Well, I have finally caved in. With this installment, The Mac Observer officially is being renamed The Macintosh User. About a year ago the folks at Webintosh renamed their offerings to The Mac Observer. When it happened, I quickly shot off an e-mail informing them that they had stepped on the toes of my column which had had the same name for three years.
They were nice about it, but informed me they had done an extensive Internet search before naming the column and hadn't come across my column. I couldn't believe it, you mean their searches hadn't brought them to www.sockets.net/members/~tyarbrough? Unbelievable. Well, after pondering an expense dollar lawsuit that could have the potential of taking headlines away from Microsoft (the current court darling), I decided to cease and desist and rename The Mac Observer to The Macintosh User. I figured I couldn't go wrong with The Macintosh User because the magazine is now gone, plus, it's so obvious no one would want it. Sheeesh!
Let's change the subject ... I getting depressing just thinking about it! This month I am writing The Macintosh User on a new Palm Pilot. I must admit, it is an amazing little device for what it is ... it's not a Newton, but after all, Newtons aren't made anymore. There are some good things happening with the Pilot. Luckily for Macintosh users, there's revised software out from 3Com that makes the Pilot a desirable handheld device to own fall in love with.
Now let me clarify. I'm not using the latest and greatest offering from 3Com, rather a ''poor man's'' version, the Professional. Yes, it would be nice to have one of Palm's new ''V'' or ''VII'' (its hot new wireless), but that's more power than Pamm (yes, that's the way she spells it) needs. Finding myself in the poor man category, I bought the Pilot for Pamm, who needs a simple way keep up with her calendar and addresses. She's delighted with it and so am I (with envy).
Pamm really likes the gadget too. A few years ago I bought her a PowerBook for her school work (she's a parent educator with Jeff City Schools). She has used it, she just doesn't like to tote around a full blown computer all the time (unlike us computer geeks!). So, the Pilot really fits her work style. While out making home visits, she can whip the Pilot out and make an appointment, then sync it with our desktop computer at home.
The purchase of the Pilot hasn't all been hugs and kisses, however. I first tried to hook the thing up to the PowerBook and never got it work right. You know how PowerBooks share the printer/modem port? Well, it really freaked the Pilot out, so much so that it never got the sync right. After several hours trouble shooting, I installed it on our desktop machine and it worked beautifully. However, after a night of surfing the Internet and making some configuration changes, it also wouldn't sync and required the software to be reinstalled. If someone out there has had similar difficulties with the port thing, I would love to talk with you.
All it in, the Pilot is a neat product. It's a shame that Mac users still don't have their software shipping in the original box and have to purchase it and a special serial connector separately, but I guess that's a small price to pay to what is becoming the portable handheld to have ... and will until Microsoft gets Windows CE perfected and seeks to shut 3Com down. We've seen that all before, now haven't we?