PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide, 2nd Edition Mastering Palm Organizers from Pilot 1000 to Palm VII By David Pogue 2nd Edition June 1999 1-56592-600-5, Order Number: 6005 624 pages, $29.95, Includes CD-ROM

Chapter 15.
Paging, Faxing, Printing, and Beaming

This chapter shouldn't exist at all. As originally conceived, the PalmPilot was never intended to serve as a beeper, fax machine, infrared transmitter, or printout-generating computer. You were supposed to let your desktop computer do all of that stuff, and use the PalmPilot to look up the occasional phone number or appointment.

But the fans wouldn't sit still. Today, you can find software or hardware that lets the PalmPilot perform all of those amazing connectivity stunts, taking it far beyond the realm of simple data bucket.

Paging

Talk about technology convergence: thanks to a collaboration of 3Com (who makes the PalmPilot), Motorola (who makes beepers), and PageMart (who sells pager subscriptions), your PalmPilot can also serve as a beeper. You've got one less gadget to clip to your belt.

The concept is simple enough: for $170, you get the Synapse Pager Card, a replacement for the memory card in any Pilot, PalmPilot, or early WorkPad model; just slide off the plastic cover for this card (on the back of the PalmPilot), pull out the existing memory card, and slide in your new, pager-enhanced card. As a bonus, the replacement card has two megabytes of memory, doubling or quadrupling the memory of all Pilot and PalmPilot models. You also get a replacement door for this memory-card slot--a door that bulges out slightly to accommodate the bulkier electronics on the card itself. Unfortunately, the pager card isn't available for the Palm III or later models, and rules out the possibility of adding infrared to your older palmtop.

After installing the software (see Chapter 7, Installing New Palm Programs), you're ready to receive pages.

How Paging Works

To send a page, your friends, loved ones, and business associates call a special 800 number; after a beep, they punch in your ID number. At this point, they can send one of two kinds of pages:

Numeric

The person trying to reach you simply types in his phone number, exactly as with standard beepers everywhere. (You won't know what the call is about until you call the person back.)

Text

The person trying to reach you dictates a message to an operator, who types it into a transmitting computer. Length limit: 300 letters and spaces, about twice the length of this paragraph.

A few seconds later, your PalmPilot turns itself on and begins to beep. (You can choose from among eleven beeping sounds--in fact, you can choose a different beeping sound for each priority level.)

To stop the beeping, press any of the PalmPilot's plastic buttons. Now the actual message appears on your screen (see Figure 15-1). It's up to you to return the call, take action, or whatever. You can discard or file away the page, just as though it's a note in, for example, your Memo Pad.

Figure 15-1. With the PageMart card installed, your PalmPilot can receive text pages.

At this writing, the PageMart service costs $14 per month (for pages in your area) or $20 per month for nationwide service. For that money, you get 100 text pages, or 400 numbers-only pages, per month. (If you really travel a lot, you can get a $100-per-month deal that covers all of North America, Canada, and parts of Central and South America.) The other expense is batteries: leaving the pager card on 24 hours a day drains the batteries much faster than the PalmPilot alone would.

No Vibrations

The downside of using your PalmPilot as a beeper, of course, is that it can't vibrate, as traditional beepers can; it doesn't have a buzz mode. If you're attending a symphony concert when your PalmPilot goes off, you'll either miss the page entirely (because you turned off the audible alarm feature) or annoy everyone else in the audience.

There is hope, however. If you're truly dedicated to the cause of turning the PalmPilot into a full-fledged beeper, consider the TaleVibes. It's a tiny, $40 plug that snaps onto the HotSync jack (at the bottom of the device) and vibrates whenever one of your alarms or pages goes off. (See Figure 15-2.) Point your browser to http://members.aol.com/gmayhak/tcl/vibes.htm for details.

Figure 15-2. Snap this thing onto your PalmPilot for vibrating alarms and pages.

More Ways to Page

The Synapse pager card isn't the only paging technology available for the PalmPilot--which is fortunate, because that product is restricted to original Pilot and PalmPilot models. You might also consider one of these products:

BeamLink

$50 buys you this fascinating software, which transmits pages by infrared between your palmtop (Palm III or later) and a Glenayre AccessLink I or II pager. In other words, the beeper itself is used to send and receive messages, but now you can read them, file them, address them, and compose them on the palmtop (see Figure 15-3, left). As part of your outgoing text pages, you can send Palm records, such as Memo Pad pages, addresses, to-do entries, and so on. Your Palm Address Book itself can be transmitted to the pager--up to 1500 names. You can also use your pager to send text messages as email, as described in Chapter 13, Email Anywhere. For an extra cost per page, you can even send pages to a system that telephones your recipient and reads what you've written out loud, in an electronic voice.

Of course, BeamLink requires that you point the pager at the palmtop, which isn't quite the same as having your PalmPilot turn on and vibrate when a message comes in--but the pager itself can do the vibrating. ( JP Systems, http://www.jpsystems.com, sells the software either alone or with the pager. BeamLink is an updated version of what used to be called One-Touch, which required a cable to connect the PalmPilot to the pager.)

Figure 15-3. BeamLink (left) sends and receives pages via your infrared beeper. PageNow (right) is for sending only.

PageNow

This $30 software (http://www.markspace.com) has only one mission in life: to send pages (Figure 15-3, right). It connects to the national paging network by dialing a paging server using your Palm modem or wireless modem; it can even send your page text by infrared to an infrared-equipped cell phone, such as the Ericsson 888, which then transmits the message. PageNow automatically splits long messages into successive pages, can handle elaborate dialing strings, and lets you stamp each outgoing page with a greeting or signature.

Pilot Pager

If all this talk of infrared pagers and $170 pager cards sounds like overkill, consider this tiny, aging, free software. It's not so much a paging program as a simple dialer. With a modem attached to your PalmPilot, Pilot Pager automates sending a numeric page--it dials the necessary number (the paging service's 800 number, for example), pauses, punches an optional touch-tone (to specify voice or numeric message, for example) and extension number, and finally plugs in your own call-back number. Your index finger and brain are spared the stress of dialing all of that manually.

Faxing

If you're a PalmPilot owner, you're probably more technologically advanced than most of the people around you. Although email is the most common method of transmitting written messages these days, a few old-timers aren't yet online. Fortunately, your PalmPilot can accommodate them--by sending faxes.

To turn your PalmPilot into a faxer, it needs a modem (see Chapter 12, Database and Number Crunching) and software, described next. (These fax programs work with any model.) Nobody will confuse the resulting faxes with laser printouts--the fonts that PalmPilot uses are bitmapped, meaning that you can see the individual dots that make up each letter--but what do you expect from a three-by-five-inch fax machine?

HandFax

The first commercial Palm faxing software was HandFax (from the makers of HandStamp and HandWeb, described in Chapter 13 and Chapter 14, The Web in Your Palm). The price is $50. (A demo version is included on the CD-ROM with this book.)

HandFax works like a charm. It saves you effort--and avoids reinventing the wheel--by letting you write fax messages in the Memo Pad and grab fax numbers from your regular Address Book. Here's the step-by-step:

Setting up HandFax for the first time

After installing HandFax, launch it from your Applications screen. Begin by tapping Menu ➝ Options (see Figure 15-4) and setting up your configuration. These commands get you ready:

Fax Setup

This command's settings govern whether a company name or logo should appear at the top of each fax you send.

Phone Setup

Here, you specify the usual dialing options (see Chapter 6): whether your PalmPilot should dial 9 before the number, whether to turn off call waiting, whether to bill the call to a calling card, and so on.

Modem Setup

Use this command to specify your modem if you're not using the clip-on Palm modem. (See "Setting up the PalmPilot" in Chapter 6, HotSync, Step by Step, for details on these specs.)

Sender Information

Write in your own name, fax number, voice number, and address--all optional information that will, if you wish, appear at the top of every fax you send.

Figure 15-4. HandFax's opening screen shows a list of your Memo Padcontents, ready to send (left). Begin your setup using the various commands in the Options menu, such as Modem Setup (right).

Sending a fax

Now you're ready to fax. Connect your modem to the PalmPilot and the phone wire to the wall jack. As you can see from Figure 15-4, HandFax's main screen shows a list of your Memo Pad's contents (the first line of each memo appears).

1. Specify what the fax message is, as follows:

To send a Memo Pad page: Tap the Memo Pad item you want to send, and then tap Fax Memo.

To write a fax by hand: Tap Menu ➝ Fax ➝ New Fax.

2. Now you arrive at the screen shown in Figure 15-5. Specify whether you want a cover page automatically generated by tapping the "Use cover page" checkbox. (The cover page will include your own Sender Information, the word FAX in large letters, the recipient's information, the date and time, number of pages, and subject line.)

Figure 15-5. This screen is where you write your actual message if you're not planning to fax a page from your Memo Pad (left). Tap the To button to view the recipient screen (right).

3. Tap the Subject line, if you wish, and write a name for the fax. If you're not sending a Memo Pad page, tap in the large blank area at the bottom of the window and write out your message. (See Chapter 3, Typing Without a Keyboard, for Graffiti tips.)
4. To specify where this fax is going, tap the To button (see Figure 15-5, left). The address screen shown in Figure 15-5 (right) appears.

The long way: Hand write the fax number in the Fax Number blank. (The name and company are optional.)

The short way: You're now shown the names from your Address Book--but, thoughtfully enough, only the names that have fax numbers appear. Tap the name you want, and then tap Add. Your fax is now addressed and ready.

Tap OK. If you've handwritten a message, you can look at it one last time on this screen (see Figure 15-5, left). If you're sending a Memo Pad page, tap the tiny page icon to the right of the "Use cover page" option. You'll be shown a preview of the outgoing memo (which you can't edit here-- only in the Memo Pad).

5. Tap Send. If you've hooked everything up correctly, a small status window appears to keep you apprised of the fax's progress. You'll hear the modem dialing, you'll watch a "Sending 1/3" page-count progress bar fill up, and you'll thrill that you've just used the world's tiniest fax machine.

(Alternatively, you could tap Later--a useful option if you're modemless or phonelineless at the moment. Your fax is saved in the Out Box, described next; you can edit it or send it later.)

The three lists

You may have noticed the three rectangular buttons at the bottom of the main HandFax screen (see Figure 15-4). They are:

Memos

This default setting shows a list of your Memo Pad's contents, making it easier to select one for faxing.

Out

Tap this setting to view an "Out box" of waiting faxes. Any fax you chose to save for later, or any fax that wasn't successfully sent, winds up in this list. Tap one and then tap Edit to correct errors; tap one and then tap Del to discard it; or choose Send All from the Fax menu to send all waiting faxes, one after another.

Log

Tap this box to view a list of faxes you've sent (or tried to send). A tiny "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" icon appears next to each fax, indicating whether or not the transmission was successful.

If a fax wasn't successful, tap it; tap Details; and tap Send Again.

Your graphic logo

Believe it or not, HandFax even lets you draw a graphic rendition of your logo or letterhead--if you're a pixel Picasso. Choose Cover Page Logo from the Options menu to enter a crude painting program.

Here you can draw your logo or signature, dot by dot, using the simple drawing tools on the palette: pencil, circle, rectangle, line, and eraser. While you're in the drawing mode, the four plastic buttons at the bottom of the PalmPilot don't perform their usual program-launching functions; instead, they scroll the picture horizontally. (The outer buttons scroll left and right by one dot; the inner ones scroll it by four dots at a time.) To scroll the picture vertically, use the PalmPilot's usual up- and down-scroll buttons.

You won't find it easy to reproduce your corporate logo using only these tools, particularly while riding any form of bouncy transportation. Still, if you manage something worth including at the top of each fax you send, choose Save from the HandPaint menu--and then choose Quit from that same menu. (That's probably the only time you'll ever use a Quit command to exit a program into another part of the same program.)

DB Fax ( Fax)

The shareware world's programmers--Road Coders, as they're affectionately known in the PalmPilot world--have been busy, too. The conservatively named DB Fax, for which $14 is requested, lets you vary the font and formatting of your faxes--and even lets you insert graphics. It's on this book's CD-ROM. (The author, David Bertrand, sometimes refers to the program as Fax, and sometimes as DB Fax.)

TIP: DB Fax comes in two pieces, FAX203U.PRC and LIBF203U.PRC. (The version number in the middle--2.0.3 in this example--may change.) You must install both pieces to use this program. See Chapter 7 for installation tips.

Setting up Fax

You set up Fax almost the same way as you do HandFax--by choosing commands from what here is called the Config menu (see Figure 15-6). The User Config command lets you specify your name and fax number (which will appear at the top of each fax you send) and also lets you specify a dialing prefix (such as 9).

Figure 15-6. Use the Config menu (left) to set up such parameters as the page margins, font size, and header options (right).

The Page Config command is particularly interesting; it offers several options that even HandFax lacks. For example, you're offered a choice of three font styles: Standard (what you normally see on the PalmPilot), Bold (what you see at the tops of Palm windows), and Large (a vertically stretched form of the standard font). You can also determine the page margins here, and indicate whether or not you want headers or footers attached to each fax.

Sending a fax with Fax

You can't handwrite a fax message directly into Fax. However, you do have a choice of source material for your outgoing fax. Choose one of these from the pop-up menu shown in Figure 15-7:

ClipBoard

This option lets you fax text from any Palm program. Suppose, for example, that you want to fax a To Do item. Highlight the text of the item; use the Edit menu's Copy command (which places the text on the PalmPilot's invisible Clipboard); switch to the Fax program; and choose Clipboard from the pop-up menu.

MemoPad

If you choose this option from the pop-up menu, the first lines of every page in your Memo Pad appear in a scrolling list. Tap the one whose contents you want to send.

Other

If Fax catches on, other software programmers may add faxing features to their Palm software; this option waits for that day.

Figure 15-7. Specify what you want to fax (left), and whom you want to fax to (right).

After specifying what you want to fax, specify the recipient. You can, of course, write the fax number (and, optionally, the recipient's name) by hand on the blanks shown in Figure 15-7. If the recipient is already in your Address Book, however, it's much faster to tap the LookUp button. As shown at right in Figure 15-7, your Address Book list appears.

At this point, you can check to see if the target individual has a fax number by making sure the pop-up menu (at upper right) says Fax. (This pop-up menu controls which phone number appears in this mini-list: Work, Home, or Fax.) If the list is long, begin writing your recipient's name in the blank at the bottom of the screen; the program scrolls automatically to the nearest match, exactly as the Lookup feature does elsewhere on the PalmPilot (see Chapter 4, The Four Primary Programs).

When you've tapped the person's name, tap OK to return to the main screen.

Now tap Send. Status messages on the screen keep you posted while the program creates the fax image, dials, and transmits the fax.

TIP: If the PalmPilot takes too long to send faxes from Fax, the receiving fax machine will "time out," meaning that it will wait so long for your PalmPilot to begin sending that it hangs up out of impatience.

The solution lies in the Page Config dialog box: turn on the Pre-Build option. Now Fax will compute the fax image before dialing. As a result, your phone call will be shorter (which could save you money), you lessen the likelihood of timeouts, and you render Fax compatible with more kinds of modems and fax machines.

The downside of the Pre-Build option is that your palmtop's available memory limits the length of the outgoing fax. (When Pre-Build is off, Fax continuously creates the fax image, page by page, as it sends, so that there's no limit to the fax's size.)

Formatting your faxes

You might not think that a piece of software that fits in 57K would permit formatting of the text in your fax, but Fax does. The interface isn't what you'd call elegant--in fact, you must write geeky codes right into the text of your fax--but it can be done. Table 15-1 and Table 15-2 show what you should write to trigger each effect, and Figure 15-8 shows what your Memo Pad might look like with the codes in place. (Note that you can plant these codes not just into your message, but into your headers or footers, too.)

Table 15-1: Codes to Insert Text or Pictures

Code to Insert Text	Action
&SNAME	Inserts your name.
&ID	Inserts your Fax ID.
&SPHONE	Inserts your phone or fax number.
&DNAME	Inserts the recipient's name.
&DOODLE.0 through &DOODLE.9	Inserts a drawing that corresponds to the Doodle drawing program's page. Numbers are offset by one--&DOODLE.0 inserts Doodle page 1.

Table 15-2: Codes to Format Text

Code to Format Text	Action
&<	Aligns the line with the left margin.
&-	Centers the line.
&>	Aligns the line with the right margin.
&s	Uses the standard font.
&b	Uses the bold font.
&l	Uses the enlarged, taller font.
&1 through &5	Specifies the font size. &1 is smallest; &5 is enormous, with letters nearly an inch tall.

Figure 15-8. Here's what a correctly coded Memo Pad page looks like before faxing.

In these codes, capitalization matters. Note that each code begins with an ampersand (&); to make this symbol using Graffiti, tap once and then draw a figure 8.

Each of these codes will be replaced, in the actual fax, with information you enter in the User Settings command (in the Config menu). For example, if you write, "This fax is for &DNAME only," the resulting fax will say, "This fax is for Frank Simcox only" (or whatever the name is).

If you have the graphics program called Doodle installed in your PalmPilot (see Chapter 11, The Secret Multimedia World ), you can go HandFax one better: you can actually insert drawings into your faxes. At the point where you want one of your Doodle drawings to appear, insert the appropriate code.

Each of these codes changes the format of the line of text on which it appears. (In other words, you can vary the type size and alignment only once per line; you can't make just one word of a paragraph boldface.) If you put several conflicting tags in a row (such as the code for the smallest font followed by the code for the largest font), the last one on the line counts.

For still more codes, including those necessary for inserting graphics into your faxes, see the Fax manual (included on the CD-ROM that comes with this book).

TIP: Don't forget that a subscription to PilotMail, described in Chapter 13, automatically gives you fax capabilities. When specifying the "email address" for a message you've written, write the fax number followed by the phrase @fax. Your message will be sent as a fax--the PilotMail server keeps trying until it gets through--and a confirmation message is e-mailed back to your palmtop.

Mobile WinFax

As this book went to press, Symantec Corporation announced that it had begun beta-testing its Mobile WinFax, a Palm faxing program that can send and receive faxes on your palmtop.

The program's cleverest feature is its integration with your Windows PC. In conjunction with its desktop component, Mobile WinFax lets you pull off these stunts:

• Your PC can generate fax images of graphics, cover pages, or documents of any kind--and then store them on your palmtop. (You might prepare, for example, résumés, prices lists, or maps to your office in this way.) Once on the road, you can incorporate these elements into faxes you create on the PalmPilot. If you have a modem attached to your palmtop, you can then send faxes directly from it.

As you might expect, the drawback is memory: each desktop-document page or cover page takes up 70K of RAM on the PalmPilot. (The PalmPilot can send or receive a maximum of 16 pages per fax.)

• Instead of storing images, cover pages, and document pages on your palmtop, you can choose instead to store only a list of them on the PalmPilot. As you write faxes while on the road, you can indicate that you'd like these documents incorporated into the fax.

Then, following a local HotSync (or, if your PC has two modems, even a long-distance modem HotSync), your PC does the actual faxing, sending the indicated documents along for the ride.

• You can incorporate Memo Pad pages into faxes you send directly from the PalmPilot. You can even sign faxes you create on the palmtop, or otherwise mark them up.
• After your PC software has received faxes, they can be sent to your PalmPilot, so that you can study them on the road.
• Your PalmPilot can actually receive faxes. (You must manually tell it when to answer the phone--you can't let it sit on your bureau all night long, collecting one fax after another.) Only a couple square inches of the received document fits on the Palm screen; fortunately, you can scroll around, zoom in or out, and even rotate the image.
• Because Mobile WinFax can both send and receive faxes, you can forward a fax you've received to somebody else (after marking it up, if you desire).

You can find details at http://www.symantec.com/mobile/winfax.

Printing

Most people assume that the PalmPilot can't print directly to a printer. But two shareware programs let you hook up certain kinds of printers directly to the PalmPilot. Both are included on the CD-ROM that comes with this book.

PalmPilot printing isn't nearly as seamless as faxing or beaming, however. The PalmPilot's only port is its HotSync jack (at the bottom of the unit), and its only cable is the HotSync cradle (or HotSync cable). This cradle acts as a serial port; unfortunately, most printers today have parallel ports instead.

If you want to make your PalmPilot access your printer, then, these are your options:

• Use Your PalmPilot's infrared feature. If your printer also has an infrared transceiver, such as those from HP, Canon, or Citizen, this is an ideal setup--just point the palmtop at the printer to create your printout. PalmPrint, described in the next section, does an excellent job of this kind of wireless printing.
• Hope that your printer also has a serial port. Many do, even though they're largely unused.
• Even if your printer has a serial port, it's likely to have the wrong number of pins. The usual printer serial port is a female DB-25 connector, which has two rows of pins (13 and 12 in each row). The end of the HotSync cradle cable is, alas, a DB-9, with 5 and 4 rows of pins, respectively. It's your job to buy the appropriate adapter (from an electronics or computer store)--a DB-9 male to DB-25 male adapter--that lets you connect the HotSync cable to the printer jack.
• If your printer has only a parallel port, no simple adapter will help. You need a more expensive contraption: a serial-to-parallel converter. If you're still interested, visit http://www.stevenscreek.com/pilot/palmprint.shtml for a list of such converters.

Finally, once you've straightened out your cabling problems, there's one more caveat: printing from the PalmPilot involves mucking around in some user-hostile variables, and a great deal of trial-and-error may be involved.

TIP: As laptop owners have long known, there's no particular reason to think of printers when you need hardcopy of something you've written. Instead, consider the fax machine that awaits in virtually every hotel and office in the world.

Suppose you've written notes for an upcoming meeting in your Memo Pad. Instead of fretting about how you're going to print from the PalmPilot, consider faxing that page--using the fax software described earlier in this chapter--to the hotel's front desk, for example.

You'll probably find doing so far faster and easier than hunting down the appropriate printer cables, praying that you locate a serial printer onsite, and fiddling with the settings until you make the printout happen.

PalmPrint

PalmPrint ($40 from http://www.stevenscreek.com) is the unchallenged leader in Palm printing software. More and more third-party Palm programs are equipped with a Print command, which requires PalmPrint to work. Several of the email programs described in Chapter 13 rely on PalmPrint in this way, and PalmPrint itself comes with special, print-enabled versions of the PalmPilot's built-in Mail program (see Chapter 13) and Address Book (see Chapter 4).

After installing PalmPrint and launching it (and writing in your serial number, if you've paid for the shareware), you arrive at a screen like the one shown in Figure 15-9. Now comes the critical part: You must adjust the pop-up menus to correctly match a printer language your printer can accept. This isn't always as straightforward as it seems; the HP setting, for example, may be the correct option for an Epson or Apple printer. Only experimentation, your printer's manual, or your local guru will help you find the correct match.

Figure 15-9. The Printer Type and Baud Rate pop-up menus are all-important in getting printouts from your PalmPilot (left). If you choose to print a Memo Pad page, a list of your Memo Pad contents appears; tap the memo you want (right).

The baud rate pop-up menu is similarly fussy; make sure it matches your printer's baud rate, as indicated by its manual or control panel. Use this same pop-up menu to specify Infrared printing, if that's what you plan to do.

To make a test print, tap Print Clipboard (to print whatever you've most recently copied from a Palm program); Print Memo (to print a page from your Memo Pad--see Figure 15-9); or Print To Do List (to print your entire list of to-dos, including category, notes, priority levels, and due dates (if any).

TIP: Infrared printing is one of the most attractive PalmPrint features, but it can be tricky. Your PalmPilot's batteries should be relatively full--even if they're strong enough to power the palmtop, they may not be strong enough to transmit your printout. The distance is critical, too--between 4 and 20 inches is usually best.

IrPrint

This $25 promising newcomer (http://www.iscomplete.org) communicates exclusively with infrared-equipped printers. In its first release, it prints only from the five built-in Palm programs (Memo Pad, Address Book, Mail, and so on); the program's open architecture holds the potential for other software companies to print-enable their future products, too.

The program offers three ways to print:

• Tap Menu ➝ Record ➝ Print in the specially modified Memo Pad, Address Book, Date Book, or To Do programs that come with IrPrint (see Figure 15-10, at left).
• On IrPrint's main screen (Figure 15-10, right), tap the name of the built-in Palm application from which you want to print. A list appears, showing the names of the individual memos, to-do items, and so on; tap the one you want to print.
• Use the included add-on software AltCtrlHack to make a printout of the current screen image, no matter what software you're using.

Figure 15-10. IrPrint lets you print from specially modified Palm programs (left), or specific records from your existing Palm programs (right).

Beaming

The 1998 PalmPilot model, the Palm III, introduced an ingenious and useful new feature: an infrared transmitter/receiver. Now you can point your palmtop (Palm III or later) at somebody else's--and beam programs or data through the air, from one palmtop into the other. (Previous models equipped with the Palm III upgrade--officially called the "Palm Computing 2MB Upgrade Card," as described in Chapter 18, The Palm Family, Model by Model--are invited to the party, too.)

Right out of the box, the infrared feature means that you can share programs with friends, exchange complete electronic business cards in seconds, send the minutes of the last meeting to everyone present, share your outline for the next presentation, or conveniently back up your painstakingly input data to another PalmPilot. As the Palm III and its descendants become the majority players, beaming will become a standard feature in every piece of Palm software.

What You Can Beam

You can't beam just anything from one PalmPilot to another. For example, you can't beam any of the programs that are built into the ROMs, such as the Address Book or Memo Pad. (Then again, why would you want to?) Nor can you beam data from your Expense or Mail programs.

But you can beam any programs you've installed, as well as data from the other standard Palm programs, as follows. (See "The Beaming Process, Step by Step," later in this chapter, for specific instructions.)

Programs

Here's one of the most exciting possibilities. From now on, the clusters of excited PalmPilot users on trains, in airports, and at computer conventions won't just be talking about the latest shareware programs they've downloaded; now they'll be distributing them.

To beam a program to another PalmPilot, tap Applications ➝ Menu ➝ App ➝ Beam (see Figure 15-11). Also as shown in Figure 15-11, you're now shown a list of every program installed on your PalmPilot. (The padlock icon means "non-beamable," either because the program resides in the palmtop's ROM or because it's a protected commercial program.) Tap the one you want to transmit; then tap Beam.

Figure 15-11. Choose Beam from the App menu (left) to view a list of beamable --and nonbeamable --programs (right).

The Importance of Being BeamBox

You'll fall in love with the ability to beam programs to your friends. And then one day, there you'll be on the Alaskan tundra, sealing the important real estate deal with a native Kwakiutl Indian by offering to beam him your favorite HackMaster module--and it won't work. The program you intend to beam simply won't show up in your list of beamable applications. You'll stand there tapping until you're frozen solid, but the deal will never go through.

If you had read this sidebar, you'd have known that not every Palm application is beamable. HackMaster modules (described in Appendix A, 100 Programs Worth Knowing About) support databases, and other specialized files don't show up in the normal list of applications to beam. In such cases, launch BeamBox, which does show HackMaster files and similar items in a list of items that you can then beam to another PalmPilot.

But BeamBox must be on both PalmPilots for the transfer to work. So how do you get BeamBox onto your friend's PalmPilot? Simple--beam BeamBox to the other PalmPilot, using the normal Beam command on your Applications screen. In other words, BeamBox doesn't require BeamBox to beam itself.

Memo Pad pages

You can beam either a single Memo Pad "page" or all memos in a particular category. To beam one page, bring it up on your screen. Tap Menu ➝ Record ➝ Beam Memo. (See Figure 15-12, right.)

Figure 15-12. In the To Do program, you can beam either one to do task or all to dos in a particular category (left). The Memo Pad can beam either a single page (right) or, in its home-page view, an entire category's worth.

To beam an entire category, tap Done, so that you're viewing your "home page," table-of-contents view. From the Category menu at the upper-right corner of the screen, choose the category whose memos you want to transmit. Tap Menu ➝ Record ➝ Beam Category.

TIP: When you beam a category, all beamed records arrive in the recipient's Unfiled category. To file them en masse, suggest to your recipient the shareware programs Mass Transit (http://www.io.com/~mmoss) or SuperCat (http://www.iscomplete.com).

To Do items

As with the Memo Pad, you can beam either one to-do or an entire category of them. To send just one, tap it, and then choose Beam Item from the Record menu (Figure 15-12, left). To send a whole category-full, switch to that category (from the Category pop-up menu in the upper-right corner of the screen) and then choose Beam from the Record menu.

Date Book appointments

Tap an appointment in the Day View of your Date Book program (see Chapter 4 for details). Use the Beam Event menu in the Record menu to transmit this appointment--a handy way to ensure that all parties due at a meeting have the identical information. (There's no way to beam more than one appointment at a time.)

Address Book entries

You can beam an entire Address Book entry into another PalmPilot, compete with all phone numbers, email addresses, mailing addresses, and everything else. Oh, the joy! Can you imagine a world where everyone carried a PalmPilot? Trade shows would be pure happiness--no more business cards to collect, sort, and painstakingly type into your PC. Can you imagine business meetings? In ten seconds, everyone in the room would have everyone else's contact information safely (and accurately) stored. Even dating would be vastly improved; a blind date would be considered a success only if one party asked for an Address Book beam from the other's PalmPilot.

Because this feature is such a huge time- and headache-saver, you get a choice of three ways to beam address information:

One address

Launch your Address Book. Tap the address you want to beam; from the Record menu, choose Beam Address. (See Figure 15-13, right.)

One address category

To send all addresses in a particular category, you must begin at the home page, table of contents Address Book list (Figure 15-13). Choose the correct category from the upper-right pop-up menu, and then tap Beam Category in the Record menu.

Your business card

The ability to beam your business card quickly and conveniently is among the most successful new features of the Palm III and later models.

Before you can make it work, however, you must teach the PalmPilot which Address Book entry is your business card. That entails creating a record for yourself, filling it in accurately, and then choosing Select Business Card from the Record menu (see Figure 15-13, right).

After you've designated that address to be your business card, you'll see a tiny icon above your name (see Figure 15-14, right).

Beaming your business card is simple, thanks to a striking new interface feature: hold down the Address Book plastic button for two seconds. (Sure, you could choose Beam Business Card from the Record menu instead, but who's got the time?)

Figure 15-13. From the Address Book master list (left), you can beam an entire category's worth of addresses. You can also beam just one person's information by opening it (right) and using the Beam Address command.

Figure 15-14. Open the Address Book entry that contains your information. From the Record menu, choose Select Business Card (see Figure 15-13, right). The message shown here at left appears; tap Yes. From now on, a special icon appears on your own Address Book entry (right), to the right of the "Address View" label. You've just set up your electronic business card.

TIP: If you do a lot of beaming, the Preferences screen offers a handy shortcut.

In Chapter 2, Setup and Guided Tour, you may have read about the Ronomatic stroke, the PalmPilot's giant vertical penstroke shortcut, in which you drag your stylus straight up the entire glass surface of the palmtop. This gesture can trigger your choice of action: Turning on the backlight, displaying a Graffiti cheat sheet, and so on. On the Palm III and later models, this gesture can also mean: "Beam the currently selected memo, address, appointment, or to-do--without making me tap menus."

To set this up, tap Applications ➝ Preferences ➝ Buttons ➝ Pen ➝ Beam Data.

For safety's sake, this penstroke never beams an entire category of data; for that feature, you must still use menu commands.

The Beaming Process, Step by Step

The procedure for beaming is almost always the same. (In the following steps, Frank is the person you're beaming to.)

1. You and Frank place the top ends of your PalmPilots between 2 and 20 inches from each other, head-to-head, level with each other. (If the PalmPilots are too close, you'll get a "Beam interrupted" message. That's good to remember when troubleshooting -- more infrared beams fail because the PalmPilots are too close than too far.) If you inspect the top edge of your palmtop, you'll see the tiny, dark-red plastic cover of the infrared transmitter. That's where the signals enter and exit. (On an upgraded Pilot, WorkPad, or PalmPilot model, the transmitter is on the underside of the Pilot instead--it's the little bulge on your memory-slot door.)
2. Choose the Beam command from the appropriate program. (See "What You Can Beam," earlier in this chapter.)
3. Your screen says "Searching," and then "Sending"; Frank's says "Preparing," then "Waiting for Sender," and finally "Receiving" (plus the name of whatever you're sending). When this actual transmission begins, Frank's PalmPilot makes a beep; when the transmission is finished, it beeps an octave lower.

Frank's palmtop is smart enough to identify what kind of data it's just received. It knows which Palm program this new data belongs in. The PalmPilot asks him: "Do you want to accept `New Data' (or whatever you've just beamed) into (whatever program it belongs in)?" (For example, if you've just beamed your business card, Frank is asked if he wants your name entered into the Address Book program.)

Frank can tap Yes or (if he's paranoid) No.

From now on, the beamed data is safely duplicated on the second PalmPilot, indistinguishable from data that was handwritten--or HotSynced--into it.

TIP: Being able to get unsolicited beams from others is an extremely cool feature, but some people may consider it a bit creepy. After all, who knows what kind of grisly data is being rammed down your palmtop's throat? Sure, you're always asked to confirm that you want the data--but only after it's been beamed to you.

If paranoia is taking the fun out of the PalmPilot for you, tap Applications ➝ Prefs, and (from the upper-right pop-up menu) choose General. At the bottom of the screen, you'll see the choice for Beam Receive--On or Off. Switch it off; you've just disabled your ability to receive beams at all.

Other Uses for the Infrared Port

Beaming Palm data between palmtops is only one way to use the IR transceiver on Palm III and later models. Enterprising Piloteers have come up with an astounding assortment of other uses for this jack, listed in the following sections.

Communicating with your desktop PC

As described in Chapter 6, you can HotSync an infrared-equipped laptop or desktop PC with your PalmPilot by IR -- no cable or cradle needed. IR Sync (http://www.iscomplete.com) software offers this feature; IBM WorkPads come with a similar program; and IR syncing software is included free with the MacPac (see Chapter 9, Palm Desktop: Macintosh).

TIP: If infrared HotSyncing to your infrared-equipped PC is your goal, Palm Computing offers a free solution: the Enhanced Infrared Update. (It's available from http://www.palm.com/custsupp/downloads/irenhanc.html.)

Technically, this patch lets your palmtop speak the IrCOMM protocol, a special dialect of the IrDA language. Not only does it make IR HotSyncing possible, but it's also a necessary patch to let your palmtop communicate with Ericcson cell phones (the software described later is also required).

Communicating with your cell phone

With the right software, you can harness the power of your Address Book to dial your infrared-equipped cell phone, such as the Ericsson SH888, 600/700 series, or the Nokia 8810. Some of the programs in this category include HandPhone (http://www.smartcode.com), IrLink (http://www.iscomplete.org), and the shareware D127 Infrared Dialer (http://home.t-online.de/hom/Martin/Renschler).

Communicating with your pager

BeamLink, described earlier this chapter, lets you send and receive text messages--even email--from your two-way, infrared-equipped pager.

Communicating with your printer

Earlier in this chapter, you'll find descriptions of programs that let you print simply by pointing your PalmPilot at any infrared-equipped printer, such as those from HP, Canon, Citizen, and Seiko.

Communicating with your boss

Imagine having an interactive whiteboard in your hand. You could sketch or type messages, product designs, or maps to the airport--any of which show up an instant later on a neighboring PalmPilot, thanks to an infrared transmission. That's exactly the idea behind IRP2PChat (http://www.iscomplete.org), shown in Figure 15-15.

Figure 15-15. Using IRP2PChat (short for "infrared PalmPilot-to-PalmPilot chat"), you can collaborate on drawings (left) or carry on silent conversations (right) via infrared with another PalmPilot.

Communicating with your TV

The thought of turning the PalmPilot into a TV remote control must have occurred to almost every owner at one time or another. But Pacific Neo-Tek (http://www.pacificneotek.com) has actually done it. OmniRemote ($20) lets you draw buttons onto the screen of the size and location you prefer (see Figure 15-16). You train each button by pointing your existing TV remote control at the PalmPilot. When you're finished, you can actually control your home entertainment system by tapping virtual buttons on your Palm screen. You can also remap the six plastic hardware buttons at the bottom of the palmtop--you could define the scroll buttons to adjust the volume up or down, the outer application buttons to adjust the channels, and so on.

Figure 15-16. OmniRemote (left) lets you control your entertainment system using your PalmPilot; you can design your remote control as you see fit (middle). The similar PalmRemote (right) is better looking, but hampered by its not-quite-English documentation.

Using the standard Category pop-up menu, you switch among button layouts for up to 15 different appliances--VCR, DVD player, TV, and so on. You can also create macros--buttons that, when tapped, trigger longer sequences of commands. For example, one button could power up three different devices, flip the sound system into Dolby mode, and start the DVD player playing. A timer feature can trigger buttons or macros at appointed times, turning on the palmtop and issuing commands to your entertainment system. (This assumes that you've left the PalmPilot within range of the TV, and no dog, cat, or family member has bumped it while walking by.)

OmniRemote users quickly discover the limits of infrared technology. The range of your PalmPilot's infrared signal can very wildly, from two feet to 25 -- but it's usually on the short side. The strength of signal, from weakest to strongest, comes from these sources:

Any PalmPilot with weak batteries

As noted earlier in this chapter, your infrared circuitry is the first to die when battery juice is low. Just because there's enough power to keep your palmtop humming doesn't mean there's enough to power the IR feature.

Palm III and family

This original incarnation of the infrared transceiver is the weakest of all. You may need to sit close to your entertainment system--or buy the OmniRemote Module, described below.

Palm V, Palm VII

The infrared technology on these models is stronger than the III family.

An upgraded Pilot or PalmPilot model

If you bought the upgrade card for these older models (described in Chapter 18), you have the most powerful built-in infrared of all. For some reason, the upgrade card's signal is far stronger than the built-in signal of more recent models.

Any PalmPilot with the OmniRemote Module

The OmniRemote Module is a tiny ($20) gadget that clips onto the HotSync jack of any PalmPilot model except the Palm V. This transmitter is four times stronger than the built-in Palm III transmitter, ensuring problem-free channel surfing for the devoted couch potato. Because the module requires that you point the bottom of the PalmPilot at your TV, a handy Flip command in OmniRemote turns the entire button display upside-down on the screen, so that the controls remain right-side up in your hand.

TIP: OmniRemote is the most famous Palm remote-control program, but it isn't the only one. PalmRemote ($20) is not only better-looking (see Figure 15-16), but offers predefined remote settings for popular brands of equipment, saving you the trouble of training individual buttons. PalmRemote's primary obstacle to attaining remote-control celebrity is the roughness of its translation from Japanese (both the manual and text in the software itself)--and the fact that it's not trainable. (The web site is http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA005810/remocon/premocce.htm.)

The Great PalmPilot Car-Unlocking Myth

When USA Today first published the article in 1998, a buzz went through the PalmPilot community: could it really be true that thieves were using the palmtop's infrared transceiver, in conjunction with a trainable IR program like OmniRemote, to unlock and steal parked cars?

As delicious as the rumor sounded, it turned out not to be true. Most American cars' keyless transmitters use radio signals, not infrared. The few models that use infrared transmitters rely on code jumping, in which the infrared signal needed to unlock the door changes every time you do it.

Then there's the small problem of training the PalmPilot--you would have to have the car's original keyless transmitter to train your PalmPilot to begin with. And if you had the original key, why would you bother with the PalmPilot?

In short, the rumor proved to be just a rumor--not a single case of a PalmPilot unlocking a car has ever been reported.

Beaming Ear to Ear

Despite all this talk of cell phones, pagers, and remote controls, one of the most satisfying uses of the PalmPilot's beaming feature is IR games. There's no more natural, entertaining way to kill time on a plane, train, or automobile ride than playing Battleship with the passenger in the seat in front of you. You watch only your screen, she watches only her screen; and yet, as each move you make is transmitted by infrared into the opponent's palmtop, you both feel the rush of participating in something communal.

Figure 15-17. Games like Battleship (left) and Chess (right) make some of the best use of the PalmPilot's IR features.

The Secret Infrared "Dot Commands"

You can read about the PalmPilot's secret dot commands in Chapter 17, Troubleshooting; in short, they're undocumented commands that perform sometimes useful, sometimes pointless functions.

When it comes to beaming, three dot commands may all be useful under certain circumstances. To invoke one, start by drawing the ShortCut symbol. (See Chapter 3 for details on using ShortCuts; the symbol looks like a loop, a lowercase cursive L, as shown on the table inside this book's covers.)

Follow the ShortCut loop with a period (a double tap) in the Graffiti writing area, and then write one of these letters:

I

This magic stroke permits your PalmPilot to receive one beam, one time -- even if you've turned off the Beam Receive feature. Suppose, for example, that you've heard that leaving your Beam Receive checkbox turned on drains your battery slightly faster than when Beam Receive is turned off. (That's true, by the way.) Terrified, you've tapped Applications ➝ Prefs, chosen General from the upper-right pop-up menu, and turned off Beam Receive. But now somebody wants to beam you! Smiling confidently, you write this dot command. Your PalmPilot instantly displays the "Waiting for Sender" message, opening a very temporary (five-second) window of beaming opportunity. If no beam arrives from another PalmPilot, the message disappears from your screen, and you're once again incapable of receiving beams.

S

When you write the S, the period and shortcut symbol you've just drawn disappear. From now on, any beams you generate aren't sent through the infrared lens. Instead, they're sent to a serial cable (such as the Palm HotSync cable, described in Appendix B) that you've used to connect your HotSync jack with another computer. A programmer might use this feature, for example, to capture IR-sent data to a Mac or PC that's running a communications program. (To return to normal infrared beaming, make this shortcut a second time. And don't forget to do so; otherwise, next time you HotSync, your palmtop will insist that its HotSync port is "in use by another application." A soft reset, described in Chapter 17, will also cure this condition.)

T

This dot command turns on Beam-to-Yourself mode. (When you make the T, your shortcut symbol and period disappear; that's the only confirmation you get.) Now you can play infrared games against yourself, send addresses and memos to yourself, and otherwise experiment with beaming single-handedly. You get to see all the usual symptoms of beaming--both sending and receiving--but you don't need a playmate. Among other things, this mode is useful for taking screenshots of infrared-savvy software in action (for the purposes of, say, writing a PalmPilot book chapter about beaming).

At http://www.iscomplete.org, and on this book's CD, you'll find a complete line of interactive, two-person, infrared games, such as IRChess, IRBattleship, IRHangman, IRGin (card game), IRCheckers, IROthello, IRConnect, and others (see Figure 15-17). As PalmPilots appear in ever more corporate pockets, more and more people in meetings will be forced to wonder: are those two guys across the table diligently taking notes -- or blowing up each others' submarines?

Executive Tip Summary

• Don't let conventional wisdom get you down. The PalmPilot can indeed receive pages, send faxes, make printouts, and transmit information wirelessly.
• Your paging options are a PageMart card (which replaces the memory card door on a Pilot, PalmPilot, or original WorkPad model), which can receive pages; or a OneTouch cable/software kit that lets your PalmPilot plug into your existing beeper. Need your PalmPilot to vibrate instead of beep? Get a TaleVibes doodad that plugs into your PalmPilot's HotSync jack.
• You can print from the PalmPilot. You may have better luck, however, by getting into the habit of faxing yourself whenever you need a hardcopy--fax software for the PalmPilot is sure-fire and cable-free (although it requires a modem).
• If you do much beaming, consider changing the Prefs/Buttons application so that a penstroke up the face of the PalmPilot begins a beam (instead of, for example, summoning the Graffiti cheat sheet).

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