Although I have pretty much stopped writing on the Smarphone & Pocket PC Magazine blogs, I still get questions there occasionally and thought I would share a couple with you.
Keith had read my post on using the Missing Sync for Windows Mobile to sync his Pocket PC with his Mac. After syncing, he had some problems opening some of the synchronized Excel documents:
Missing Sync is working great for me. The one problem I have is moving Pocket Excel to Neo Office. I can create a spreadsheet in Neo Office, save it as a .pxl file, open it on my Dell Axim (Pocket PC). Once I save in on the Axim and bring it back to my Mac, Neo Office won’t open it. Any Suggestions?
My answer to Keith was to I would get away from the converted Excel format (the pxl format) and just use the regular Excel xls format. That’s what I have done for years: just go to ActiveSync and choose “no file conversion” to avoid all the problems that come about in converting back and forth. I recommend this whether you are syncing your Pocket PC to Windows or to Mac.
Rob had the following comment:
I have been using PDAs since 1998. I recently somewhat reluctantly moved from a Palm PDA running Palm OS 4 to an HTC touch running WM6. My initial impression is that WM6 is less functional and much harder to use than Palm OS. For example, the handling of changes to recurring appointments. In Palm OS you can change current, all, or this and future recurrences. In MP6 you can only change current or all. This is infuriating. I’m seriously thinking about going back to the Palm.
I replied that I could understand his frustration. I actually went back to using a Palm for a while earlier this year, but then switched back to my Dell x51v. One can get frustrated with any technology, and I have yet to find the “perfect PDA.”
This is one of the reasons that I do not post that much on PDA technology anymore: I’m disappointed with where PDA technology is compared to where I think it should be. I’ve noted before that I come from a generation that landed men on the moon, and that this was done 40 years ago, so I have come to expect that we have the ability to develop really good and useful technology. And we do. But, PDAs seem to me to be a huge letdown compared to what we all think they could be.
How many of you have searched for that one converged device that could keep you from having to tote around different gadgets? My guess is that several of you have and that few, if any, have found such a device.
But, whining aside, and back to Rob’s point: I do know enough about PDAs to know that you can use either a Palm or Windows Mobile or iPhone or BlackBerry to help you get things done. It doesn’t so much matter which one you use, as long as you have good habits in using it. Either one can “get you there.” And every one will disappoint in one way or another.
Your thoughts?
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