Each issue, we'll bring you some great tips straight from 3Com's tech support team. Chris Brown kicks it off with some fun hints and tips. You'll see what we mean. --David Gewirtz

This isn't a checklist of what to look for before calling for technical support, but here are a few very simple (sometimes ridiculously simple) things to make sure you don't overlook before you call your problem a "Problem". These are somewhat basic operations, and you will find these and other fundamental facts in your PalmPilot Handbook or PalmPilot Professional Edition Handbook. If you haven't taken them off your shelf since you opened the box, be warned: you might find yourself making some of the silly mistakes below. We get lots of calls from folks who somehow just seem to miss the boat, er, book.

Much ado about missing To Dos
Imagine, you have to remember two important things this week: you need a report on your boss' desk by this afternoon and you also need to order flowers tomorrow for your mom's birthday two days from now. Heads will roll if you forget either task. No problem--you jot down those two items on your PalmPilot To Do List. You don't bother putting a due date for the report because you need it done today. You set a due date of tomorrow to order the flowers, though, to make sure you don't forget.

After you set the due date in the Details dialog and return to the list, however, you only see one To Do item: your boss' report. What happened to your reminder about the flowers? Does the To Do List have something against your mother? Nope. It just thinks you don't want to be reminded about the flowers until tomorrow.

One often glossed-over feature of the To Do List is the "Show" button at the bottom of the screen. It is right next to the Details button, which you would need to select in order to choose a due date in the first place. When you click Show, you will get the To Do Preferences dialog, the third item of which will ask whether you would like to "Show Only Due Items". If the checkbox to the left of this item is selected, you will not see any To Do items until the day they are actually due.