacks - and lived!) are welcome for the second.
Prizes
This time around there were prizes enough for everyone (including our President! [note the change in title]) and some to spare for next time around. Each prize was won by answering trivia and other questions. The following is the list of prizes, and who won them:
Bob Lang | PalmPilot Stylus Pack courtesy of 3Com |
The grand prize was handed to Sean (upon his correct answer to the question of Kyle Poole's school and degree) to great acclaim by all members present. The award was thought particularly fitting due to his hard work in organizing and maintaining Canada’s Premier PUG. (Editor’s note: Thanks Sam!)
Again, a reminder that putting together good trivia questions is tough! So...all members should consider some possible questions/contests/etc. that can be used to give away prizes at future meetings? E-mail any ideas to Sean.
Future Topics
For continued reference, the following topics have been suggested for us to cover in the future:
If you have any further suggestions of topics you would like to discuss, please don't hesitate to ask.
Next Meeting
The traditional format continues with two meetings per month - one on a weeknight and the other on a weekend, with exactly the same topics for each meeting. The next meetings are:
Wednesday, January 6th @ 7:30 pm
Saturday, January 9th @ 12:00 noon
Pizza Hut on Appleby Line in Burlington is still the meeting location. Pizza Hut is still offering current and new members attending the meetings 10% off their bill! - another reason to drop by. Please see our website for reminders of the time and directions for each meeting.
The suggested Topics of the Day for the next meeting are: "The Wireless PalmPilot" and the related "Web Browsing on the PalmPilot"...but of course, anything on the PalmPilot is open season!
See you at the meetings!
Respectfully,
Sam Peralta, Scribe, Canada's Premier PUG
Sean D. Evans, President, Canada's Premier PUG