In April 2000 I received my first handheld computer, the Palm IIIc. It has 8 Megs of memory and a colour screen. At first I used it and my paper organizer for scheduling and phone numbers. But eventually I began to enter all new appointments and phone numbers into my PDA. Initially I used the keyboard exclusively for entering this data but now I use Graffiti for most of the entries. I recently stopped carrying my paper organizer with me when I realized I hadn't changed the monthly organizer in it since June. As a research coordinator I carry a lot of printed material with me as I move between two work sites and visit various departments within the two sites. Each day I was carrying research-specific documents, participant-specific documents, printed data collection tools, reference books, my calculator and my organizer at the minimum. Colleagues would tell me I was working toward a shoulder injury because of the weight of my bag.

Now my Palm IIIc has replaced many of these items. On my palm I have a drug reference, a drug calculation program, a calculator, relevant lab values with normal ranges plus our Arterial Blood Gas Decoder and the O2 Tank calculator, along with my daily organizer and my phone book. I often set the alarm to remind me of an appointment when I get bogged down in paper work.

I also have a couple of games, which I play when I am sitting around waiting or riding the bus. The bonus of the colour screen is that I can carry pictures on my PDA. And I do! I carry a beautiful picture of my granddaughters and a picture of my grey cat on my Palm IIIc. When I pass it around the ooohhs are initially for the PDA and then for the girls. People are really impressed with the quality of the pictures and the slide show on the Palm IIIc. In addition, it fits in my pocket and in my hand. The screen is easy to read. There are hundreds of programs available for download to the PDA. Some are shareware and many are free. I download from my PC to the Palm IIIc using the problem-free cradle to HotSync. So I can tailor the content of my PDA to suit my needs and my whims! And I can change my mind the next time I HotSync!

I have yet to "push it to its limits", but so far it has been fun and it is very easy to work with. There are lots of new programs available for download, and the list is growing.

PDA Cortex