Ronda, Spain, Spanish, Themes, and Everything Else

Learning a new language is a whole lot easier when you have a PDA and you download dictionaries onto it.

I came across this little gem while Googling for language software for my Palm z22. Six in one includes English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Turkish and works exceptionally well for what it does.

As you can see from the screenshot SixinOne finds the translated word for every language and displays them on screen together. Please don't ask me why I found 'full moon', but if you're a hopeless romantic I suppose its a useful phrase to have.

Even though the number of words is limited to only 6620 words in every language, it still came in handy while we were out in the car. Practicing a foreign language when you don't have your language books handy can be frustrating, but with Sixinone and my Palm z22...

I've been a bit busy with the serendipity theme contest recently, which might not sound like much of a problem using my Palm z22, but it brought home to me how dependent I am on the memo function, and also why I desperately needed to do something about getting quick access to memo.

Because the z22 is a budget pda, Palm have only provided quick access with two keys, but if like me you use them both, then you're stuck if you also want quick access to other funcions. I like having my calendar and contacts as quick access keys, and would hate to change these.

Luckily I discovered a nifty little program that gives me quick access using the 5way keys. ButtonsEx from Freeware Palm has literally made a very positive difference to the way I'm able to use my z22. Budget pda - no way, not anymore, now I have the screenshot program, memo and clock all configured by pressing and holding down my 5way.

While playing around with my Palm z22 I installed the eReader software that comes on the CD-Rom. Once its installed clicking the icon shows the list of books installed, and I was a little disappointed to find only one book, the Miriam Webster dictionary. I realised fairly quickly that Palm probably makes other titles available from their own website, but most are not free. Googling for Palm ebooks brought me to the following free ebook sites, MemoWare and Manybooks. The rest of the search results seemed to simply link to each other and back to advertisers, or back to commercial bookstores who charge a couple of dollars to download some of the same books available for free on memoware and manybooks.

So this is a request to anyone who uses their Palm z22 for reading ebooks, do you know of any other free sites where I can download eReader books, or any other format, that will work on the Palm z22. I don't know whether these are still copyright or not, but I do remember as a boy reading EE Doc Smith's Lensman series and I would love to get hold of these if they're available.

The other day I received an email from a lady who works from home selling cosmetics and taking scrapbooking classes, and who also has a Palm z22.

Interestingly Patty uses her z22 to maintain a customer database using the contacts program, she tracks sales by using the expenses program, and organises her deliveries and meetings with the calendar program.

She wrote that she has her contacts grouped using categories, but is now using the custom fields to remember what level her downline members have reached.

Also, who would think of using the expenses program to track sales. It makes sense though, after all, apart from the name of the program what is the difference between an expense and income.

These are great ideas for anyone running a home-based business. No more diaries or loose pieces of paper cluttering up your product display cases or handbag.

In a previous post I talked about how easy it is to remember birthdays using the Palm z22. Then I got to thinking, if a loved one happens to mention something that could make a great birthday gift, how do I use my z22 as a gift memory jogger.

And then it hit me, there are two methods I could use. The first is easy, simply attach a note to the contact. But, this method suffers in that if I have long notes about my contact, I would have to read everything to find my gift idea.

The second approach would be better, and this involves renaming one of the custom fields so it reads 'gift idea'. Renamig a custom field is easy, just goto options in the menu, select rename custom field, and overwrite the existing field name.

Now all I have to do is complete this field when they mention something, or if I'm out and notice something I think would be perfect.

Keeping track of birthdays is usually something I struggle with, often only remembering the dates that have some personal meaning for me.

However, by using my Palm z22 to list my contacts (and their birthdays) I can now receive a warning 7 days in advance, enough time to organise a card. For special occasions, like wedding anniversaries, I can set this to several weeks notice, allowing plenty of time to book a table at our favourite restaurant.

The screenshot shows the calendar view of a particular day. The birthday cake icon to the left of William's name tells me it is his birthday, and clicking the 'Go To' icon takes me straight back to his details in my contacts.

Within the contacts program simply scroll down to the birthday box, click the date which opens a calendar, and add the correct date. To change the year, simply click down on the left arrow until their year of birth is highlighted.

Did some hunting around the web for forums or help pages about the Palm z22, found a few, and then started to get a little annoyed with the overall tone of a lot of those people. Those of us who don't require the very latest gadget, and who don't feel an urge to push our z22 to the very limits could be forgiven for thinking our favourite gadget has some serious flaws. Pity the poor soul wanting to buy one who reads these forum posts and then blows their budget buying a pda that won't do any more for them.

One of the comments I read, which I won't link to because of its language content, seems to imply the Palm z22 has terrible battery life. Nothing could be further from the truth. Read this review for some benchmarks on the battery use. Note the author's comment that under normal use our little gadget could reliably run for many weeks without a charge.

More significantly though, the little Palm z22 doesn't lose any of its memory or settings if the battery does go flat. That is a real selling feature for me. I would not want to lose all my contacts or calendar entries because I forget to charge the battery.

Lastly, if like me you hotsync your z22 with your pc, did you know your battery is automatically trickle charged in the process? See the little lightning indicator at the top of the screenshot, the one sitting over the battery, that shows my battery is being charged.

Blogging with my palm z22 has made such an incredible difference to my life. To be able to type a blog entry whenever I get a spare few moments makes life more enjoyable.

If you would also like to use your z22 in the same way, here's how;

Open a new memo, and type/write your entry. Once your entry is complete, hotsync with your desktop, then simply click the memo icon in the 'Palm Desktop'. Now click or double click your new entry and copy [Ctrl-C] the contents to your clipboard.

I use serendipity blog so I just need to login to my administration suite, cleck a new entry, and paste the article I wrote on the z22. This very article was written following these steps.