Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 14

I'm considering a GVD and thinking that if I like it/get enough use out of it, I might get one for my wife. Brand new to PDAs so not sure of other uses I would have. I currently use Franklin Planner. Nice to have paper 1)to take daily phone messages and 2)quickly take down stock quotes from my broker (not thinking I would be able to do that in Graffiti fast enough). I also like 'month at a glance' which I would be losing since the Visor month only shades in days that have info but don't know what that info is without going to week or day. But Franklin is too big to carry around much, so I often don't have it with me.

Currently, have plans to use Visor for Quicken entry (Pocket Quicken? And incidentally, I don't know what good built in Expense function is for if it doesn't link with Quicken) and ACT (have read bad things about the free sync software from Symantec) for personal/home business stuff. Obviously would like to use the datebook (week view - one of the main reasons I like Visor over Palm) and world clock and calculator, but would want to be able to sync with Groupwise 4.? at work for calendar/datebook mainly (so I don't have to keep two) and email if I can keep work email separate from personal email (which would be Hotmail or POP3). I have only found Puma software supporting Groupwise 5.? (but work may be upgrading to 5.? in next few months).

Not interested in games (although could change). Have talked myself into believing there would be a lot of value in always having ACT database handy to use and update on the go. Also think downloading various info (newspapers/books/etc) could be useful for keeping cab/airport/airplane time productive (AvantGo?). Also think of various lists that I assume I could file into some directories. And assuming I can take anything I start in Memo into a Word Doc on the PC.

Some questions:
Any problems with two Visors syncing with one Quicken and Act, updating on both Visors daily?
If my wife and I have various other documents/files in our Visors, can we designate which ones we share (maybe share common 'todo' items, but not birthday present ideas)?
Other info: My wife would only sync with home PC, whereas I would sync at home and work - if Groupwise Calendar sync works. Which brings up another question: Can you only sync Calendar/datebook, and also then only certain times of days? E.g., Mon - Fri 8a - 6p. I would really prefer not to have my whole personal life uploaded to my corporate calendar -- I would think this would be a common desire.

So, any input into any of the items above would be greatly appreciated, and any other examples of couples using theirs together.

- Hoping to be dazzled with the great many uses.

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 52

One quick practical use I can think of is: http://www.wesync.com
With it, you can have multiple calendars and list of contacts. Then the both of you, can sync just the shared information. Great for Soccer MoMs, Family Event Planning, etc...

Registered: Dec 1999
Location:
Posts: 48

WeSync is pretty good. A little cumbersome, but it IS still in Beta. There are lots of add-on products that work with Act! and Quicken. I've a gotten a look at the one for MS Money and it's really nice.


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What if your sole purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others?

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: New York, New York, USA
Posts: 27

A word of caution about WeSync:

I signed up for their service about a month ago and ended up losing all of the address information in my Address List (over 300 entries). The contact names along with two fields of phone numbers were saved, but everything else was lost(Company, Title, email addresses, address info, notes, and custom fields). And since I was unaware of this bug at the time, I synced my unit with my computer and ended up erasing everything in the Palm Desktop as well.

Now I am the first to admit that caveat emptor applies to all beta software, but this seemed like a pretty big bug to let out of the gate (who's testing the stuff?). According to the company, they have since fixed it, but still...

To their credit, after sending off a pretty steamed email, I did receive a phone call from the company president apologizing for the screw up. Even though he wasn't offering anything to compensate me for the loss of my data (not that he had to), it was a classy gesture.

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Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Kalamazoo, MI USA
Posts: 27

Rembrandt - you have the same general ideas I have had. My wife and I both have Visors now, and I use Pocket Quicken. One thing you should know about Pocket Quicken (and several other apps I've purchased) is that registration requires submitting the name of your device - then the registration code you receive is keyed to that device name. Obviously you and your wife will need different device names if you synchronize to the same PC at home. Thus, you cannot both have Pocket Quicken synched to the same PC, except possibly by buying TWO licenses. In my home this is not a problem because my wife has a math phobia and "doesn't do numbers".... And read carefully about Pocket Quicken - it doesn't synch transactions from the desktop PC to the Visor - it is designed to make on-the-go transaction entry easier. For me, it is perfect. Lots of information is available at http://www.landware.com

The built-in calendar app does not support beaming calendar entries, something I would like. There is probably a 3rd party app that will do this, but I don't think just that additional feature would be worth taking up the memory and additional cost. The above mentioned web service looks interesting, but for a cheap solution, you can copy and paste calendar events between users on the Palm Desktop app that goes on your desktop PC. We've found there aren't too many things that we both want on our calendars, and we just sit down a couple times a week and go through what we have scheduled and add things we want to share manually.

I originally thought I wanted to be able to synch to the corporate group scheduling too (Lotus Notes), but the apps are expensive, and my company is not well disciplined when it comes to group calendaring, so I've just resorted to keeping all my calendar items on the Visor. This is working very well for me.

There is lots of great freeware and inexpensive shareware out there - a good place to start is PalmGear HQ ( http://www.palmgear.com ). I've become fairly knowledgeable about the apps that are available by browsing their categories, and following through to software author web sites.

E-mail me if you want further details on any of this!

Good luck and have fun!

- Rusty

[email protected]

[This message has been edited by Rusty Smith (edited 01-13-2000).]

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Kalamazoo, MI USA
Posts: 27

An update on Pocket Quicken not doing negative splits from Landware tech support:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Subj: Re: Pocket Quicken - Split Transaction for paycheck doesn't work
Date: 1/13/2000 5:19:15 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: [email protected] (LandWare Technical Support)
To: [email protected]

Currently Pocket Quicken does not support negative value entries within
splits. We are investigating in that type of support in the near
future. Being that this is our first generation of our Pocket Quicken
software you can rest assured that we investigating in additional
support. We always welcome user feedback and product suggestions. We do
not have a definitive list of new features, however we would make any
announcements when they happen and contact you directly.
Regards,
<name deleted>

LandWare, Inc.
Technical Support http://www.landware.com
[email protected]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Voice: 201 261 7944
Fax: 201 261 7949
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 14

Thanks for the input. Especially regarding Pocket Quicken. That's pretty disappointing because I definitely don't want to buy two licenses (already had to upgrade from Quicken '98 to 2000 to sync) -- and my wife does use Quicken, although she is a stay-at-home mom (w/home business) so could use the desktop, but then defeats part of the purpose of getting her a visor.

A little leary of wesync.com based on the warning. But will check it out.

Sounds like QuikSheet ($50) or TinySheet and SmartDocs or QED would be good for Excel and Word users. I haven't investigated all, but geez, these add-ons can really add up. But Quicken and ACT! are the priorities.

Rusty, Thanks very much for the input and the offer. I may contact you when I get mine to discuss other 3rd party software. Especially interested in free stuff to get started, but takes a lot of time to browse those sites and determine what each one does.

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: KINGSPORT, TN, USA
Posts: 25

Rembrandt,

Just a note. I use qmate from steve dakin and quikbudget from quicksense. My wife has a math phobia as well so i do the accounts and this is a great combo for quicken. I currently have set up budgets in quickbudget which is extremely easy to do (they call them wallets) and when you enter something in the wallet it automatically sends it to the qmate program -which upon hotsync uploads a file to import into quicken. I don't know if you have ever imported into quicken but it is very straightforward and easy (I currently download my amex purchases straight into quicken for categorization. I LIKE THE QMATE AND QUICKBUDGET COMBO SO MUCH I HARDLY USE THE QUICKEN PROGRAM ANY MORE. In addition quickbudget exports a *.csv file to your spreadsheet that really is helpful in your monthly billing records and budgeting. The combo is great, but qmate alone is a fantastic program. In addition I save the exported file from qbudget to a quicksheet file for reference on my visor. If you would like more info send me an email.

qmate.com

quikbudget.com

[email protected]

You may note that there is a bug report on qmate (THIS IS ONLY FOR A SEPERATE QUICK ENTRY APP THAT IS NOT NECESSARY TO THE PROGRAM NOR DOES IT TAKE AWAY FROM THE PROGRAM AT ALL) Also, I wrote the bug report.

GOOD LUCK!

[This message has been edited by GADGETMIKE (edited 01-18-2000).]

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 11

Rembrandt,

A lot of questions! Here's what little I know: www.gwmag.com is a GroupWise web site. They recently had a "feature article" on using GW with PDAs. This might offer you some pointers. I don't synch at work, so it's not an issue for me.

Ultrasoft PocketMoney is fantastic palm software that synchs with MSMoney. Chances are you're aren't going to switch from Quicken, but if you did . . . This is the way to go. It's the only software I've bought for my 3 week old visor.