lefei
22nd March 2004, 11:16 AM
<TABLE width="75%" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR borderColor=#ffffff bgColor=#ffffff><TD>Which Palm Device?
The recent issue of Time magazine carries an interesting Palm supplement in the centre. What really strikes me is that there are now more flavours of Palm than the WinCE/Pocket PC camp! So which one is the best? To really get the most out of your PDA, there are 2 criteria that is absolutely necessary for an effective and enjoyable relationship.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
The first specification in selecting a PDA is storage space. While 8mb may be plenty for most, if you are to use all the programs that I recommend in my previous article, Palm OS Software For The Christian: Helpful Bible Software, Tools & Sites - 8mb is grossly inadequate. So far there are three Palm OS devices which comes with additional storage (Visor, TRGpro and Clie). TRGpro handles additional storage better than most, though not perfectly. There are smart cards, clip-on memory modules etc available also. If your PDA passes this requirement, take it one step further: size does matter.
A second vital specification is the shirt pocket test. IMHO there are only 2 models that fits the shirt pocket - Sony Clie and Palm Vx. Anything else will grow more cumbersome as the romance wears off. Then it will be left behind more and more often. A case to point is my Cassiopeia. As great a PDA as it is, I do my best to find space for it in my attache case as I move about. At the end of the day it remains there as an elegant block of brick. If it is not wearable, it is not protable!
Since Palm Vx does not have additionary memory, the only choice that is available today is the Sony Clie.
What to do?
Having spent considerable time (and frustration) with the TRGpro's AutoCF, using a 64mb CF; I am somewhat relieved that Sony is not following the AutoCF route. While is is great to be able to run software from additional storage, unless it runs as fast and seemlessly as WinCE/Pocket PCs, it can be more trouble than it is worth. With PPCs, all you have to do is to hit the reset button, wait a heartbeat and the CF is ready. Try this with any Palm OS, it's like waiting an eternity. Unless something better crops up for the Palm, here's my 2 cents on what we can do with a less-than-perfect situation.
Use the free 8mb memory stick to store TomeRaider's Easton Bible Dictionary and Matthew Henry Commentary, AlbumToGo's Joy of Christianity/Gospel of Christ presentations, enitre year's devotional reading of Oswald Chambers' My Uptmost for His Highest and all the versions of the Bible you want. With space enough and to spare, I throw in Bible Reader's Greek New Testament, Jesus' Tracks (which I don't use often) and Noah Webster's Dictionary as well.
Now that I have all these goodies on my Clie, with my applications and selection of "games of the week", I have a pretty deadly weapon on my palm. My slew of applications - Avantgo, Scripture, ThoughtMill, Smoothy, The Thesaurus, Tealinfo, Tealpaint, Clock Plus, jFile plus some utilities and games hardly took more than 5mb of Clie's RAM. Anytime I want to run a program not in RAM, say a Bible Dictionary, I copy it from the memory stick. It's a speedy read on a 8m memory stick, with only a few files especially since most of my data are pretty large. By copying from the memory stick and deleting from RAM, there is very little wear and tear.
I have a 32mb Memory Stick which I loaded it with everything but the kitchen sink. The last time I checked it, there were 500 files including a 4.5mb encyclopedia! I tugged this away in my attache case and use it only when I want something that is not on the 8mb memory stick. It is nice to take along on a trip and run some of those programs, play games or read books that you would not have time to otherwise.
The 32mb memory stick takes about a minute to be read by the Clie; takes forever to scroll down (it is faster to use the stylus with the arrow bars) and can be quite a pain in the neck if used on a daily basis. As a backup, far away from home or any PC, devoting a few minutes to get a program is God-sent.
Helpful Bible Software, Tools & Sites
At last count, there were over 30 members of my church who own Palm OS PDAs. I publish an occasional FAQ of sorts called, Palm Pews for these people and my pals outside the church. Many of these people are on my Palm emailing list. I also put up a webpage which I call "3 Cs" for Church, Computers and Cuisine.
To show the extend that my congregation is into PDAs, we routinely present visiting speakers with Palm Vx or IIIc PDAs. Our membership directory is available in both the printed and Jfile formats. For other Christians who do not have access to these resources, this article is specially for you.
The Basics
I will be recommending Palm OS software that I use both as a Christian and for my ministry that I find helpful. All these programs can be found in the best Palm OS site in this planet, www.palmgear.com. They have all the goodies, are always current and is updated several times a day. I have squandered a lot of money purchasing software from this site. They are prompt, professional and a pleasure to do business with.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
1. Bibles for Palms. Olive Tree is a great site for Bible stuff. Though Palm OS Bibles as not as versatile as the CeBible (where you can run two versions parallel to each other on the screen, etc), Bible Reader is probably the Palm OS Bible with the most features. Not only are the reader and KJV free, you can get it to run the Greek NT (also FOC) with Greek alphabet. I personally prefer scripture/mybible and purchased every version available for this reader. Used with TapPad, it's the fastest verse turner ever.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
2. Bible Dictionaries. There are not that many floating around. When I was using TomeRaider (since my TRGpro was able to run programs off the CF), I stumbled on Easton's Classic Bible Dictionary. It's a pretty good dictionary considering how rare these spices are for the Palm and available free. Be prepared to allocate 1.5mb for this goodie. I keep this in my memory stick and move it to RAM whenever I needed it, which is not very often.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
3. Bible Commentaries. Also, there are not many commentaries for the Palm, so I guess you have to settle for Matthew Henry Commentary in doc format. It's not as easy to navigate, but hey, it works, it's free and Matthew Henry is good, reliable classic stuff.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
4. Devotionals. They don't get any better than Oswald Chambers' "My Upmost for His Highest". The entire year's text is available FOC. I use it with Smoothy, which scrolls it extra-smoothly for my daily uplift. There is a daily dosage that you can fill with Avantgo if you do not want to carry the full month's reading with you. You actually get 3 days' worth - the actual day with the one before and after. Very good if you are too busy and let one day's reading slip by you.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
5. Bible Lands. Jesus' Tracks was one of the first to provide Bible geography and maps for the Palm OS. I registered this program the day I saw it as I have been through the very locations that were described in this program.
6. Other stuff. Every week on the web you get a slew of new stuff like Prayer Pal, Mark Your Bible, Tap Doctrine etc etc. Use whatever works for you, but you do not need to have Christian software to do Christian stuff as the next section will prove. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE width="75%" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR borderColor=#ffffff bgColor=#ffffff><TD>
The Tools
Besides Bible specific software, there are many existing applications that can be used for Christian service. I will attempt to list a few that I found useful below.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
1. TealInfo is a useful software that is a little less than a PowerPoint presentation and a lot more than a doc reader. There are literally hundreds of filios in TealInfo format, many are Bible materials like Names of God, Bible reading plan, Grace to help, Bible verses etc.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
2. ThoughtMill and other outlining programs are great for preparing sermons, writing articles and organising church activities. The best thing about this is that I can do it all, lying smugly on my favourite sofa.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
3, After updating the church membership directory, it takes only an extra minute or two to convert the data into Jfile format. Members who are Palm users appreciate this ready list when they need a phone number, address or even to search for the birthdays that will be celebrated soon.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
4. Flip Chart is a nifty little program that allows you to do text-only presentations effortlessly. It is a good way to whip up a little tract that you can share with a friend in the office or stranger in the MRT or trip. Colour Palms like the IIIc will really take full advantage of the layout.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
5. Avantgo is a great place to go for daily Bible reading, church sites and lots of good stuff. If you haven't been to my church's website, it is more than worth your time. There is a youth link, news, prayer listing, articles and all kinds of free stuff.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
6. AlbumToGo is another good tool to teach and share the gospel on a one-to-one basis using graphics and photographs. When I got hold of the Palm IIIc, the first thing I did was to get a member who is a graphic artist, to convert my illustrated tract, Joy of Christianity into AlbumToGo format and post it on my web for anyone who wants to use it. I had earlier done a black and white version of another illrustrated tract of mine, "Gospel of Christ".
Please feel free to download these graphics plus the AlbumToGo (freeware) to run them. I have zipped them below for both the colour and the black and white Palm OS PDAs. eMail me with your address if you would like to have a free complete printed copy sent to you anywhere on this planet.
Thumbnails (which can be enlarged by clicking on them) of each of the 16 slides are displayed below. If for any reason, you find the zips cannot work, copy these pics and convert them with the handy drag and drop AlbumToGo Desktop.exe.
<CENTER>[/url] (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j0.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j2.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j4.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j6.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j8.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j10.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j12.gif) [url="http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j15.gif"] (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j14.gif)
</CENTER>Download all the above graphics zipped with AlbumToGo in colour (http://www.spug.net/reviews/joycol.zip) or black and white (http://www.spug.net/reviews/joybw.zip). Please feel free to email me (ppcoc@pacific.net.sg) if you have a question or any difficulties. The latest version of AlbumToGo (a freeware) can be downloaded by using the search engine at www.palmgear.com. (http://www.palmgear.com/)
Web Resources
There are plently of websites that offer Christian stuff for the Palm. Here are some of them. Please take time to visit my site (http://members.tripodasia.com.sg/ppcoc) if you have not done so already.
http://www.memoware.com/ (http://www.memoware.com/) - lots of Christian text and TomeRaider files
http://www.olivetree.com/ (http://www.olivetree.com/) - good place to get Bible stuff
http://www.backtothebible.org/devotions/pda_index.html (http://www.backtothebible.org/devotions/pda_index.html) - Bible devotionals
http://www.forelsystems.com/kjv.html (http://www.forelsystems.com/kjv.html) - Bible software
http://www.gospelcom.net/ (http://www.gospelcom.net/) - site with some Palm stuff.
Written by Henry Kong (henrynat@magix.com.sg)
16 Nov, 2000
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
The recent issue of Time magazine carries an interesting Palm supplement in the centre. What really strikes me is that there are now more flavours of Palm than the WinCE/Pocket PC camp! So which one is the best? To really get the most out of your PDA, there are 2 criteria that is absolutely necessary for an effective and enjoyable relationship.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
The first specification in selecting a PDA is storage space. While 8mb may be plenty for most, if you are to use all the programs that I recommend in my previous article, Palm OS Software For The Christian: Helpful Bible Software, Tools & Sites - 8mb is grossly inadequate. So far there are three Palm OS devices which comes with additional storage (Visor, TRGpro and Clie). TRGpro handles additional storage better than most, though not perfectly. There are smart cards, clip-on memory modules etc available also. If your PDA passes this requirement, take it one step further: size does matter.
A second vital specification is the shirt pocket test. IMHO there are only 2 models that fits the shirt pocket - Sony Clie and Palm Vx. Anything else will grow more cumbersome as the romance wears off. Then it will be left behind more and more often. A case to point is my Cassiopeia. As great a PDA as it is, I do my best to find space for it in my attache case as I move about. At the end of the day it remains there as an elegant block of brick. If it is not wearable, it is not protable!
Since Palm Vx does not have additionary memory, the only choice that is available today is the Sony Clie.
What to do?
Having spent considerable time (and frustration) with the TRGpro's AutoCF, using a 64mb CF; I am somewhat relieved that Sony is not following the AutoCF route. While is is great to be able to run software from additional storage, unless it runs as fast and seemlessly as WinCE/Pocket PCs, it can be more trouble than it is worth. With PPCs, all you have to do is to hit the reset button, wait a heartbeat and the CF is ready. Try this with any Palm OS, it's like waiting an eternity. Unless something better crops up for the Palm, here's my 2 cents on what we can do with a less-than-perfect situation.
Use the free 8mb memory stick to store TomeRaider's Easton Bible Dictionary and Matthew Henry Commentary, AlbumToGo's Joy of Christianity/Gospel of Christ presentations, enitre year's devotional reading of Oswald Chambers' My Uptmost for His Highest and all the versions of the Bible you want. With space enough and to spare, I throw in Bible Reader's Greek New Testament, Jesus' Tracks (which I don't use often) and Noah Webster's Dictionary as well.
Now that I have all these goodies on my Clie, with my applications and selection of "games of the week", I have a pretty deadly weapon on my palm. My slew of applications - Avantgo, Scripture, ThoughtMill, Smoothy, The Thesaurus, Tealinfo, Tealpaint, Clock Plus, jFile plus some utilities and games hardly took more than 5mb of Clie's RAM. Anytime I want to run a program not in RAM, say a Bible Dictionary, I copy it from the memory stick. It's a speedy read on a 8m memory stick, with only a few files especially since most of my data are pretty large. By copying from the memory stick and deleting from RAM, there is very little wear and tear.
I have a 32mb Memory Stick which I loaded it with everything but the kitchen sink. The last time I checked it, there were 500 files including a 4.5mb encyclopedia! I tugged this away in my attache case and use it only when I want something that is not on the 8mb memory stick. It is nice to take along on a trip and run some of those programs, play games or read books that you would not have time to otherwise.
The 32mb memory stick takes about a minute to be read by the Clie; takes forever to scroll down (it is faster to use the stylus with the arrow bars) and can be quite a pain in the neck if used on a daily basis. As a backup, far away from home or any PC, devoting a few minutes to get a program is God-sent.
Helpful Bible Software, Tools & Sites
At last count, there were over 30 members of my church who own Palm OS PDAs. I publish an occasional FAQ of sorts called, Palm Pews for these people and my pals outside the church. Many of these people are on my Palm emailing list. I also put up a webpage which I call "3 Cs" for Church, Computers and Cuisine.
To show the extend that my congregation is into PDAs, we routinely present visiting speakers with Palm Vx or IIIc PDAs. Our membership directory is available in both the printed and Jfile formats. For other Christians who do not have access to these resources, this article is specially for you.
The Basics
I will be recommending Palm OS software that I use both as a Christian and for my ministry that I find helpful. All these programs can be found in the best Palm OS site in this planet, www.palmgear.com. They have all the goodies, are always current and is updated several times a day. I have squandered a lot of money purchasing software from this site. They are prompt, professional and a pleasure to do business with.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
1. Bibles for Palms. Olive Tree is a great site for Bible stuff. Though Palm OS Bibles as not as versatile as the CeBible (where you can run two versions parallel to each other on the screen, etc), Bible Reader is probably the Palm OS Bible with the most features. Not only are the reader and KJV free, you can get it to run the Greek NT (also FOC) with Greek alphabet. I personally prefer scripture/mybible and purchased every version available for this reader. Used with TapPad, it's the fastest verse turner ever.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
2. Bible Dictionaries. There are not that many floating around. When I was using TomeRaider (since my TRGpro was able to run programs off the CF), I stumbled on Easton's Classic Bible Dictionary. It's a pretty good dictionary considering how rare these spices are for the Palm and available free. Be prepared to allocate 1.5mb for this goodie. I keep this in my memory stick and move it to RAM whenever I needed it, which is not very often.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
3. Bible Commentaries. Also, there are not many commentaries for the Palm, so I guess you have to settle for Matthew Henry Commentary in doc format. It's not as easy to navigate, but hey, it works, it's free and Matthew Henry is good, reliable classic stuff.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
4. Devotionals. They don't get any better than Oswald Chambers' "My Upmost for His Highest". The entire year's text is available FOC. I use it with Smoothy, which scrolls it extra-smoothly for my daily uplift. There is a daily dosage that you can fill with Avantgo if you do not want to carry the full month's reading with you. You actually get 3 days' worth - the actual day with the one before and after. Very good if you are too busy and let one day's reading slip by you.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
5. Bible Lands. Jesus' Tracks was one of the first to provide Bible geography and maps for the Palm OS. I registered this program the day I saw it as I have been through the very locations that were described in this program.
6. Other stuff. Every week on the web you get a slew of new stuff like Prayer Pal, Mark Your Bible, Tap Doctrine etc etc. Use whatever works for you, but you do not need to have Christian software to do Christian stuff as the next section will prove. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE width="75%" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR borderColor=#ffffff bgColor=#ffffff><TD>
The Tools
Besides Bible specific software, there are many existing applications that can be used for Christian service. I will attempt to list a few that I found useful below.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
1. TealInfo is a useful software that is a little less than a PowerPoint presentation and a lot more than a doc reader. There are literally hundreds of filios in TealInfo format, many are Bible materials like Names of God, Bible reading plan, Grace to help, Bible verses etc.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
2. ThoughtMill and other outlining programs are great for preparing sermons, writing articles and organising church activities. The best thing about this is that I can do it all, lying smugly on my favourite sofa.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
3, After updating the church membership directory, it takes only an extra minute or two to convert the data into Jfile format. Members who are Palm users appreciate this ready list when they need a phone number, address or even to search for the birthdays that will be celebrated soon.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
4. Flip Chart is a nifty little program that allows you to do text-only presentations effortlessly. It is a good way to whip up a little tract that you can share with a friend in the office or stranger in the MRT or trip. Colour Palms like the IIIc will really take full advantage of the layout.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
5. Avantgo is a great place to go for daily Bible reading, church sites and lots of good stuff. If you haven't been to my church's website, it is more than worth your time. There is a youth link, news, prayer listing, articles and all kinds of free stuff.
<CENTER> </CENTER>
6. AlbumToGo is another good tool to teach and share the gospel on a one-to-one basis using graphics and photographs. When I got hold of the Palm IIIc, the first thing I did was to get a member who is a graphic artist, to convert my illustrated tract, Joy of Christianity into AlbumToGo format and post it on my web for anyone who wants to use it. I had earlier done a black and white version of another illrustrated tract of mine, "Gospel of Christ".
Please feel free to download these graphics plus the AlbumToGo (freeware) to run them. I have zipped them below for both the colour and the black and white Palm OS PDAs. eMail me with your address if you would like to have a free complete printed copy sent to you anywhere on this planet.
Thumbnails (which can be enlarged by clicking on them) of each of the 16 slides are displayed below. If for any reason, you find the zips cannot work, copy these pics and convert them with the handy drag and drop AlbumToGo Desktop.exe.
<CENTER>[/url] (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j0.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j2.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j4.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j6.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j8.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j10.gif) (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j12.gif) [url="http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j15.gif"] (http://www.spug.net/reviews/images/j14.gif)
</CENTER>Download all the above graphics zipped with AlbumToGo in colour (http://www.spug.net/reviews/joycol.zip) or black and white (http://www.spug.net/reviews/joybw.zip). Please feel free to email me (ppcoc@pacific.net.sg) if you have a question or any difficulties. The latest version of AlbumToGo (a freeware) can be downloaded by using the search engine at www.palmgear.com. (http://www.palmgear.com/)
Web Resources
There are plently of websites that offer Christian stuff for the Palm. Here are some of them. Please take time to visit my site (http://members.tripodasia.com.sg/ppcoc) if you have not done so already.
http://www.memoware.com/ (http://www.memoware.com/) - lots of Christian text and TomeRaider files
http://www.olivetree.com/ (http://www.olivetree.com/) - good place to get Bible stuff
http://www.backtothebible.org/devotions/pda_index.html (http://www.backtothebible.org/devotions/pda_index.html) - Bible devotionals
http://www.forelsystems.com/kjv.html (http://www.forelsystems.com/kjv.html) - Bible software
http://www.gospelcom.net/ (http://www.gospelcom.net/) - site with some Palm stuff.
Written by Henry Kong (henrynat@magix.com.sg)
16 Nov, 2000
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>