Treo update

I’m finally coming up for air after two weeks of being radio silent (or is that Radio silent?). First off – my Treo arrived and I’m in love. It’s exactly the device I was hoping for – and a lot of folks at work are quite jealous. Some items that make it particularly attractive for me:


  • I can edit outlines on my Treo and have the outlines sync with Radio

  • Our Exchange server supports POP mail retrieval, so I can send/receive e-mail from my corporate e-mail account (it seems a lot of people didn’t know that Exchange supports POP, so I thought this was worth mentioning)

  • The browser (Handspring’s own Blazer) is very functional – certainly the best of the “small” browsers I’ve seen

  • The phone integration is outstanding, though I did need to download one hack to close the loop (see below)

In order to make the device exactly what I wanted, here’s the software I installed to round it out:


  • SnapperMail. This is a fully-featured e-mail client designed specifically for PalmOS smart-phones. It supports SMTP authentication (so my Exchange server will allow me to send e-mail as well as receive it), supports multiple accounts (so I can get my personal e-mail as well as corporate e-mail), allows me to delete messages off the server with one tap, supports periodic send/receive (so I don’t have to manually check), and can also handle attachments (JPG, ZIP, TXT, vCard, vCal, etc.). It’s still considered a public beta, but works very well for me. Coming soon – IMAP support which will improve my Treo/Exchange experience.

  • Natara Bonsai. A very robust outlining application that supports outline exporting – this allows me to edit outlines on my Treo and export them to OPML, where Radio then can upstream to my corporate intranet (where the files are viewed by several people inside the company).

  • AA Flights. I’m a dedicated American Airlines traveler; having an updated flight schedule for the next several months has come in handy on a number of occasions.

  • AvantGo. A must for staying synched with various news sites.

  • Documents To Go. I keep a handful of MS Office documents on my PC – like our company directory (in Excel), my 2003 objectives (in MS Word), a list of customers segmented by industry (in Excel) – that stay synched with my Treo now thanks to DTG.

  • MarknDial. This is one of many useful “hacks” from PDAapps.com that make the Treo more functional. But this is the one I mention above that seems like it should just be part of the Treo system: it lets me copy any phone number from any app (browser, e- mail, notepad, calendar, etc.) and dial it from that app. Very nice. (Bonus: it’ll also launch a URL into Blazer from any other app automatically.)

  • Landware’s Expensable for PalmOS. This makes keeping expenses a slightly less onerous process by letting me capture them in the Treo, then worry about doing the desktop report later. It certainly saves me time – if only it would make the expense report itself more enjoyable!

Thanks again to Ernie, whose rave reviews about the Treo convinced me to take the plunge. I’m very glad I did.

One response to “Treo update”

  1. CALL FOR HELP -maybe somebody who reads this knows the answer, it has been driving me crazy and i can't figure out how to do something that should be very simple. i have had a treo 180 for about a year, and it is fine for my needs. but i cannot figure out where there is a simple “search” function that checks everything, like I had on my previous palm and handspring. in other words, i know that i wrote, say, bill smith's name somewhere, maybe in someone else's phone entry, maybe in the date book when i had an appt with him, maybe as a memo or expense item. it's there, but i can't find it — and i could with the old palm. got any idea what to do? i have searched the web far and wide, but no luck.thanks much.

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