By the way, Palm Computing has pre-loaded three very useful shortcuts into your Palm device. If you're writing something that you'd like to be time-stamped, the shortcut is lts. If you'd like something date-stamped, the shortcut is lds. And, if you'd like something time- and date-stamped, the shortcut is ldts.

May I beam you my card?
You don't need to open your manual to realize that at the top of your of your Palm device is a beaming window, which can be used to beam data to any other Palm device that has a beaming window. Older Palm devices, prior to the Palm III, don't have a beaming window unless a special upgrade has been installed. What you may not be aware of, however, is the business card feature and the one-step process for beaming it.

What you'll first need to do is create an entry for yourself in the address book. Bear in mind that if you already have an entry for yourself that has personal information that you don't want to share with the world, you'll need to create a new, second entry for yourself with the same information that's on your business card. You'll now select the menu button (the lower left silkscreen button), and from there you should choose Select Business Card. This will designate the current address book entry as your business card. You should notice you now have a picture of a Rolodex-type card above your name.

Okay, so now you're at a convention and someone who also has a Palm organizer asks for your business card. All you need to do is point the two Palm devices at each other (about one foot apart, beaming windows facing each other) and hold down the plastic address book button (the plastic button with the telephone on it) for three seconds. Voila! You've just beamed your business card to the other person's Palm device.

Seize the day!
There's an expression, Carpe Diem...seize the day. And that's exactly how I'd sum up the application Action Names. Action Names, by Iambic Software (which you can find at http://www.iambic.com/), really allows you to take control of your days. When I started using my Palm device a couple of years ago, one thing I missed from a paper-type planner was the ability to view datebook activities and to-dos at the same time.

Action Names, among the many other things it does, solves that problem by creating a split screen that allows you to view datebook activities on the top half of the screen and to-dos on the bottom. The screen's fully active, allowing you to edit or delete. Creating a new entry, whether a datebook activity or a to-do activity, is a snap.

There are a few different options for the weekly view with Action Names. The one I generally use allows you to see not only the date and time of an entry, but a description as well. There's a two-week view, a couple of monthly views, and, for long-range planning, a quarterly view. The quarterly view uses 75 percent of the screen to show you three months, and the other 25 percent of the screen to give you active view/edit control for any one day that you choose.