PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide, 2nd Edition [With CD-ROM]

A must buy for any serious user who wants to do more than store phone numbers and keep track of appointments! The native software that comes with the palm organizers is only the beginning. David Pogue explains in practical and enjoyable terms ways to enhance the capabilities of every aspect of your organizer. The CD ROM that accompanies the book is an invaluble source of add on software(freeware, shareware and 3rd party). The book is an excellent resource for troubleshooting and expanding the hardware capabilities as well. I purchased the 1st edition and jumped at the opportunity to get the 2nd edition as the updated information was current and allowed me to take full advantage of new opportunities with my Palm III(with 8Mb of memory thanks to this book). This book has opened my eyes to the full power and potential of the Palm OS. Buying this book is a no brainer!

The Palm is really easy to use, and the docs included with it definitely help you get started.However if you want to be a power user, this is absolutely the book for you. It's full of the cogent and intelligent, non-condescending discussions which make O'Reilly books especially successful, and is loaded with data not just about making your Palm a successful mobile computing device, but also trivia and history regarding the machines.Each chapter has an "executive summary" at the end too -- despite the glib title those summaries cover, quickly and adequately, the contents of the chapter to which they pertain, which makes skimming considerably faster.This is a superb piece of documentation on working with a Palm -- any one of them -- and the 3000+ programs included on the book's CD don't hurt too bad either.

I bought my Palm IIIx last summer and recently received this book from a girlfriend as a Christmas gift. This book changed my life (even if I still has not read all of 600 pages). I thought Palm Pilot is just an personal organizer containing Address Book, To Do, Date Book and Memo, but Palm Pilot: Ultimate Guide showed me all possibilities of my Palm. With this book my Palm IIIx worth at least twice. I read about many great capabilities of Palm devices I never dreamed about. I checked the CD provided with the book and found many useful programs among 3100 contained on it. Now I use my Palm with spreadsheet utility, music database organizer, remote controller, scientific programmable calculator, e-book, beloved images collection... It also told me how useful Palm modem is so I bought it, too, and now I can surf the web, read news and do e-mail wherever I go. Buy this book and you won't be sorry any cent you spent on your Palm.

The software CD that comes with the book is great! That's why I bought it. But once you start reading it...your realize the real value is the INFORMATION in the book. There is more in the first 3 chapters than in the entire user's guide that came with your Palm. I really feel like I'm getting the most out of my purchase. My Palm V froze up. I was about to do a "hard reset", erasing everything, but checked this book first. Sure enough, it contained a trick that saved me hours or re-entering games, hacks, freeware and other data.(The semisoft reset is not mentioned in the factory Palm Manual!) This book is well written, friendly, entertaining, and at 600 pages it's thorough. Get it!

I bought the 2nd edition the week it came out, and although I am on my second Palm (a IIIx), the first being a III, and consider myself to be a Palm guru of sorts, David's book is invaluable. For the novice, you won't find a better or more enjoyable tour through the Palm and it's features. For the accomplished user, you are sure to find many secret undocumented features that will enhance your Palm usage. The nicest prize, in addition to the book, is the new CD, which has over 3100 programs on it, just for the Palm. Yes, all the programs are available from PalmCentral, and individually from other places on the internet, but David includes a screenshot of almost all the programs, as well as a description of the program, and just by clicking an "Install" button, most of the programs are automatically placed in your Install folder. Finally, there is a link to the web site of each program developer's web site, so even months down the road, if you like a program, you can shoot directly to the internet, making sure you have the latest version of each program. This CD will be valuable for a long time, not to mention the ease and speed of browsing, which even my DSL connection cannot match.