Want to create your own text files formatted for Aportis Doc?
Then you will need the appropriate Windows or Mac flavor of the MakeDoc utility.You can get this program on the Aportis Com site at http://www.aportis.com/resources/makedocutilities.html.

FIGURE A

Aportis Doc let's me carry an entire novel around on my PalmPilot and still have room.

LaunchPad
This program will probably make its way onto almost everybody's PalmPilot eventually. I resisted it for quite a while. I thought that the folks at 3Com had done a wonderful job of enabling me to access my programs in user-friendly way. But once I saw how easily LaunchPad would let me organize my PalmPilot menu screen into several screens with groups of related applications, I was hooked. When you start using LaunchPad you begin with applications, games, and utility windows, as shown in Figure B, and you can add your more categories. This program turned a good a good user interface into a great user interface. And it is available in Dutch and Hungarian!

FIGURE B

Here's my PalmPilot organized with LaunchPad.

Image Viewer
This program allows you to carry bitmapped images (or as the non-computer world calls them, pictures) on your PalmPilot. This is remarkably handy for carrying around maps, pictures of your loved ones and or any of the growing collection of ImageViewer format files available. For a particulary enlightening and well-written review [if he does say so himself! --DG] of this program see my article ("Displaying pictures on your PalmPilot") in the February issue of PalmPower. For more information on this program which allows you to carry bitmapped images (pictures on your PalmPilot).

DinkyPad
No matter how good you get at Graffiti, the handwriting input system the PalmPilot implements brilliantly, you will still want to be able to jot down a quick note and a drawing from time to time. You will need a drawing program in your PalmPilot arsenal. In fact, it is surprising that this particular piece of software was not built into the operating system. The choice between DinkyPad and TealPaint for a drawing program is a difficult one to make. There are good reasons for having both, but if I could only load one I would choose DinkyPad. TealPaint has the more sophisticated set of drawing tools and a wonderful screen capture utility, (see "Capturing PalmPilot screenshots" in the PalmPower February 1998 issue), but DinkyPad has one important feature I frequently use: a space at the bottom of a drawing to transcribe into Graffiti whatever garbled message or phone number I have written. Yes, TealPaint does have a spot in its menu for adding notes, but DinkyPad lets me do this without switching back and forth between screens. And besides, Doc and DinkyPad were the first two add on applications I installed in my early days of PalmPiloteering (early Fall 1997), so I have a certain nostalgia for it. If you are going to need the ability to do screen captures of PalmPilot applications for writing or training however, the screen capture utility of TealPaint is a wonderfully easy solution.