FIGURE A

On the MapQuest Web site, choose between Maps and Driving Directions. Click picture for a larger image.

Feed it the requested address information, and MapQuest will take you to a results screen where maps and directions will be displayed. On the left side of this screen, you'll see a box titled Directions Options. Select Download to PDA, and MapQuest will display a Palm screen-sized version of your maps and directions.

Give the map a title, click the Save Route button on the right of the screen, and MapQuest will call up the AvantGo software on your desktop PC and send the results to the AvantGo Web site. The next time you HotSync, the maps and directions will be automatically downloaded to the AvantGo application on your Palm device.

MapBlast works much the same way, except that you use a special section of the site called Pocket MapBlast. Click the tab on the main MapBlast page, pictured in Figure B, to get to Pocket MapBlast. There, you will discover a simple, fast-loading page that is blissfully free of advertising.

FIGURE B

On the main MapBlast screen, select the Pocket MapBlast tab. Click picture for a larger image.

Like with MapQuest, you fill out a simple form with address information, and you get a Palm screen-sized version of your maps and routes. Select "Download this page to my handheld," and your AvantGo channels page will open. Give the map a useful title, select Save Channel, and you're done. The next time you HotSync, the maps and routes will show up on your Palm unit's AvantGo program.

Both sites are easy to understand, but MapBlast is much easier to use because of its simple, low-intensity graphics. While MapQuest offers some minor additional features that MapBlast doesn't have (choosing a route that avoids toll roads, for example), I find MapQuest pages slow to load. Too often, in fact, they don't load at all because the server is down--probably because it choked while trying to spit out all those ads to a million users a day. The MapBlast site, in contrast, is blindingly fast.

Note also that while MapQuest implies that it can download directions with turn-by-turn maps, I was not able to do that. The directions downloaded with no maps, just as if I had requested directions only. MapBlast, in contrast, does offer turn-by-turn maps with directions.

To view your maps and directions on your Palm device, just open AvantGo. The Web pages are shown on your Palm unit with the titles you gave them on your PC. Nothing could be easier, right?

Unfortunately, saying it's easy isn't the same thing as saying it's useful.

Small screen, big problems
There are two problems. First and most obvious are the maps. While the maps you see on your desktop PC are generally helpful, the maps on your Palm device tend to be unreadable. They're simply too small. On the most magnified maps, which you would expect to offer the most detail, street names often disappear to save space. All you end up with is a display full of mostly unnamed gray lines, like in the MapQuest map you see in Figure C.

FIGURE C

On this MapQuest map, street names vanish, leaving indecipherable grid patterns.