|
HOME
Thumbdrive
Asus CD-RW
XDAII
WLAN
UPS
Streamyx
My AMD PC
3D Animations
3D Images
3D Books
3D DVDs
My Dell XPS 450R
Mustek Twainscan 600 USB
Casio E-10 PalmPC
Why CD-RW?
Digital Video Camera
Digital Video Creator
HP CD Writer
Aztech Modem
| |
 | I purchased the Casio "Cassiopeia" E-10
in June 1998 at a cost of RM1,599. I almost bought the Palm III but by luck, read about
this new palmpc somewhere on the Internet. So I hunted for it in KL and in PJ, and
amazingly discovered it in Sunway Pyramid. Without much hesitation, I bought it on the
spot, and I must say, it was a very good decision. |
| I preferred this Windows CE version over the Palm III offering for the following
reasons:-
| Casio E-10 |
3Com Palm III |
| Uses Windows CE, so operates just like Win95 - hence no
relearning, and integration is assured. |
Has own operating system. |
| Uses Pocket Outlook, which is a simplified version of Outlook
on the PC, but can store more fields and has more features than Palm III equivalent. |
It's version of Contacts, Appointments, and Tasks is too
simple and primitive. |
| Hot-sync to Outlook98, which I use at office and home. You
only need to plug the E-10 onto its cradle, and synchronisation is started. No need to
press any button. |
Doesn't hotsync with Outlook. Need to press a button to
initiate hotsync. |
| Basic handwriting recognition is more natural. |
You need to learn to write in its peculiar alphabet style for
it to recognise handwriting; that's why it comes with a cover containing a small chart
showing how to write its alphabets. Ridiculous. |
| Uses all of screen space for displaying output and receiving
input. |
Reserves lower fifth of screen space for input only, and rest
for output. What a waste! |
| Has 4MB of RAM. |
Has only 2MB of RAM. |
| Can synchronies with the Internet via Mobile Channels, which I
use to download news regularly. |
Don't think it supports such push technology... |
| Has a microphone to do voice recording. Actually has a
software called Smart Commander which you can use to control the E-10 by using voice
commands! |
No such thing. |
| Has a backlight feature, to see in the dark. |
No such thing. |
|
| I decided to get four AAA size rechargeable batteries, together with its own charger, to
power the E-10 (it uses two batteries). From my experience, each set lasts me a week of
normal use. The E-10 drains up battery power if you use its backlight feature and voice
recorder, though. |
| Well, recently (March 1999), I bought a 4MB CompactFlash card memory (which costs RM200)
so that I can install and run Calligrapher v5.2, the premier handwriting recognition
software by Paragraph. This is a killer software,
and it simply pisses on Jot, or Jot Pro, or SmartWriter (which I've tried on my brother's
Philips Nino 300).
 | I mean Calligrapher actually recognises cursive handwriting (!), and you can
write whole sentences, anywhere on the screen, and it'll convert those into text. No
cumbersome training required. No weird symbolic alphabets to remember. No separate area of
the screen to write lowercase letters, uppercase letters, and numbers.... |
| In fact, it has a built-in calculator, so if you wrote "10.50 + 9.12" followed
by " =", it would churn out the answer 19.62! |
| This software is disgustingly cool. I love it. |
|
| Some nifty utilities which I also installed into the E-10 are:-
| Palm Explorer by Grundle Software. This is
a Windows Explorer equivalent that allows you to browse the file system in the familiar
tree-style layout. Useful to see how I stack up files in the flashcard. |
| Flipper by Sticky Software. In Windows CE, there
is no real means of exiting from a running application, nor is there an easy way to jump
from one running program to another. So Flipper solves this inconvenience by providing a
taskbar icon which you can:-
 | Single-click to skip to the next running program, and |
| Double-click to close the current program |
|
|
| I pack quite a bit of data into my E-10:-
| Contacts store more than 900 names and addresses - 200KB |
| Mobile Channels for news - 400KB |
|
| Now I'm planning to use my E-10, in conjunction with Calligrapher, as a daily journal of
events, which I shall scribble a brief account of interesting observations or reviews I
make with respect to my work or personal experiences. These will be used as updates to my
website.
| Good, huh? No more paper-based diary to lug around, no more finding for that elusive pen
or pencil (and paper) to jot down some message or appointment details, and no need to
perform double-entry anymore (once in diary, another in PC). This is the digital
revolution. |
|
|
