FindHack
Using the built-in Find function (accessed by pressing the Find silkscreen button), the PalmPilot allows you to search your PalmPilot for text. However, for some reason, the built-in function doesn't allow you to find embedded text. For example, using the built-in Find feature and searching for "smi" will find the word "Smith" or "Smithsonian", but will not find "blacksmith". FindHack was originally written to address this shortcoming, and has since been extended to include quite a few other features. Not only does FindHack allow you to find embedded text, it also gives you the option to search in All Applications, just the Built-In applications, or just the currently active application. Figure B shows the standard FindHack box (which is brought up when you tap the silkscreen Find button once the Hack has been activated).

FIGURE B

FindHack allows you to select quite a few options when you perform a find.

With FindHack, you can also set up a list of preferred searches (set in the Configuration options of FindHack). This allows you to set up permanently stored searches that will be available in the pop-up box next to the Find text line. This pop-up also contains up to the last six previously search text strings.

TealGlance
This is one of my favorite Hacks, and its features are too numerous to completely list here. In a nutshell, TealGlance allows you to see at a glance your current DateBook and To Do List entries. It also displays a clock, date and day of the week, and allows you to automatically turn on/off the backlight at power-up. TealGlance is an excellent way to quickly keep track of your current appointments and commitments.

SelectHack
SelectHack comes in handy if you do a lot of editing on your PalmPilot. With SelectHack active, tapping twice on a word selects that word and tapping three times will select the entire paragraph. In the Configuration screen of SelectHack, you can enable Smart Select, which will try to select an adjacent space, so that if you delete the word you won't have that extra space. Also, you can select the speed at which SelectHack looks for double/triple taps. If you are using other applications that look for this double tap (most notably QuickText from Landware), then you might want to adjust this select speed.

Battery Monitor
A fairly new Hack, Battery Monitor actually consists of an application and a Hack. Using this combination, you can monitor the exact amount of time that your PalmPilot is turned on, as well as the last time you changed batteries, how long you've had the serial port open, how long you've used the backlighting, and (if you've got EcoHack installed) how long you've had EcoHack enabled (more on EcoHack below). Battery Monitor also includes an Oracle, which will attempt to predict the next time you'll need to change your batteries.

Honorable mentions
While not used on my PalmPilot currently, there are some other great Hacks that warrant mention when talking about some of the more popular hacks available. TealEcho echoes Graffiti strokes to the screen as you make them. EcoHack allows you to speed up/slow down your PalmPilot. AppHack allows you to map up to 24 different applications to the hardware buttons (who needs an app launcher?). MenuHack allows you to drop down the menus without pressing the Menu button, and finally CorrectHack allows you to set up lists of common mis-spellings (or abbreviations) to be automatically corrected/substituted as you "type."