Replies

1. 
   HammerHarry | Sep 30, 2002 11:02pm | #1

   if you want spreadsheet and word processor functions, i found that the miniwrite and minicalc are great, and they work seamlessly with the MonopolySystems (sorry, MS) Office Suite.

2. 
   JerraldHayes | Sep 30, 2002 11:49pm | #2

   AgileMike- "finding good software" depends on how you define "good

   software" and that all depends and what you want your Palm to do. The other

   day I found a link to Gary Weise's BalusterLayout

   1.0.2 program on the PalmGear.com web site and while we're architectural

   wood & metal workers our primary emphasis is on stairs so while I have only

   used it twice now I think it's pretty good.

   View Image

   You should also just poke around the PalmGear.com web site to see what there

   and what might be useful. Since I'm on a Macintosh the choices are more limited

   for me that they are for 90% plus of the rest of the world. A lot of the software

   there and the software explicitly published for the building and remodeling

   trades while they'll run on a Palm they don't necessarily have a Macintosh desktop

   application to link with. Not discouraged by that I bought FileMakerMobile

   for the Palm so that I could collect and exchange information between the Palm

   and the databases that I use to run my business. Right now the only things I

   use the FileMaker-Palm database for is for TimeCards, Project Venue Information

   (like a "who's who" and a "where is" it for particular projects),

   Materials( used to collect and file material prices from various vendors), TakeAction

   (my version of a construction management ToDo list), and similar to that a TaskList

   (covering the pending tasks labor related tasks on the various projects). Eventually

   I hope to have all my personnel on Palms to collect and share project information

   but right now it's just me as I'm working to get this all set up.

   I don't have but plan to get FastTrack8

   and FastTrack8 for the Palm sometime in the very near future since it's

   a cross platform (Win-Mac) project management tool sort of like Microsoft Project.

   You can only implement so much software at a time and I pretty tied up remodeling

   and integrating my FileMaker databases with my Palm so that's what I haven't

   gotten it just yet.

   There's a real good Palm product that I've seen from StrataSystems called PunchList

   ($199 per license) and were it not for that fact that it doesn't have a Macintosh

   desktop I probably would have bought it. They also have another product called

   StrawBoss

   too (at $19.99) but I don't know anything about it yet

   Other products I know of but know nothing about are:

   • Palm

     Estimating from Timberline

   • CMSystems
   • CDCI

   and there are more but that's all I can drum up from my immediate memory right

   now.

   So what do you want to get out of you Palm? What exactly is it you do all that

   kind of information might help both me and other here fill you in on what out

   there and would work for you.

   ---

   View Image

   I don't paint things. I only paint the difference

   between things.--Henri

   Matisse

3. 
   clwebb | Oct 01, 2002 12:51am | #3

   Hi guys,

   I don't own a pda, or use one yet. I attend a community college where I am taking pre engineering courses. This might not help any one, but I thought you might like to know that in one of the trade magazines that the instructors subscribe to, I saw where you could get a version of auto cad or some software program that would read autocad files that would run on the new pocket pc. If any of you use autocad specifically, it might be useful. It isn't a full version but it allows you to draw and make changes in the field to a downloaded drawing.

   Sorry I don't have a name of the software or the publication, I am pretty sure that it was last year when I saw it. 

   Chris

4. 
   benraymond | Oct 11, 2002 01:04am | #4

   Archicalc was useful - good translation of decimals to feet, inches, square area, etc.