Why does such a thing exist?
The thing about gadgets is that most of them only do one or two things. If you need a lot of solutions, you may end up finding yourself weighed down with a lot of gadgets. If you're one of those people with a cell phone, a beeper, a laptop, and a Palm device, you clearly know what I mean. Sometimes, it seems that the busier a person is, the more time-saving, space-demanding gadgets he ends up carrying around. Perhaps you've thought of buying a little tape recorder to carry around with you, to help you keep track of thoughts you have when it isn't convenient or safe to jot them down (such as when you're driving a car).

People with long commutes or just a desire to get ideas down immediately tend to gravitate to voice recorders in order to capture their thoughts. [I know a lot of songwriters who keep one by their beds so they don't lose that great song idea that inevitably shows up right before they drift off to dreamland. --DA]

Many Windows CE devices feature voice recording options, though to me that's a high price to pay (both financially and in frustration) for just a voice recorder.

Seeing as how millions of people now carry Palm devices, someone came up with the idea of combining a voice recorder with a Palm device. It's called the goVox Digital Recorder, shown in Figure A. The goVox Digital Recorder adds voice memo recording capability to the Palm III series of organizers by replacing the flip-cover with a stand-alone voice recorder.

FIGURE A


You'll flip your lid over the goVox! Roll over picture for a larger image.

You can record up to eight minutes of sound, or split that into a maximum of 99 messages.

Easy operation
Operating the goVox is simple: press the Rec button to record, which activates a flashing red light to indicate that it's running. Push Rec again to stop. The Play button plays the last message recorded, or you can skip between existing messages by pressing the forward and backward buttons. The Del button deletes a message. The goVox uses two lithium button cells, which are included. Landware has even added a Graffiti reference to the underside of the lid.

Downsides
The goVox only has a couple of downsides, as far as I can tell. It will add a bit of weight to your Palm device, since even miniaturized circuits and batteries still have mass. And there's no way to control the volume of playback. Putting a thumb over the speaker grille helps, but the sound still comes through the plastic shell.