Of course, the first time you log in, you won't have any accounts. You can press the Add a New Account button to add a new account, such as your checking or savings account. You'll see the screen in Figure C, where you can locate your account provider by name or by category.

FIGURE C


Here's the MyInfo Add a New Account screen. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The number of account providers is simply staggering; it's almost always quickest to type in a name in the search box and hit the Go button.

Once you've found your account provider, you can either enter the existing information you use to log into your online account, or you can create a new online account with your provider. In my case, I was still living in the last century and successfully created online accounts for each of my banks from MyPalm and then updated MyPalm's account information.

Because some accounts you may want to track don't have online access, you can also create a custom account and use it to track the value of a fixed asset such as your home or stamp collection. Fixed accounts operate the same as an online account, except that you must enter the changing value of the account yourself. Typically, you won't do that very often-perhaps every time you have the item appraised. You can also use custom accounts to provide single-click login access to accounts that aren't supported by MyInfo. We use this to track the appraised value of our home, giving us a notion of how much equity we have.

Of course, you only go through this configuration hassle once-after that, the information's there every time you log in. That's the beauty of MyInfo. Not only can you see a snapshot in numbers, but you can also view a pie chart of your holdings, letting you know where your money is.

In addition to financial information, you can use MyInfo to track your travel itineraries, confirmation numbers, and seat assignments, as well as your frequent flier status. I don't have any upcoming trips, so I didn't test this thoroughly, but it does appear to work as advertised. If you're a business traveler, this may well be more useful than tracking your portfolio while on the road.

One last feature, the Alert feature, is somewhat misnamed. I'd hoped it would let me set up online alerts, such as "Warn me when my checking account balance is less than $250.00." Instead, alerts appear to be MyPalm's information service, letting you know about updates and new features. While helpful, this is somewhat confusing, especially given financial sites' use of the term "alert" and the fact that MyPalm instead uses pop-up windows on logins for the same purpose.

MyInfo Wireless
MyInfo really shines when you use it wirelessly. You can download the MyInfo Web clipping application from the MyInfo site to your Palm handheld and obtain the same information wirelessly as you can from the Web. Downloading is easy. Simply hit the MyInfo for Palm VII button from any page of MyInfo online and follow the instructions to download the installer and install it on your handheld. The downloaded query application is a PC executable, but you can still expand it using Stuffit Expander on the Macintosh. The resulting application works on any Palm handheld with the Mobile Internet Kit, including the Palm VII series handhelds.