Palm Pilot & Piano Teching

[Mark Story]

Yes I bought one last year and I don't know how I did without it. My problem
was (probably not uncommon) was that I scheduled appointments from three
places - my home office, here at school, and mobile with a paper scheduler.
The problem was that they were seldom up-to-date with each other. The Pilot
solved this. I now have the desktop programs here and at my home office. I
bought an extra interface cradle so now I can keep all three locations
synchronized.

The Pilot was the first PDA that I have found that was 1. powerful enough to
be practical, 2. small enough to actually carry in my shirt pocket, and 3.
be extensible though programming. The latter is quit interesting - you can
find hundreds of additional programs available from third party programmers.
Some are free, some shareware and some full tilt commercial. I use, in
addition to the packaged applications, a basic database program called
JFile. I think it was $20 shareware. I keep relevant data  for all of my
client's pianos in JFile. The data can be imported without too much trouble
to Access or most any other database application that can import comma
delimited text files.

If you are inclined to do your own programming, you can get the GNC (C
language)package for free, a basic interpreter, a high level graphical
language called CASL ($70, I think) or go with the commercial package from
Code Warrior. I haven't found the need to got to the trouble yet, though I
would like a application that I could use to calculate estimates in the
field. There is a spreadsheet application that could be used for this that
runs about $50.

The latest model is the Palm Pilot III, which looks a little smaller, has a
nice built-in cover for the screen, has a new version of the operating
system and can be synchronized with another PPIII via infrared link.

Mark Story, RPT
Eastern Washington University
mstory@ewu.edu
-----Original Message-----
From: Pianotoone@aol.com <Pianotoone@aol.com>
To: pianotech@ptg.org <pianotech@ptg.org>
Date: Monday, June 01, 1998 3:01 PM
Subject: Palm Pilot & Piano Teching


>Anybody else use tone of these in appt. scheduling
>
>I am considering the purchase of a Palm Pilot to replace my paper schedule
>book.  I misplaced my paper book last Friday and went thru a day and a half
of
>worry until I found it again.  (No, I didn't have any backup schedule)  I
>found it before my Monday appt's, but the experieince started me thinking.
If
>I scheduled on the computer and then used the Palm Pilot to take in the
car, I
>would always have backup even if I lost the Palm Pilot.
>
>Sure would appreciatte pro/con from any users or former users
>
>Dick Day
>Marshall MI