How to Use Palm Desktop

What is Palm Desktop? Palm Desktop is an application developed by Palm that allows you to track daily events. It is extremely useful for those who are often busy and need to keep track of what's going on in the next few days (or even hours). If you think your life is busy, then I highly recommend using this as long as you can fulfill the following.

Things you'll need to use Palm Desktop:
Palm Desktop Application
A Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) that can sync with the Application.

Installation is self-explanatory so let's assume you have already installed the application and own a PDA that works with it.

Opening up Palm Desktop, you'll see several large icons on the left. The one that will be most used is the first: Date. This is pretty much the day planner so you can keep track of what's going on during any particular day. To add an event, go to the day of the event (bottom tabs include Day, Week, Month and Year for easy access of any day). Then, simply right click the time you want or click on "New Event" at the bottom and fill out the information such as what it is, location and how long you'll be there. Any other notes can also be typed in the Notes section. If this event is a constant event, you can have it set to repeat as often as you like. For example, if it's a weekly event, then you can set it the repeat to go "weekly" until a certain stopping point (or forever!); if you have the same events over and over in a particular week, you can set it so it repeats on those days as well and Palm Desktop will automatically repeat those weekly! Don't worry, this only links each day's events together. This means that if you need to modify one (change location or remove it), you can modify one without changing any of the others, or if you need to, change all of them. To do this, simply start modifying and it'll prompt you to modify the Current or All events.

Addresses is part that will be used a lot. If you have a Treo, you can easily add many contacts into your phone on the computer and sync it easily. Even if you don't have a Treo, you can still use your PDA as a business card keeper or simply a contact list for emergencies. The information you can put in for a person is very detailed and if you need notes, that's available as well! Pictures can be added for even easier reference and to help you remember someone. If you get to the point that you have tons of contacts, you can also search by filling in the "Look up" input box or just start typing on the keyboard.

To Do and Memos are important if you really have a lot of stuff. To Do allows you to categorize information, however, it's much more difficult to write stuff simply because of how it's stored. If you prefer a messy amount of information, use Memos. It's basically a text editor that organizes based on when the last thing was written. Both of these can be used for quick notes to help you remember a particular list. Just note that emergency information should always be memorized.

Media and Install portions of the Desktop are less important unless you're going for the media side of the PDA. Just know that Media contains all of the pictures, videos and sounds while Install allows you to install 1st or 3rd party applications, which can be a big help.

Overall, using Palm Desktop with a PDA will get you through life much easier as you no longer need to deal with remembering a massive amount of information. A quick glance of your schedule will keep you on the right track.

Personal note: If you're in college, it's very helpful as it organizes all of your classes and locations, but more importantly, when you can go visit your professors for help! I do this and it's amazing.