A note for the advanced Macintosh user: Palm Buddy is also AppleScript compatible, allowing you to easily automate frequent tasks such as weekly backups or installing downloaded files found in a specific folder through out the day. The possibilities with integrating your AppleScripts with Palm Buddy are only limited by your needs and knowledge of AppleScript. [It's about time we saw this kind of automation in handheld links and we applaud it here! -- DG]

Installing a new application
If you're like me, when you download a new PalmPilot application, you want to see what it does and how it works as soon as possible. Palm Buddy delivers this service in a snap; just point, click,drag and drop the .PRC or .PDB files from your desktop into Palm Buddy's window. The installation process completes practically before it begins (or it seems so when in contrast to the standard InstallApp).

Translate on the sync
Here's a slick feature. Palm Buddy provides on-demand translation and installation of TEXT files to DOC files through an innovative plug-in architecture. Simply create a TEXT file in any word processing program on your desktop and drag and drop it into Palm Buddy's window. Palm Buddy will translate the file into a format popular DOC readers, like AportisDoc or TealDoc, can display.

In conclusion
Palm Buddy offers a flexible plug-in architecture. The product's ability to perform fast and simple PalmPilot backups and installations is bundled in the familiar Macintosh environment. Palm Buddy proves the Macintosh is still the easiest and most robust platform for the Palm organizer.

That said, Palm Buddy doesn't completely replace the standard PalmPilot Desktop software for the Macintosh. It also creates a little confusion with some desktop conduit-like applications that looks for database files located in the standard Palm Desktop Backup folder. Since the Palm Buddy Backup folder is saved where you designate, with the filename you choose, the appropriate database files may not be found by the conduit-like program. You will need to copy and replace those files into the Palm Desktop standard Backup folder in order to properly access them.

According to creator Florent Pillet, one other current limitation is it's inability to completely restore your Palm Buddy backup files by dragging and dropping the entire Palm Buddy Backup folder into the Palm Buddy window. This will be addressed in a future release.

Fredlet's Palm Buddy review
I've been employed in a few industries in my life and all of the job descriptions have had one thing in common: I'm paid to be paranoid. (But come to think of it, all job descriptions boil down to that.) So naturally it becomes a built-in feature of my mind. That's me: Fredlet the paranoid.

So why should the process of backing up my Palm computer be any different? Yes, my addresses, memos, to-do items and calendar items are backed up when I HotSync. To some extent, my databases are also backed up the same way. However, I still expect to lose a bit of stuff if my PalmPilot ever goes crazy-ape-bonkers and decides to just have a complete purge. There's really not much I can do about that -- except use Palm Buddy for the Macintosh to prevent total loss. Boasting an impressive array of features, Palm Buddy lets you back up all the files on you PalmPilot rather than just archiving certain files at HotSync. Even if it isn't a replacement for the Desktop software, this is $20 well spent toward maintaining your information on your Palm device.