Organization, Man

December 25, 1996 Christmas dinner at Sue and Bill's.

Like HAL's first halting words, I scrawl, in Graffiti, my first PalmPilot entry.

"You'll never use that thing," my wife says.

"Hah," I retort, ignoring the cluttered path of discarded gadgetry in my wake. Forgotten phrases like "Look honey, it has 60 megabytes of memory - more than I'll ever need" and "You just wave your watch in front of the screen and it downloads your calendar" and "This mouse conforms to my hand" haunt the Christmas excitement.

But this thing is different. "It has its own alphabet," I purr. I am hooked.

January 15, 1997 3:06 PM Meet with VCs and client. 3:24 PM Shower. 3:48 PM Draft CYA letter to VCs re client meeting.

Attorneys are nothing if not anal about time. What attorneys sell, of course, is time. If you thought attorneys sold talent, judgment, rhetorical skills, detailed knowledge of arcane statutes, et cetera, you are sadly mistaken. Leaving aside contingency-fee snakes, the rest of us snakes sell our services by the hour, usually in decimal increments. A typical bill might read, "3.6 hours: Scratching ass, staring out window, translating contract from simple English to pig Latin." Empus-tay ugit-fay.

February 3, 1997 9:00 AM Meet with Steve Keeva, ABA Journal, for interview. 10:00 AM T/C opposing counsel re settlement. 1:15 PM Order 2 additional cradles, 1MB mem upgrade & hot sync cable.

Four weeks into Palmdom, I crave more. I want a cradle for my secretary, a cradle for my home PC, a cradle for my office desktop, a sync cable for my laptop. Everyone will go Palm with me.

March 19, 1997 10:30 AM Conference with Debbie, Barry, and Buz to prepare Y2K congressional testimony.

March 20, 1997 Congressional testimony.

For the last two years, much of my legal practice has focused on helping companies negotiate the treacherous waters of Y2K. Now comes a high point. It's not every day that a guy gets invited to Congress - let alone a guy named Vito who's asked to testify without being subpoenaed.

March 21, 1997 8:45 AM United Flight #187, Washington, DC, to Los Angeles.

Three suits wedged into coach. Me at the window, Palm enabled; another Palmist on the aisle; and in the middle, Mr. Franklin Organizer. (I've never trusted those Franklin guys - they see a million trees but couldn't find a forest in Yosemite. Maybe it's a left-brain, right-brain thing. Palms relate and link. Franklins are so linear.) The three of us are doing our calendar thing when Franklin asks what we've got. A gadget guy's dream: Aisle and I turn on him with missionary fervor. We gush, pressing from both sides, trying to convert the guy in the middle. He looks afraid. "No, really - it's cool. I'm organized." But Aisle and I have bonded - my first Palm friend. We trade cards.

May 5, 1997 10:30 AM Ultrasound appointment with Laura.

May 7, 1997 10:00 AM Meet Mike and Peter re marketing strategy. 10:30 AM Internal Y2K meeting. 1:00 PM Meet Jon, CIO LA County. 4:00 PM Nelson vs. Gigi arbitration.

May 13, 1997 Meet Claudina and Ron.

Claudina and Ron are with the California Department of Information Technology, and I'm up in Sacramento to give them the old sales pitch. I note the Palm-esque bulge in Ron's shirt pocket, and I slyly slip my unit onto the table. "I'll show you some cool stuff when we're done," Ron says, nodding the nod of the Society of the Palm. Things are going well. When I finish the pitch, Ron comes over and shows me the games and apps he's downloaded. "There's more at the Web site," he says. "Surely you knew."

"Of course," I lie in my most convincing lawyerly tone. I rush back to my hotel, log on, and am transfixed. Ron retains my firm, and I brag to my wife that this is my first Palm client.

May 24, 1997 Two Bunch Palms Resort.

My wife and I join my best friend, John, and his wife at a spa in Desert Hot Springs for the weekend. John used to be the general counsel of Go, one of the first companies to market a pen-based data-recording device. Go cratered. We are sharing a suite, and I spank the Palm to get a phone number. "So somebody finally found a use for that handwriting-recognition software," John harrumphs. "Yeah, but it's buggy," I lie, not so convincingly this time. I quickly put the offending unit away. Bad Palm karma.

August 2, 1997

My wife grabs the Palm to find out where I'll be in late September and instructs me to cancel my trip to Phoenix and get a trial postponement.

September 28, 1997 10:05 PM

My Palm carries a single word: "Dominick." My first child is born on a Sunday night, popping his head out, looking square at his dad, and reminding me that I do, indeed, believe in love at first sight.

I'm talking about my son, of course. Really, I am.

February 7, 1998 7:00 PM Kidspace.

My wife and I arrive at the annual charity ball, only to discover, yes, a new Palm on the silent-auction block. I am physically restrained from placing a bid on the shiny, unscuffed, smiling unit. I swear, it is smiling at me. I become a carnival salesman, extolling its virtues to the other attorneys milling about, casually mentioning that I've owned my Palm for over a year. My buddy Buz sidles up and quietly advises me that I'm being a bore. I brood.

April 24, 1998 Speech at ECMA Conference, Sanibel Island.

May 21, 1998 9:00 AM Meeting with Mr. Nakagawa, Tokyo.

The Palm - tool of peace, international relations, and Zen-like scheduling. Russell, my partner and a new Palm convert, has downloaded a crude but usable English-to-Japanese translation module. We fly to the Land of a Million Gadgets to meet with our Japanese counterparts - lawyers also yearning to manage time in a way that will hurry the sunrise and forestall the sunset.

I will admit one frustration. I'd hoped the Palm would be the perfect recorder of attorney life, a gadget to deliver me from time-sheet hell. It comes tantalizingly close - but only close. The calendar breaks time into five-minute segments, while I exist in six-minute segments. So I am forced to keep time manually, and manually sucks. Manually makes things hard. Manually is the realm of Mr. Franklin Organizer. Well, almost.

July 15, 1998 9:30 AM Arbitration on software-licensing matter; 2:15 PM Conference call with settlement judge. 3:30 PM Receive favorable arbitration award. 3:40 PM Cocktails at Engine Company with client to toast win.

October 20, 1998 IASA speech, Nashville.

Three keynote speakers: Kenny Rogers, entertainer; Terry Bradshaw, ex-quarterback, TV sportscaster, and motivational speaker; Vito Peraino, lawyer. One of these things is not like the others.

January 1, 1999

Three thousand, six hundred and sixty-two records later (we Palm enthusiasts are nothing if not accurate), I would fight a thundering horde of Huns with a penknife before I'd part with my PalmPilot. The original. No Star Trek flip-up for me. No infrared beaming of cards. None of the mini-Windows crap of those Palm wannabes. Simple, elegant, organized. My life in a box.

Introduced in 1996, the PalmPilot heralded the dawn of a new machine: a touchscreen organizer that could sync with a desktop computer. Now the age of the copycats has arrived - marked by the 1998 launch of a handful of palmtops, all powered by Microsoft's Windows CE operating system. According to IDC, Palm scored 1.4 million units last year for a market share of 77 percent; 280,000 WinCE units sold, for a share of 15 percent. The market-research firm predicts that Microsoft's piece of the marketplace will double in '99, leaving Palm with 64 percent.

But there's more to the story than operating systems. Palm and Windows CE reflect two philosophies: elegant utilitarianism versus sexy featurism. For better or worse, the latest WinCE machines are crammed with splashy options like full-color displays and audio. Running a slimmed-down version of Windows 98, taking voice commands, and opening email attachments, these PDAs aspire to be mini desktops. New software from Audible makes it easy to download news and books. Yet anemic battery life is a constant problem, with WinCE machines averaging just 10 hours between recharges.

Despite WinCE's alluring attributes, many Microserfs - such as consumer applications product manager Lily Li - have admitted to carrying a Palm. The Palm OS is fast (it doesn't have desktop envy). It forgoes gonzo features for sleek design. It's still the only device that syncs with the Mac. And the interface remains mind-bogglingly elegant.

The question isn't whether you should buy a PDA; it's which PDA you should buy. Do you desire power, or color? A speedy handheld, or a hand-sized desktop? Wired synced, searched, and scribbled on the lot of them, and here's the scoop.

Top WinCE Sites
Microsoft Windows CE
www.microsoft.com/windowsce/default.asp
The official handheld mecca.

Jimmy's Windows CE Home Page
www.jimmy.com
Part fan site, part WinCE software resource, and a link to more than 200 sites, both commercial and homegrown.

Chris De Herrera's Windows CE Website
www.cewindows.net
A low-fi site with unbounded enthusiasm for all things WinCE.

Craig Peacock's Windows CE Pages
www.craigtech.co.uk
An exhaustive, regularly updated whirlpool of off-the-cuff reviews and product-release gossip.

CNET Computers.com
www.computers.com
Click on Handhelds for the Net's best coverage of new WinCE developments.

3Com Palm V
Think of this as the manicured handheld - a more stylish Palm III. But beyond the mix-and-match accessories (like the alligator-skin cover), this digital helper is half as thick as its predecessor. The black-and-white screen is sharper, the contrast-adjustment control less finicky - and who can resist the heat-blasted aluminum exterior?

Palm V: $449; www.palm.com.

Motorola StarTAC Mobile Organizer
The first elegant means for linking cell phone to PDA, Motorola's black-and-white organizer clips to the tiny StarTAC phone. It syncs with the phone list on your desktop and dials contacts easily. Made by the same team that created the Rex OS, this piggyback puts your calendar and to-do list at your fingertips - as long as you carry the phone with you.

StarTAC Mobile Organizer: under $250; www.mot.com.

Compaq Aero
The WinCE Aero's reflective color LCD gets brighter as the ambient light increases, keeping the display sharp when most backlit screens would wash out. The Aero's headphone jack and Audible software make listening to The Wall Street Journal as easy as syncing. But though Compaq's début is slender and smart, it sucks power like any WinCE device. Spare rechargeable batteries are included.

Aero: around $500; www.compaq.com.

DeLorme Earthmate
This GPS receiver with DeLorme's Solus Pro map software is the perfect accessory for the car or the cabin cruiser. Download maps to your PDA (they look great in full color) and you'll never have to ask for directions again.

Earthmate with Solus Pro: $219.95; www.delorme.com.

Top PalmPilot Sites
3Com Palm Computing
www.palm.com
The capital of Palmdom.

PalmPilotGear H.Q.
www.pilotgear.com
One-stop shopping for Pilot software, with about 2,500 applications available for download or credit card purchase, plus support, FAQs, links, and mailing lists.

Calvin's PalmPilot FAQ
www.pilotfaq.com
Calvin O. Parker, author of The Complete PalmPilot Guide, answers Palm owners' most common queries.

The Lending Library
www.macduff.net/library.asp
Downloadable classics and modern novels by the hundreds, from Shakespeare to John Perry Barlow.

PalmCentral
www.palmcentral.com
This clearly organized site offers software downloads ranging from a syncing program for FileMaker Pro to Singapore's hottest restaurants.

incase PDACase
The incase portfolio holds your handheld securely and has pockets for credit cards or cash. The soft, spongy exterior protects your investment from sharp objects and careless martini drinkers.

PDA Case: $25; (888) 888 3322.

HP Jornada 420
Hewlett-Packard's first PDA wears a muted purple case and a 256-color, 320-pixel backlit screen. And though it sucks juice like its WinCE brethren, at least its batteries recharge in the cradle. The Jornada is the first handheld to work seamlessly with an internal pager card. But you pay heavily for these features - the HP is more-than-pleasantly plump.

Jornada 420: $519; www.hp.com.

Casio Cassiopeia
The tried-and-true, black-and-white Cassiopeia E-11 is much more responsive than color WinCE models, letting you zip between modes in a flash. Compact and solid, it isn't much bigger than a Palm. The sound quality is high, and it boasts a standard headphone jack. Due out this month, the E-100 breaks new ground with a stereo headphone jack that turns the PDA into an MP3 player.

Cassiopeia E-11: $399.95; Cassiopeia E-100: under $500; www.casio.com.

Philips Nino
The Nino 200, with its colorful case and low price, aims for younger gadget-hounds, while the 500 woos execs with high-end features like a color display. But whichever you choose, the Nino is still the bulkiest device around and tough on batteries. Most irksome, its unlabeled buttons - mounted on one side to aid one-handed operation - tend to confuse users who want to get a phone number fast.

Nino 200: $299; Nino 500: $499; www.philips.com.

GoType! Keyboard
Turn your palmtop into a mini laptop. GoType!'s big enough for touch typing - and quite stable, thanks to a pullout plastic support.

GoType!Keyboard: $79.95; www.landware.com.

Stylus Counsel
Today's topflight styluses lead a double life - Palm and WinCE- compatible, they can be used to point and click or put ink on paper.

Slimline Throttle: $14.98; www.ttools.com.
Digital Writer Duo: $35; www.cross-pcg.com.
Palm V Dual Action Stylus: $39.95; www.palm.com.
PenCap Stylus: $9.99 (four pack); www.conceptkitchen.com.

Palm Plays
Book
www.panaread.com
Panaread Electronic Publishing's PanaRead software helps turn the e-organizer into an ebook.

Robot
www.kt.rim.or.jp/~suu/PalmRobo/PiloRobo_e.shtml
This personal digital critter was inspired by a popular Japanese game for the handheld; the PalmRobo can be programmed to perform simple movements.

Remote Control
www.pacificneotek.com/omnisw.htm
Pacific Neo-Tek's OmniRemote package transforms a Palm III (or any unit with a 3.0 upgrade card) into a clicker for your TV or VCR - or most any appliance that speaks infrared.

Dashboard Display
www.ablecom.net/users/ohler/EV/ev1.html
Frustrated with the dashboard display in his General Motors EV1 electric car, software designer Peter Ohler hooked his Palm to the auto's diagnostic port and engineered it to display battery power and other motor stats.

3Com Palm VII
The same size as a Palm III, this PDA - due out in late 1999 - has a small flip-up antenna for wireless access to email and to Palm VII-enabled Web sites: You can find phone numbers and addresses at Yahoo!, download road maps at MapQuest, or read The Wall Street Journal. The unit promises to keep on-the-move execs online, though the pay-per-bit charges can get pricey.

Palm VII: under $800; www.palm.com.

Franklin Rex Pro
Neither Palm OS- nor WinCE-based, the Rex has no color, touchscreen, or revisionist alphabet for data entry. Instead, a button on the credit card-sized device lets you scroll through the alphabet, inputting letter by letter. The unit syncs in a laptop's PC-card slot, and its capacity is vast - we squeezed 2,000 contacts and a good chunk of Macbeth into this brainchild.

Rex Pro: $199.95; www.franklin.com.

Pretec CompactModem
Feel antsy when you can't get your email? This slim 56K modem fits in the CompactFlash slot of a WinCE organizer, letting you get on the Net, synchronize data through your office network, and send faxes.

CompactModem: $169; www.pretec.com.

Everex Freestyle
Like a hanging file folder, the Freestyle is a solid business choice - especially for frequent-flying execs. Syncing with a laptop requires just one cable. Jog-wheels on each side mark the Freestyle as the first truly ambidextrous handheld, and other little features make this a great WinCE PDA: Handy buttons on the front are positioned so you can play Pac-Man between flights, and, like the Compaq Aero, it has a reflective color screen. Then again, it's about as stylish as a hanging file folder.

Freestyle: around $500; www.everex.com.

RhinoSkin Titanium Hardcase
The handheld version of 007's aluminum briefcase, RhinoSkin's titanium shell for Palm organizers can withstand more than 100 pounds of pressure, survive a drop from several feet, and probably weather small explosions, too. All that's missing are the handcuffs to keep its case secure as you travel through enemy boardrooms.

Titanium Hardcase: $99.95; www.rhinoskin.com.

THE WHOLE WORLD IN YOUR HAND
Organization, Man
Get a Grip