Gadget Report
August 26th, 2004
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August 26th, 2004
PDA Pundit: Noteworthy Note Takers
Sr. Editor Yardena Arar
I generally don't use my PDA for taking notes, much less for drawing.
But maybe that's because I've never had the tools to make the effort
worthwhile. I've recently been playing with two note-taking
apps--PhatPad on Hewlett-Packard's Pocket PC Phone Edition-based IPaq
H6315, and BugMe on my PalmOne Treo 600--and I'm impressed by how much
they expand the capabilities of these handhelds.
For a review of the IPaq H6315, read "First Look: HP's Thrice-Wireless
PDA":
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/204115/21421684/737127/0/
For the Treo 600 review, see "Impressive Treo 600":
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/204115/21421684/737128/0/
Both PhatWare's PhatPad 1.3 and Electric Pocket's BugMe let you
scribble or draw with your stylus in colors and stroke widths you
select. Both also let you attach alarms to those notes--hence the name
of Electric Pocket's app, I imagine. And both include tools for
sharing those notes by turning them into image files and saving them
to a memory card or e-mailing them from a connected handheld. The two
apps do have a few differentiating features, however.
Pocket Phat
The $20 PhatPad requires Windows CE 3.0 or later. Basically, this
means the app can run only on Pocket PCs of vintage 2000 or later.
When you launch PhatPad you get a list of notes you've previously
saved; you can either work on one of those, or start a new note.
By default, new notes start on a background that looks like a sheet of
lined notebook paper. But you can change the background color by
tapping on Options in the Tools menu and choosing from among five
options. You can also either eliminate the lines (by unchecking
Horizontal Grid in the View menu) or add vertical ones to make the
sheet look like graph paper (by checking Vertical Grid in the View
menu). I couldn't see a way to change the grid size, however.
A zoom tool in the View menu lets you see the whole note, but
everything gets very small. The default is a partial view of the sheet
with scroll bars on the bottom and the right side to navigate to
off-screen areas.
Colors and Shapes
PhatPad is reasonably generous in its ink palette, letting you choose
from 39 colors. A handy button alongside the palette icon brings up
your stroke width options: from skinny (1 point) to thick (9 points),
with every point size between.
Need some help refining your doodles? Click Correct Shapes in the
Tools menu and it tidies up your circles, squares, and triangles--at
least, some of them. It ignored some of my larger circles, but did
fine with the smaller ones.
Another nifty feature: You can select part of your note or drawing
using a selection tool, then switch to a move tool and drag the
selected material around the screen. A Text Note option in PhatPad's
View menu divides the screen in two, so you can enter text in the
upper half using your preferred Pocket PC text input method. The lower
part of the screen remains available for drawing. And even without
using Text Note, if you also purchase PhatPad's Calligrapher
handwriting recognition software for Pocket PCs, you can turn
handwritten notes on PhatPad into editable text: You jot down a note,
select your handwriting, click Recognize in the Tools menu, and
Calligrapher turns the handwriting into text that you can edit or
copy-and-paste into another program. Bought separately, Calligrapher
costs $30. But through the end of August, PhatWare is offering
Calligrapher and PhatPad as a bundle for $45, a $5 savings. I didn't
have Calligrapher, so I can't vouch for its efficacy. For more info,
go to PhatWare's Web site:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/204115/21421684/737129/0/
My biggest hassle with PhatPad had to do with the way the application
interacted with the text input tools in Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket
PC Phone Edition (the latest version of Microsoft's Pocket PC
software). Basically, I had difficulty making the OS's tools go away
so that the PhatPad screen wasn't diminished by a text input area or
software keyboard when I was just trying to draw a diagram with a few
jotted notations. Somehow the app didn't seem to realize that the
Windows Mobile text input area wasn't needed. The Transcriber (which
does handwriting recognition on the fly for most apps) has the
smallest screen footprint--but when I turned it on, it tried to
recognize my scribbles and, when it couldn't, made them disappear.
The problem is, PhatPad won't let Transcriber or any other text input
tool work in a regular drawing: They will work only in a Text Note
area, if you choose to create one. I finally figured out how to get
rid of Transcriber (tap on the X at the right side of the toolbar) so
I could get back to working on my diagram.
Overall, I'd say PhatPad dovetails nicely with the Pocket PC's general
corporate orientation by providing the tools to create simple diagrams
and sketches with editable text annotations.
For more info on PhatPad, go to PhatWare's site:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/204115/21421684/737130/0/
Annotations, Anyone?
Electric Pocket makes versions of BugMe for several smart phones and
PDAs. I tried out the $20 Palm OS 5 version, and found it to be a bit
more ambitious than PhatPad, especially in terms of its graphics
tools. (There's a separate version for handhelds based on earlier
versions of the Palm OS.)
The extras start with a selection of graphics tools reminiscent of
those in Microsoft Windows' venerable Paint utility. In addition to a
pen for freehand drawing, there are tools for drawing straight lines,
squares, and circles; creating filled circles and squares; and filling
any enclosed area with color.
Unlike PhatPad, BugMe comes with a selection of clip art--arrows,
balloons and the like--that you can use in your drawings. A panning
tool lets you move these elements around; it also works with text that
you can add anywhere on your note by choosing a text tool. But you
can't select and move your own drawings the way you can with PhatPad.
If you choose the panning tool and place the stylus on anything but a
text block or clip art, it moves the entire note instead.
But what I really like about BugMe is that you can use it with
something other than a blank screen--a photo or a map, for example. I
was able to select one of the images I'd captured with my Treo 600's
camera and annotate it using the entire range of BugMe tools, even
adding text using the Treo's keyboard.
However the Treo's lack of native support for Graffiti meant I
couldn't try out another BugMe feature: It can create screen shots of
any Palm app. To do this you use Graffiti's command stroke (a diagonal
sweep from lower left to upper right) on the screen you want, then
launch BugMe and tap an icon that completes the screen capture. You
can then annotate the image the same way you can annotate photos.
Another neat feature: If you type a phone number, e-mail address, or
URL from your contact list into your note, BugMe recognizes it and
creates a link. Tap that link and it either dials the number,
initiates a blank e-mail message, or activates the browser to view the
Web site on a connected PDA. You can also e-mail notes within BugMe
from a list of saved notes.
BugMe's 24-color palette is slightly less extensive than PhatPad's,
and it has fewer stroke options (six, varying in shape as well as
size). There's no handwriting recognition option, either. Still, I'm
finding it a fun addition to my Treo: If nothing else, I'll be sending
some interesting digital postcards when I travel.
For more details on BugMe, go to Electric Pocket's site:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/204115/21421684/737131/0/
Have a question or comment? Write to Yardena Arar:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Read Yardena Arar's regularly published "PDA Pundit" columns:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/204115/21421684/364622/0/
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