Intelligent color and font support
Although Palm OS 3.5 and the Palm IIIc feature brilliant color, there's something wrong: the OS doesn't support color-coding of categories, which is a potentially valuable use of color. DateBk4 comes to the rescue in this respect, allowing you to not only assign colors to categories, but also to change the color of individual records. Figure D shows what color looks like in the Datebk4 beta.

FIGURE D

DateBk4's color support lets you color-code records and categories.

Keep in mind that color support is still being worked on as this article goes to press. On monochrome devices, you can specify one of the Palm OS's four font styles to individual records, as shown in Figure E, making it easier to differentiate between items.

FIGURE E

Each record can have its own font setting.

And much, much more
So far, the improvements I've mentioned are just the ones that are easy to classify. Many other miscellaneous changes have appeared. For instance, with all of the various combinations of views and windowpanes, you could find yourself spending all your time customizing which information is displayed. A better approach is to utilize Custom Views. When you've set up a view you want to keep, tap the diamond-shaped button at the bottom of the screen to add it to the list of saved views.

The main Date Book view styles have changed slightly as well. The year screen offers a much more readable four month view, shown in figure F.

FIGURE F

Check your quarter with the four month view.

It also includes the 12 month view from DateBk3. Also, the list view is a bit cleaner. And, finally, DateBk4 includes beaming capability. You can beam records and categories, plus control how incoming DateBk4 categories beamed from other devices are handled.

With its abundance of features, DateBk4 demonstrates that you don't have to be content with the adequate Date Book application. As of this writing, pricing for DateBk4 has not been set, but considering that DateBk3 costs only $20, even double that amount would be worth what you get. If you have the RAM to spare, the extra functionality is worth the space.

Mark Moeller is a 14 year veteran of Microsoft. After shipping the first version of the Auto PC he left Microsoft to found AutoPCWare, a company focused on helping manufacturers and software vendors build Auto PCs or products for the Auto PC. Mark was the design architect of the first version of the Auto PC and has a number of patents pending or awarded on the Auto PC. You can visit his Web site at http://www.autopcware.com, or email him at markmo@autopcware.com. To read more of Mark Moeller's work for Windows CE Power, visit http://www.zatz.com/authors/authorpages/markmoeller.html.