This is my Palm IIIc handheld computer.

If a laptop computer is a platform waiting to fall or be stolen, the fate of any handheld, such as the Palm IIIc which I have owned for nearly 2 years now, is all the more true. Like my laptop, I have been lucky enough so far to not have this Palm device fall or stolen. Knock on wood.

The Palm OS was originally developed by former employees of Apple computer. The OS therefore is quite "Mac" like with the usual array of icons and utilizing a point and click metaphor. Instead of pointing and clicking with a mouse, you have to use the included stylus, a pen-like device in which you perform actions on your Palm. You can also "write" with the stylus, using the Palm OS's built in "graffitti" language which does a fairly good job of recognizing your handstrokes and converting them into readable type.

After a few days of practice, I more or less got the hang of using Palm's grafitti program to write a variety of memos, contact lists and other data which I routinely input or update to the Palm.

The Palm IIIc was one of the first Palm OS PDA's to feature a color screen. When I got this handheld in 2000, it originally sold for $399. Today it probably sells for less on the used market.

The device has 8 MB of RAM in which to operate and store files. It is running Palm OS 3.5 and can be synchronized with my G4 Power Mac using its USB cradle unit. Previously it synched with my Powercenter 150 Mac clone.

The battery is built into the Palm, which I think is not a very good idea. Someday the battery will die taking the entire machine with it. It is too bad that Palm and other handheld manufacturers have opted for permanently built-in batteries. All I can blame this to is planned obsolesence, which I totally despise.

Despite the battery issue, the Palm so far has been a faithful companion in my daily life. It can be charged on a daily basis by simply mounting the Palm IIIc on its cradle, which is connected to an AC outlet and charges the internal battery when the device is not in use. Nice.

As a daily traveller, the Palm IIIc come in very handy for use as my note taker, address book database and daily reminder. I also keep track of most of my automobile gas refills and repairs on the device. All of the data is hotsynched and backed up to my Power Mac G4, after which it is further backed up to CD ROM discs for archival purposes.

The Palm desktop software runs on my G4 allowing data to be input through the Mac and then being downloaded to the Palm with the next hotsych.

I bought the optional Palm IIIc folding keyboard. That makes typing long documents very easy and is more versatile for this kind of work than using the stylus. All Palm text documents can be exported from the device to my Mac for further procesing and printing.

One of the novel pieces of software I recently installed on the Palm is Avante-Go, which through the hotsynching process, captures data from websites on the internet for viewing with your Palm. That is pretty cool, though the downloading process is slow, especially if you only have dial-up.

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