Palm Computing
An overview of Palm Computing resources at this site, both for
handheld and desktop platforms. Includes links to and extended
descriptions of all the following items.
Handheld Utilities
The central component of my book
The Hacker's Diet®
is a set of tools which permit you, just by logging your daily
weight and performing some simple calculations, to determine
the precise balance between the calories in the food you eat
and the calories you burn. This is the
essential information you need to achieve and maintain whatever
weight you desire. While you can do the calculations by hand
or with a spreadsheet on your computer, it's far more convenient
to just write your daily weight into the Palm and receive
instant feedback including an up-to-date chart. Companion
desktop software backs up Palm databases and exports them
as illustrated HTML logs or CSV files for transfer to other
desktop applications. New release 1.10 fixes kilojoule
energy balance in historical charts.
Desktop Utilities
If you're developing for the Palm platform, sooner or later you're
probably going to want to look at the contents of a Palm resource
(.prc) or database (.pdb) file on the desktop.
Palmdump dumps these files with header and record
information in human readable form and the contents of each record or
resource in side-by-side hexadecimal and ASCII/ISO character form.
Palmdump runs on Windows and most Unix platforms and
is insensitive to byte order and structure packing conventions of
the desktop platform. A ready to run Win32 executable file is
included along with complete source code.
Once you've developed a Palm application you may ask yourself,
“Now how do I get the database it needs from the desktop machine
onto the handheld?”. PDBMake
is a generic
(non-application specific) desktop program which accomplishes this.
It takes an arbitrary desktop file, text or binary, and embeds it into
a Palm Program DataBase .pdb file. Once you've created a PDB
file with PDBMake you can install it on the handheld (or
emulator) just like any other application or database. When you next
HotSync, the database will be installed, then your application can
access it through the usual Data Manager mechanisms.
PDBMake runs on Windows and Unix platforms, and is
insensitive to platform byte order and structure padding conventions.
Complete source code and a ready-to-run Win32 executable are included.
Documents
Don't you just hate it when you're about to close a
clandestine munitions deal and your partner raises a
question about the relative applicability of Rules of
Acquisition 35 and 177? You'd look like a lobeless altruist
if you had to stop and ask whether Rule 35 is “Peace is good for
business” or “War is good for business”! Install this Memo
Pad document containing a compendium of the Rules of
Acquisition on your Palm OS® handheld and
profit from the distilled wisdom of generations of Ferengi
in the palm of your hand. Since this reference is provided
as a Memo Pad archive, you can read it using the built in
PalmOS Memo Pad application; there's no need to install a
document reader application, and you can modify the document
using the Memo Pad editing functions.
Airline pilots, military personnel, cops, amateur radio operators, and
others who need to accurately transmit sequences of letters
and numbers across voice communication links with limited
fidelity mostly rely on a phonetic alphabet developed in the
1950's by NATO. This document provides both a
Web-based reference
to the phonetic alphabet and a version you can download
and install on your
Palm OS handheld
computer.
There's nothing better to fill those odd moments of
downtime…standing in line at the post office or
supermarket check-out, waiting in the dentist's
office for your name to be (gulp) called, whiling
away that seemingly endless interval between
blinding flash and deafening
report…than whipping
out your PDA (PalmPilot, PocketPC, etc.) for a little
light reading. Aleatory occasions for literary
indulgence of unpredictable temporal extent demand works
which don't require a great deal of concentration nor a
long attention span; early 20th century juvenile pulp
fiction fills the bill superbly. I've been reading through
the original Tom Swift novels written by
Victor Appleton between 1910 and 1941 on my PDA; here's
a library so you can do likewise, should you wish. These
books are based upon the Project
Gutenberg Etext editions, but reformatted for reading on a
handheld computer with
eReader
or any of its predecessors. HTML, PDF, and plain ASCII editions
suitable for reading online or printing are also available.
The modest collection of titles will grow slowly and sporadically
as I work my way through the series.