Former Palm User Trying to Get Over the Curve

[Piano Man]

After waiting and waiting for Palm to come out with an "Oh Wow" pda and then being let down, I bought a Dell. My wife knows someone at her job that was dumping his X50v and getting an X51v. I bought his X50v with the normal disc, charger/cradle, 2 unopen screen protectors, a black metal case and a 512sd card for $200.US. The screen EXCELLENT and has the "oh wow" factor. A couple of questions:

Being that this is a Microsoft Product, does one need to run some kind of "scan" or "defrag" to keep it up to speed.

Any good recommendations on an alarm clock. The built-in clock is so subpar.

I have been trying to go through this site as often as I can but hav every limited free time. Can anyone point me to a "must read" that will help me get the most out of my unit.


Thanks for a REALLY GREAT SITE!!! :approve:

[FlyACL]

Congrats on the Axim and welcome to Aximsite! You got a great deal, nice job! So about your questions...

I understand what you are asking about the scan and defrag. PPCs are a little different about that. You don't really have to defrag but there are some things you can do to help your Axim keep running smooth. First and formost don't install anything that doesn't have to be installed to main memory. I would say this is by far the #1 "newbe" mistake that can cause performance problems. There is a great tutorial on how the memory works on the axim I would consider a must read. Links are in my sig.

Cleaning out the "junk" like temp internet files and stuff can be a huge help as well. I use a program called MemMaid for this and several other things and would highly recomend it. Keeps my Axim running great.

The last thing that can help is a soft reset. It is kind of like rebooting your desktop. It can help clean stuff up or solve any small problems that come up. It is also "non-destructive" in that it will not cause any loss of data. Some people do it once a day. Myself, more like once or twice a week.

There is a bunch of good alarm clocks out there. Some of the best are even free. Do a search on this site for some good ones to look at. Off the top of my head I can think of WolfClock and Spb Time. I currently use the Spb one and have been very happy with it.

As for the must reads, I would rate the tutorials #1. Links are in my sig or follow the resources tap at the top. Lots of good info there. You can also check out the "stickys" in each of the forum catagorys for some good stuff. Last, for software ideas, check out peoples "MyPDA" links. There is also a link in my sig to some of the best ones to look at.

Good Luck and enjoy your Axim. If you get stuck try the seach feature or make a post and we will try and help. Good Luck~

[RobMan]

^^^^^ what he said Seriously, Flyacl is pointing you on the right path. :approve:

Sage advice about where to install programs.

[Piano Man]

Thank You! Danke Schon! Gracias! Merci! Bedankt! Grazie! Domo Arrigato! Spasiba! Dziekuje!

[FlyACL]

Your Welcome, Ihr Willkommen, Su Recepción, Votre Bienvenue, Il Vostro Benvenuto, Sua Boa vinda, あなたの歓迎, 너의 환영, 你的欢迎

[MleB]

Yup, a bit of a learning curve Piano Man, that's for sure! I'm just into my second month with an Axim from my trusty old E.

Frankly, I'll say that I found my E better at dealing with text-based information (calendar, addresses, memo and notes, docs via included Docs2Go - that sort of thing)and Palm Desktop was a lot more intuitive that Outlook, but that the Axim is better at dealing with multimedia - mostly, I guess, because of the speed of the CPU. Meanwhile, Pocket Word is like Palm's Memo - only less so, if for no better reason than its name implies functionality and capabilities it does not have. It's nothing more than a poor cousin of your desktop's Wordpad ("Holy Win1.0, Batman!") and any true docs functionality, as with Docs2Go, will mean a retail purchase - most likely to Textmaker.

I found the series that starts here -

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/edit...m_to_PPC_1.htm

To be extremely enlightening when I was considering the Palm > WinMobile switch. The only drawback was the writer's enthusiasm for promoting retail over freeware products - retail being a step I think one takes after having confirmed that the OS is for you.

Pocket PCs don't have the wealth of freeware that Palm has, but an excellent selection can be found at http://www.freewareppc.com/ and I'm sure at the links noted above.

Some of the most popular products first installed to the PPC appear to be plug-ins to the Today screen to make it more useful - I use BatteryBar, Scott Seligman's Launcher, TaskPlus and Calendar+ on mine, while adding the Task Manager Magic Button (allows you to switch between programs using icons in the upper bar and to close - not just minimize - programs) saving the PPC memory.

MemMaid is available as a Trial and seems like an excellent product, but for the moment (and being a cheap bastard) I'm using the freebie FastCleanup and am happy with it.

Oh, and I think it should be noted - hold off doing the upgrade to WinMobile 5 OS (if you are given the oppportunity) as it (as an upgrade) seems 'somewhat' unstable for many users and its the sort of thing a new user shouldn't really have to deal with.

What a Great Adventure!

A program called styletap will let you run your palm apps on your ppc. WOrks great for a game I like.

[AKAJohnDoe]

I grew weary of waiting for the Palm hardware to catch up, so I too bought a PPC (Dell X50V) this Summer, with the intention of being dual platform.

However, I sold my Palm T1 and my Palm T3 on eBay this Autumn.

There's certainly some differences between the platforms; however, in daily usage they both do the job. And the X50V does it faster, with dual card slots, WiFi, interchangable batteries, and a better display.

The path I took is here: http://discussion.brighthand.com/sho...hreadid=119762

And, Welcome, Piano Man!

[mannc7]

@Piano Man
$200 USD is an amazing price. 60% off of MSRP. With the money saved, I highly recommend buying a bluetooth keyboard for enhanced data input. Check Signature for more great buys for your new axim.