ToDo List
Here are another 15 categories to customize as you see fit. You can also prioritize your ToDo List items from one to five. If you need to prioritize more than five, try ToDo Plus. A peek inside my To Do List application would show you categories such as Today, Tomorrow, Soon, Personal, Weekend, and Arlene (my boss). I also have a category for each area of my work responsibilities.

Memo Pad
Okay one more time, (you can sing it to the tune of 100 bottles of bear on the wall), you have 15 categories to customize. I have a category for entertainment. In it are memos entitled Videos to Rent and Movies to See. Other categories are Books, with memos for Non Fiction Books and Fiction; URLS to Try; and Humor, in which I copy and paste into the Palm desktop some of the humorous emails I receive.

I am a board member on a couple of organizations, so I have a category for each of them. Under Personal, I have a Gift memo for each family member. In it, I list possible gift items for birthdays or Christmas. I have a memo called Gifts for Everyone Else with suggestions. It also reminds me as to whether I've purchased the gift already, and if so, where I've put it. I Christmas shop year round, so it really helps me keep track of what I've purchased for whom.

I also have a health memo for each child, listing any medications they are taking, the results from their last physicals, and their immunization dates. Again, the fact that you can search for text really pays off. Those miscellaneous snippets of information that you know you're going to want or need again can be stored in Memo Pad and be easily retrieved.

Beyond the basics
Think of the basic applications as network TV and the tons of available freeware and shareware as cable or satellite TV. They're not exactly necessary but darn nice to have.

Thus far it seems, Palm has enjoyed amicable relations with the masses of developers for the Palm OS, so you're in no danger of waking up one morning and finding that your applications have been replaced by CSPAN, a la the recent Time Warner and Disney situation. In Figure C, you can see some of the other applications that I use to keep my life in order.

FIGURE C

Here are some of the other applications that help keep my life organized.

In addition to the basic applications, I have over 70 programs and hacks loaded onto my Palm device. Don't panic, I'm limiting myself to discussing my top 10. Here they are:

• Album To Go came with my Palm IIIc. I no longer carry print photos of my family. I simply load them onto my Palm device.

• AvantGo is an application that lets you view certain Web material on your Palm organizer. If you own a Palm device and aren't using AvantGo, you're missing out on a fabulous application. Sometimes, the only time I get to read the newspapers and find out what's going on in the world is when I look at AvantGo on my Palm unit. You can customize your information sources from hundreds of available channels, and it's free.