TECHNOLOGY/PRACTICE Management
Fifteen 'Must Have' Utilities for PDAs
By Gary Henry

When I began my practice of law 18 years ago, the one essential that I always had with me when I was in the office or at the courthouse was my docket book. It was rather large and cumbersome, but I had to have it with me at all times. And as large as it was, it covered only one year.  Everything I did centered around that docket book, whether it was work related or not. But, as essential as it was, it was still very inconvenient to carry away from the office and work.

I still remember the days when I went to the courthouse for a motion hearing or pre-trial conference, and all the lawyers would be carrying their docket books. And then, in November or December, we would be carrying two. But the only thing that big docket book did was hold a calendar, and maybe a few contacts, and nothing more. But today when a lawyer pulls out a docket book during a scheduling meeting or hearing, it seems as though one has stepped back in time. I almost expect to see carbon copy pleadings on onion skin paper.

The advent of PDAs has been as big a leap in law office technology as the leap from typewriters to word processors. And if you haven't made the leap from docket books and other antiquated office technology to the world of the Personal Digital Assistant, then now is a wonderful time to make that step.

Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) come mainly in two forms. The Palm OS form factor, and the Pocket PC OS. Palm OS devices account for about 65 to 70 percent of the PDA market. The primary manufacturers of Palm OS devices are Palm, Sony, and Handspring. The primary manufacturers of Pocket PC devices include Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Dell and Casio. The primary difference between the two platforms is that Palm OS devices manufactured prior to Spring '03, were limited to only 16 megabytes of system memory, while Pocket PC devices routinely have system memory of 64 megabytes or more. However, all recent generation higher end Palms and Pocket PCs have memory expansion slots that will extend their storage capacity to ranges of 512 megabytes to 1 gigabyte, depending on the type of storage medium and the type of medium used.

Most Palm OS machines utilize the Secure Digital/Multimedia (SD/MMC) memory card type of media. SD/MMC cards are the size of a postage stamp and come in capacities of 16, 32, 64, 128 and 512 megabytes. One (1) gigabyte SD/MMC cards are in development and should be available in the near future. Most Pocket PC machines utilize either SD/MMC cards or Compact Flash cards. Compact Flash cards are considerably larger than SD/MMC cards, and they are available in similar sizes, but 1 gigabyte compact flash cards are currently available.

In the last few months, Palm Source, the developer and licensor of the Palm OS was able to break the 16 megabyte barrier and now claims that the Palm OS will now be able to support onboard system memory of up to 128 megabytes. The just released Palm Tungsten C has 64 megabytes of memory, the most ever for a Palm OS device, and the soon to be released Palm Tungsten T3 will also have 64 megabytes of memory, and will also boast a larger screen with a virtual graffiti area.

Although this article is titled "Fifteen 'Must Have' Utilities for PDAs", the first 3 Must Haves are not utilities, but hardware.
In no particular order, the "Fifteen 'Must Have' Utilities for PDAs" are as follows:

1. The number one must have item for any PDA, whether Palm OS or Pocket PC is a good carrying case. The flip covers or screen covers that come standard with all PDA's are just insufficient when it comes to protection of your PDA. When you have invested the amount of money that most mid-level to high end PDAs cost, it just makes no sense to not get the most protection possible. I learned this the hard way. My first PDA was a Palm IIIx. I decided not to spend the few extra dollars for a good case, and instead, relied on the little plastic cover that came standard with the Palm believing that it would protect my PDA from damage. Less than one week after my purchase, I dropped my Palm as I was getting out of my car. It only fell about 3 feet, but when it hit the ground, the standard equipment cover popped off, and the screen on the Palm broke. It cost me an additional $100 to replace the screen. That cost me about 3 times the cost of a good case. From that point on, I have purchased a good hard case for my Palm. I currently use a Palm Tungsten T. I purchased the Palm Hard Case for my Tungsten. The case is made of aluminum and completely covers the PDA. It is very light weight and adds very little to the size of my Palm. Since its purchase, I have dropped my PDA several times, from heights ranging from 1 to 5 feet, without any damage to my Palm. Yes, my case is pretty dinged up, but my Palm is spotless. I cannot tell you how much money that one little investment of about $30 has saved me. And with the hard case, I can carry my PDA in my hip pocket, and it is protected, even when I sit down. If you value your investment, then spend a little more and get a good hard case. There are hard cases for most every PDA on the market today, and most cost less than $40.

2. Another must have hardware item is a collapsible keyboard, or a thumb pad keyboard. Most collapsible keyboards are nearly full sized keyboards that are collapsible to a size that is similar to the PDA itself. The keyboard will then fit in a shirt or jacket pocket. Thus equipped, a legal professional can carry a full fledged word-processor in his/her pocket or purse. I have used this feature on numerous occasions. The PDA add-on keyboards can be used with a most all PDA programs. In fact, all programs that enable character input can utilize an add-on keyboard. Or, if you want something smaller, you can opt for the thumb pad keyboard. These keyboards are about half the size of most PDAs, and you input data with your thumbs. They are slower than full fledged keyboards, but are more portable. Collapsible keyboards run anywhere from about $50-$100, while thumb pad keyboards can be found for around $15-$25.

3. Another must have hardware item is a car cigarette lighter charger/adapter. While I am able to keep my PDA charged sufficiently with the desktop cradle, there have been numerous occasions when I am traveling or have heavy usage of my PDA when I am in need of a quick charge. In comes my cigarette lighter adapter. With this adapter, I am never very far away from a charge, and I can recall several occasions when this adapter has saved me from having a dead PDA. Most electronics stores carry these items, but the one I use came from Radio Shack, with a cost of under $20.

4. Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palm OS and Pocket PC. Adobe Acrobat Reader for PDAs lets you view Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files on handheld devices running either the Palm OS or the Pocket PC OS. With AAR for the PDA, you can take all your Adobe PDF documents from your desktop with you on your PDA device. Acrobat Reader for PDAs conveniently reflows Adobe PDF text to fit and be easily read on small screens, while preserving graphics and images in their original format. Acrobat Reader for PDAs includes two components that work together: The desktop application (and conduit during HotSync®) runs on your desktop computer. It prepares PDF files for the PDA and transports them to the user's handheld device. The reader is the PDA application that runs on the PDA device, designed to accommodate the characteristics of small-screen devices. With this application, a legal professional can transfer pleadings, reports, forms or other documents to PDF format, and carry an almost unlimited number of documents on a PDA equipped with expandable storage. In fact, entire CLE manuals, which are available on www.oba-net.org  could be stored and viewed on a PDA equipped with Adobe Acrobat Reader for PDAs.

The best part is, AAR for Palm and Pocket PC are free. For Palm visit (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readerforpalm.html)  and for Pocket PC, visit (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readerforppc.html).  

5. PDAs of today are now much more than basic Personal Information Managers (PIM) devices. In fact, most of today's PDAs can replace laptop computers. There are a number of word-processing programs available for PDAs. The two top Palm OS word-processing programs are Office Suite for Palm, (www.iambic.com)  and Wordsmith (www.bluenomad.com).  These two programs are full featured word-processing programs, and both are fully compatible with Microsoft Word. With either of these two programs, and an add-on keyboard, a PDA becomes a complete word-processor. Documents can be created on a PDA and printed via the infrared port, or synched with Microsoft Word for further editing and printing. Most add-on keyboards are nearly full sized keyboards that are collapsible to a size that is similar to the PDA itself. The keyboard will then fit in a shirt or jacket pocket. Thus equipped, a legal professional can carry a full fledged word-processor in his/her pocket or purse. I have used this feature on numerous occasions. In fact, a portion of this paper was typed on my Palm Tungsten T, with the Palm Keyboard, and Wordsmith word-processing program.

With these PDA based word-processors, one can perform all of the most important word-processing tasks including, cut, copy, paste, multi-paste, select all, undo, redo, find, bold, underline, italics and color fonts, beam, delete, duplicate, rename, save, and save as. One can even perform advanced paragraph formatting, such as setting page breaks, indents and line spacing and bulleted lists. There is also support for auto-scrolling, pen scrolling and special teleprompter style scrolling for easy viewing of documents. There are also special "go to" features that let you go to a character, paragraph or certain percent of the document.

6. Most PDAs also include as standard applications, document "Reader" programs. These programs allow for the reading of various types of documents. Available for download are statutes, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Federal Bankruptcy Rules, appellate court decisions, and numerous other legal documents. Most document reader programs allow for searching, book marking and indexing features. In fact, there are a number of Oklahoma Specific documents that have been created by members of the Oklahoma Bar. Doug Loudenback and I have previously worked together in the conversion of several titles of the Oklahoma Statutes to PDA format. On Doug's Web site, (www.dougloudenback.com)  Doug has included some .pdf and .doc forms that pertain to family law, that are useable on any Palm OS PDA. Further, Doug has designed a child support calculation program that enables the user to make any type of child support calculation via their Palm OS PDA. These items are available for download on Doug's site.

Along with legal documents and forms, all PDAs have the ability to store and display e-books. There are hundreds of e-book titles available for download from the internet. A PDA equipped with an expansion memory card can hold a large number of books. This includes most all of the classics of literature, as well as most newly published works of both fiction and non-fiction. Different e-book viewers are available for purchase or free download. Those include Palm Reader, Isilo, Tealdoc, Qvadis, Mobipocket, as well as several others. These programs, along with several unabridged novels, are a great, convenient way to while away the hours during travel, or those long, drawn out motion dockets in Oklahoma County. In fact, I currently have 8-10 novels on my Palm. I find reading books via my Palm is more convenient then reading from a book.

My favorite document reader, beside the free Palm Reader is iSilo. (www. isilo.com) iSilo is a highly versatile document reader available for Palm OS, Pocket PC, and Windows CE Handheld PC handhelds, as well as for Windows computers. You can find thousands of ready-made documents downloadable immediately for reading with iSilo or you can create your own documents from HTML content using iSiloX. Some of the major features that will win you over to iSilo™ include:

High text compression in iSilo format documents result in a 50 percent to 60 percent decrease in size, which is about 20 percent better than the Palm Doc format, allowing you to store more and larger documents on your handheld.

Hyperlinks make it much easier to navigate through a document.

Images add visual richness to documents, especially photo-quality color pictures.

Tables allow the display of tabular data.

Formatted text gives style to text for controlled emphasis.

VFS support on Palm OS allows you to store and access documents on high-capacity removeable storage.

iSilo is available for a small licensing fee.

7. AvantGo is the most popular of all free downloadable programs at www.avantgo.com.  The AvantGo program will grab information from the Web and transfer it to your handheld when you hot-sync. For example, just before you leave the office every day you can use AvantGo to get the latest Fox News, The Wall Street Journal report, Street.Com stock market reports and Weather Channel forecast. On the train ride home you can read the stories you want. You will no longer need to buy the late edition newspaper.

8. FileZ (www.nosleep.net)  - I've heard McFile is better, but FileZ fits my budget (FREE). It gives you control over all the contents of your Palm including any cards you might have. I can't tell you how often I've found a stray document or an orphaned file that was just taking up space (and very much forgotten)

9. BeamPRO 2.0 - This is a cool little app that's pretty reasonably priced (from www.ecamm.com).  It allows you to beam ANYTHING from your Palm, including databases, programs, contacts, dates, etc. Several programs (including Launcher X) allow you to beam most things, but BeamPRO lets you beam ANYTHING which is really nice.

10. Backup Buddy - Don't leave home without having used this program. This program will backup the entire contents of you PDA as well as extended storage (if you have the time) every time you sync your PDA. This little bit of insurance will save you when that day comes that your PDA crashes, which it will. It's still a computer, so it is possible. Why take chances. Backup Buddy will remove the worry and save your docket book.

11. Sometimes, performing a hotsync can be a time consuming project. Especially when you have several conduits operating during sync. So, when you want to just install a new application, but don't want to mess with all those conduits, install UltraSoft Notsync. (www.ultrasoft.com).  It lets you deselect all your conduits with just the push of a button and then sync just one or two quickly and easily. It's clever and it's free.

12. Does your PDA lose time like a leaky clock? Install a time synchronizer like TimeCopy. (www.palmgear.com)  It will adjust the Palm to stay in sync with your PC clock. If you also enable Windows internet time feature, you will always be right on time.

13. If you are in need of carrying two calendars on you PDA, then you need Dualdate, a Palm freebie. With Dualdate you can have two calendars side by side in your PDA. This is great if you need to know the docket of a partner, secretary, legal assistant, or, most importantly, you spouse.

Another useful little date program, and one that I use almost every day, is a little application called Dates! Dates! is a date-difference calculator with a variety of features. The Dates! calculator switches modes between the days -or even the weeks - between dates. Dates! displays the day of the week, as well as the Julian date. Dates! also displays the number of weekdays between dates. Lock in the "To" or "From" date to get drop-dead start-date calculation. Enter the number of days or weeks between dates using Graffiti or increment/decrement buttons. Dates! also displays the date difference in years-months-days (for example: 25 years-9 months-6 days). This little program is indispensable for determining an answer date, date for discovery completion, or for any time when you need to know when a project must be complete. You can download Dates! for free at www.pdacentral.ozbytes.net.au/palm/preview/34704.html

14. Having trouble with Graffiti? Just purchased a newer model of the Palm that now is equipped with Graffiti 2? Or, just never been able to get Graffiti learned to your PDA's satisfaction? Then you need TealScript. (www.tealpoint.com). Replacing the built-in Graffiti and Graffiti-2 text-recognition systems, TealScript, from TealPoint Software, offers an improved, tunable alternative. Instead of forcing the user to adjust to a fixed set of reference strokes, TealScript is fully configurable, allowing training and modifying of existing strokes or addition of new ones for improved personal handwriting recognition. TealScript also supports advanced features such as macro strokes, multi-stroke characters, easy capitalization, better accuracy, and entering text using the full screen surface under PalmOS 5. For only $19.95, it is a great investment.

While on the Graffiti subject, let me suggest one more program, MiddleCaps. (www.palmgear.com). This is a free program that once enabled, will produce capital letter when you write across the invisible line separating the letter and number sides of the Graffiti area on your PDA. This program will reduce the number of strokes that are necessary when inputting data via Graffiti. To use this program, you will also need to download a hack manager like X-Master. (www.linksoft.com) and it is also free.

15. Do you need an extra megabyte or more of memory? Many Palm OS handhelds store the operating system in what's called Flash RAM. And in may cases, there is more space than the Operating system needs. With Jackflash (www.brayder.com), you can tap into that unused RAM and use it to store extra programs, back up databases and more. The amount of available Flash RAM varies from model to model. You might be able to gain just 500K, or as much as 4MB (in the case of Sony's Clie NX70V). Download the free light version to find out how much Flash RAM is free, then you can decide if Jackflash is worth the price of $19.95.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Henry is a partner in the Kingfisher law firm of Stake & Henry, PLLC. He graduated from Oklahoma Christian College in 1982 with degrees in business, psychology and political science. He received his J.D. degree from Oklahoma City University in 1985. He is a former District Attorney for the 20th District. Recently Mr. Henry has become a speaker for CLE programs on the subject of PDAs and technology. He also provides training in the advanced use of PDAs.