Every day, we get mail from our readers. Most letters are posted in the daily Reader Mail pages, reachable from the "PalmPower News Center". But there are some letters that we think would be better served in a monthly letters to the editor column. This month: more on shopping lists and extending the built-in applications.

More on Shopping Lists
Denise Amrich's Editorial Note in the "Shopping with your PalmPilot" article I wrote talks about another "strategy" for using the built-in To Do list to keep your shopping list. I'd just like to point out that while this will certainly work, you need to be aware that if you keep the "items checked by default" then you'll be losing your list if you ever do a Purge (located in the Record Menu) in the To Do list. Unfortunately, there's really no way to purge completed To Do items by category, so the only work-around to this is to un-check all the shopping items BEFORE you do your purge, then re-check all the items when its completed.

Why would you want to purge completed items? Well, you really don't need to, especially if you don't use your ToDo list application very much. However, if you do use it quite a bit, you'll start to see a noticeable slow-down after you've been checking items off for a few months. This is because the application still has to read all of the items in the list, even the checked off ones (which don't show if you've turned that option off, of course). I personally use my ToDo list quite a bit, and try to purge completed items once every month or two.

Hope this helps.

Calvin
calvin@myself.com
http://www.pilotfaq.com

Not satisfied with built-in applications
I'm not very satisfied with some of the software that came in my PalmPilot (like the Memo Pad). I know I can install alternative software but I can't get rid of the original and/or make the other existant software interact with the new ones. Any suggestions?

Bob Harris

Calvin responds
Sorry, but you can't delete any of the "built-in" applications. They exist in the PalmPilot's Read Only Memory (or ROM). As the name implies, programs stored in this area of memory can only be read and not written to, or as you suggest, deleted.

You CAN however install a replacement (such as MemoPlus) and then go to preferences/buttons to assign the MemoPad button to that application.

Calvin
calvin@myself.com
http://www.pilotfaq.com