TealScript from TealPoint Software
TealScript is a tool that tunes your Palm device's ability to recognize Graffiti strokes. The idea is that Graffiti can handle most of your strokes quite easily. But there are a few you can never get it to recognize. Using TealScript, you can go in and "train" Graffiti to understand your specific strokes. The training process can be a bit tedious, but this is certainly one way to reduce the Graffiti-blues.

Jot from Communication Intelligence
Jot goes about handwriting recognition in a completely different way. Jot pretty-much recognizes your natural alphabet and numeric strokes, without learning a specific Graffiti-like language. It also allows you to write anywhere on the screen. You write mostly in lower-case letters, writing "a", instead of "A", and so forth. We found this variant on handwriting recognition quite effective, but got a bit confused because there are non-standard writing styles for "t" and "f".

Most essential to putting out PalmPower
Every month we crank out another issue of this glorious magazine. Because PalmPower is about the Palm device, we find ourselves having to integrate the publications production process with the handheld device. Two products have proven themselves invaluable for managing that process and deserve Editors' Choice recognition.

Launch 'em from Synergy Solutions
Launch 'em is a launcher replacement for the Palm computer. Prior to upgrading to Palm OS 3.0, Launch 'em, with it's category feature, was the only way we were able to keep track of all the applications we'd load each issue onto our Palm devices. When PalmOS 3.0 came out, the built-in launcher had categories. But because Launch 'em, now in version 1.5, offers a bunch of other features, it is still indispensable. Our favorite feature is the ability to add plug-ins to Launch 'em.

We regularly use two such plug-ins: the trash can plug-in to delete applications we're done torture-testing, and the GetInfo plug-in to get quick application information. The other two features of Launch 'em that separate it from the built-in launcher are the ability to drag and drop applications between tabs (i.e., categories), and the ability to password lock categories (so we don't take the chance of zorching the stuff we're not testing).

TealPaint from TealPoint Software
Back for a second appearance in our Editors' Choice Awards, TealPoint has a product that was, literally, a godsend to us. When we first started the publication, we went crazy trying to find a way to capture screenshots. We could use the CoPilot simulators, and then do a PC screen capture, but that was tedious and didn't reflect our real-world use of the Palm device. Or we could (and this was actually suggested), put the Palm computer on a scanner and scan in the screen. Sheesh!

And then we discovered TealPaint. TealPaint runs on the Palm device and allows you to set a capture interval. Tell it to capture, go to the screen you want to capture, wait a few seconds, and voila! Your screen is now captured and is part of a named database. On the next HotSync, the database is uploaded to the PC and there's a TealPaint Manager program that scans the image database and lets you export each image to .BMP files. TealPaint is also a complete, fully-function bitmap painting program, for those of you creating your own images.