Finally, if you use the PalmPilot Category, you can still fully use the Outlook categories, including the ability to assign multiple categories to any item. Of course, the Outlook categories will not be synchronized to your Palm device.

Palm Desktop 4.0
I had been trying to decide whether or not to switch to synchronizing with Outlook at work (Windows NT 4.0 platform). The wrinkle was, I wanted to stick with using Palm Desktop at home on my laptop (Windows 95). I just downloaded Palm Desktop 4.0 at both home and my office and find it to have a lot of nicely improved features that helped me decide to stick with Palm Desktop on both my office PC and home laptop. You may want to do a follow up comparison for your readers.

Bob's response
You are wise to approach this cautiously. Many experts recommend that you DO NOT HotSync your Palm device on multiple computers using different PIMs. On the other hand, it's perfectly safe to synchronize a Palm device on multiple computers if they all use the same PIM.

Of course, I've been synchronizing my Palm IIIxe on my PC at work and my Mac at home using a number of packages. While I have encountered a number of idiosyncrasies, none have been serious.

As far as Palm Desktop 4.0 for Windows is concerned, I agree that it's an excellent and compelling upgrade. Had I reviewed that instead of Palm Desktop 3.0, my review would likely have been somewhat different. For more information on Palm Desktop 4.0, check out David Gewirtz's article, "How to use Palm Desktop v4.0 with your Handspring Visor" in the February 2001 issue of PalmPower at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200102/visordesktop001.html.

Weird error
I have synchronized about eight times (every two weeks during the past two months). The last time I synchronized, I got the following message: "Date Book--Some handheld records were not copied to your PC. Your computer may be full or you may have reached the maximum allowed records on the desktop. To correct this situation, delete some records and perform a HotSync operation again. Desktop = 97, Handheld = 94. OK Date Book with 1 message(s)."

I received this error message in both January and February. When I synchronize again, it works correctly. I recently bought a Visor Platinum; I have no hacker software. The only additional software installed is ePocrates (at http://www.epocrates.com) and ePatient (at http://www.target4.com/epmain_frame.html). Why is this happening? Am I doing something wrong?

Bob's response
As I have never encountered this problem while using Outlook with my Palm device, I have no idea what could be wrong. Hopefully someone who reads this will, though. Please feel free to post any comments regarding this issue on the PowerBoards. There's a link at the end of this article.

Finding the right platform
I am trying to decide whether to buy a Pocket PC or a Palm PDA. At the same time, I have one burning issue that has to be satisfied or it's not worthwhile to get either machine. That issue is the ability to keep multiple calendars (business, personal, wife's) in Outlook 98 and then synchronize them and be able to use them on the PDA. I can't find any information as to whether or not Pocket Outlook works exactly the same as desktop Outlook 98. If that were the case, that would make my decision for me... assuming they would synchronize.