While many may think these devices are only able to keep track of appointments and contact information, readers of PalmPower know better. With up to two megabytes of memory (or more with hardware add-ons) and a updated 68K processor, the Palm connected organizer is much more powerful than the original Macintosh, yet it fits in a shirt pocket and weighs less than six ounces. A tool of this power and portability makes it possible for people to access huge amounts of information at all times.

AvantGo is a tool that downloads Web pages (more precisely, HTML-based data) and lets you browse them offline on your Palm device. In this article, we'll help you optimize your Web site so it'll work best with the AvantGo application.

While re-purposing HTML data from a public Web site is the most obvious practice (as, for example, NEWS.COM has done with their information), there are Intranet and corporate applications of this technology as well.

For example, your sales force can benefit from synchronizing the latest customer service logs before important customer meetings. Your field service reps benefit from having point-to-point maps to the day's maintenance routes the morning of the deliveries. Your executive team benefits from having state-of-the-company reports at their fingertips, at any time during the day. And your customers benefit from obtaining up-to-date news and information about your company, its products, and its competitors.

But developing effective interactive applications (whether for public Web sites or private Intranets) for use on handheld devices requires some thoughtful planning. The following tips can help you optimize your HTML applications for small screen Palm devices.

Choose content carefully
When deciding what information to store on handheld devices, choose only that which is most essential. In general, this means information that a user will access regularly or will urgently require in certain situations. Of course, different readers have different needs, so you'll want to keep your audience in mind. Customize the content specifically for the target user and target only the information important to that user.