HP buys Palm - What could that mean for education?

image from Precentral - http://www.precentral.net/

On Wednesday, April 28th, 2010, HP announced that they would buy Palm, the maker of webOS and the Pre/Pre+ and Pixi/Pixi+ smartphones.

Palm, the company that actually launched and popularized early smartphones with it's Treo line, had struggled for many years and then was buoyed up by the release of it's new operating system, webOS. webOS is well liked and critically acclaimed, being described as the most elegant, user friendly, smartphone OS out there. It's synergy system keeps users always up-to-date and in sync with other services. It is also the only one that does true multitasking. In spite of webOS's initial excitement, Palm was unable to capitalize on that and sales of their new smartphones have not been as good as they thought and the company has been struggling. Enter HP.

HP, one of the largest technology companies in the world and a major computer manufacturer, is planning on keeping webOS and most of Palm's team and run them as a separate business unit. They are planning to scale webOS across multiple platforms, and in interviews have discussed a webOS powered tablet and slate. HP's global scale and financial strength combined with Palm's webOS will allow HP to "participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device market."

So, what does this have to do with education? One, Palm's webOS is a great platform and easy to use. HP can expand the market of webOS further into education. HP is talking about new devices like tablets and slates which will be great for the education market. This also means more competition in the market place which benefits consumers by lowering prices. webOS is extremely easy to develop apps for. Most high school computer science students (and many other students) already know web languages, which is what webOS is based on. This means that students could develop their own apps for educational purposes. With HP backing webOS, we will also see more and more developers creating apps for it. Palm has great support for developers also. HP and Palm have some very talented developers and engineers and the combination of both should lead to some very innovative products in the future.

Palm and webOS already have a lot of great apps for education and more are available all the time. webOS is easy to use, powerful, has a great web browser, supports Flash, has thousands of apps, supports 3D graphics, has true multitasking, and is easy to develop for.

HP and Palm have always been good towards education and I don't see that changing. HP already is involved with education through partnerships, discounts on products, and resources for students and educators. HP has their Teacher Experience Exchange which has lesson plans, resources, discussions, and more for educators. HP also offers free online technology training for educators. Palm has the Palm Foundation which provides financial and product-donation assistance to high-quality, effective non-profit organization. Palm also encourages developers to create educational applications.

In short, I feel that HP's purchase of Palm will lead to many good things for education - a great operating system on new devices with great potential and use in education.

More Educational Apps for Palm webOS

FOR EDUCATION

Palm's new operating system, webOS, is gaining more and more apps each day. While the iPhone and Android get the most media attention, Palm is slowly gaining share. Many teachers used Palm PDA's in class in the early part of decade. If they are looking for the same ease of use with increased productivity, functionality, and graphics, they should check out webOS on the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi.

Two new apps were released today that would be great for education:

1. Quizmine Math Reference - this app is a math reference app that allows you to get quick and easy access to math formulas from arithmetic, algebra, geometry, measurement, trigonometry and derivatives. $0.99

UPDATE: Quizmine also has a great Physics reference app too!

2. Soshiku - this app is a simple, but powerful tool for students to use to manage their classes and assignments. It will keep track of assignment due dates and will notify you by email or text message to remind you it is due. For each assignment, you can add notes, tasks, view attachments, and share messages with assignment partners. The app syncs with the free account on Soshiku.com. $1.99

And of course webOS phones have all the basic features:

contacts, email, excellent web browser with Flash support, text messaging, camera, phone, tasks, media players, note taking, and lots more, including Evernote, Twitter, Facebook and Google.

Some additional apps that are great for education:

Evernote - "remember everyting"

A+ Student Organizer - keep track of schedule, grades, calculate GPA, assignments, tasks

Flash Cards - create your own flashcards, download from site, or download user created

Easy Stopwatch - useful for keeping time and in science labs

Seismograph - show students how vibrations are recorded

Dictionary

Convert - unit conversion calculator

Newsfeed - RSS reader

pReader - ebook reader

Epocrates - excellent medical reference

Wapedia - encyclopedia

SciCalc - scientific calculator

Periodic Table - interactive periodic table of the elements

World Atlas - world atlas with data on countries and regions

Twee - Twitter app

AP Mobile - news from the Associated Press

New York Times - read the NYT

There are also apps to learn Spanish, a grade book app for teachers, math games, and much, much more.

And, you can use all of those older Palm OS apps (Centro, Treo, TX, T3, etc) by using the app "Classic" on the Pre or Pixi. It will then run the old Palm OS apps on the Pre or Pixi. Pretty cool!

More Palm webOS Apps for Pre and Pixi at Precentral.net

Related Articles:

** Palm Apps for Education ** (really a companion to this article)

Resources for Students - Soshiku, TrackClass, and Dweeber

Review of the Palm Pre+ and Palm Pixi+

Palm's webOS vs. iPhone

An analysis of Palm webOS vs. iPhone

I just read an interesting feature on eWeek's website, 10 Features We Want to See in iPhone OS 4.0. They argue that while the iPhone is a great device, it is missing a few things. What really got my attention was that Palm's webOS on the Pre and Pixi have 6 of them and will have a 7th shortly (and has 2 that are very close to what they are looking for). Here's the list and which one's webOS has.

1. Multi-tasking - webOS has this. In fact, the slideshow has a Palm Pre as the picture for this slide.

2. Gaming integration - while webOS doesn't have a formal game system integrated, there are many excellent games, including 3D games, and developers have ported games from other systems into webOS.

3. Flash support in the browser - webOS 1.4 has support for this and Adobe will be releasing Flash for webOS in the next month or so. Apple says it is a security risk, but thousands of web sites use Flash so not having it limits the usefulness of the iPhone for web browsing.

4. User control - users can delete pre-installed apps (I've already deleted a couple). There is plenty of user control and customization available in webOS. The iPhone does not give you much control.

5. Improved File Management - neither system has a true file manager on the device, but there is a homebrew file manager for webOS. There is talk of a full file manager coming. webOS also allows you to use your Pre/Pixi as a USB drive, so any computer can act as a file manager for it.

6. Improved mail - the built in mail client for webOS is much better than the iPhone's, and there are some other mail clients available for webOS.

7. Built-in Social Networking - Palm has an official Facebook app that comes installed on the phones, and there are other social networking apps available for Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace.

8. Power Scheduling - webOS makes it very easy to turn Wifi, Bluetooth, or even your cellular radio off. There are also ways to schedule the radios to be on or off based on time of day. The newest release of webOS (v 1.4) has better automatic power management also.

9. iBooks - webOS does have some eReaders for it, but nothing like the one being developed for the iPad. Apple wins this one.

10. An improved App Store - webOS's App Catalog is easy to navigate and search, has different ways of browsing, and you can browse through the whole thing via the online App Gallery. Plus, Palm allows developers to offer home brew apps and apps via a web page instead of through the official App Catalog. All of these can be easy searched at PreCentral's App Gallery. Apple does have more apps for the iPhone (140K), but webOS has only been out since June 2009, and more apps are released every day. Yes, I would love to have some of the apps that are on the iPhone, but I love the webOS user interface and functions. And, most of what I do is online anyway.

Summary:

webOS has: 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10

webOS will have shortly: 3

webOS has a version of/kind of has: 2, 5

In conclusion, Palm's webOS has many great features that even the iPhone lacks. Palm just released webOS 1.4 last week. I can't wait to see what webOS 2.0 will have! Palm's webOS is a great platform that is easy to use, has a great user interface, great apps and functionality, and is easy to develop for. Look for more webOS devices in the future.

More information on webOS and Palm Pre and Palm Pixi

http://www.palm.com/us/

http://www.precentral.net/

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2010/02/review-palm-pre-and-pixi.html

Palm's webOS and Pre and Pixi are great for teachers and students too! Check out the article below for more on this. (and there have been many new apps since that article was written).

http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/12/palm-apps-for-education.html

Review - Palm Pre+ and Pixi+

(Disclaimer - I am not being compensated in any way by Verizon or Palm for this review. This is simply my take on a new smart phone and how I am using it in education).

I recently got a Palm Pre+ on Verizon. I have been a Palm user for over 10 years, starting with a Palm IIIxe, then T3, LifeDrive, TX, and Centro on Verizon. I've been anxiously awaiting the Pre on Verizon since it was announced by Palm back in January 2009. My wife got the Pixi+.

I'm not going to write a full review of the Palm Pre+ or Pixi+ because that's been done plenty of times (here is Precentral's Review). I'm going to discuss how Palm's revolutionary operating system (webOS) and the Pre are great for me as an educator.

For more in depth info on the specs of these phones you can go to Verizon's site, or Palm's site (Pre+, Pixi+).

Both phones run Palm's new operating system, webOS. WebOS is built on a Linux base and uses web technologies for programming. This means that it is very easy for people to develop apps for it. It allows for multi-tasking, which is unusual for a smart phone. The user interface is bright, easy to read, and easy to use. WebOS also has unobtrusive notifications of incoming calls and messages, allows you to sync and merge multiple accounts, contacts and calendars. It is very easy and intuitive to use with finger touches and gestures doing most functions. It also supports multi-touch gestures. WebOS's ability to multi-task is great, and all apps are handled as cards think "windows" on a PC. webOS also has "Universal Search". Simply start typing at the home screen and it will search your phone (contacts, calendar, etc) and the internet for the search term. It makes finding anything very easy.

The hardware is beautiful. The Pre+ looks like a black, smooth, pebble and fits nicely in your hand. Both the Pre+ and Pixi+ have rubberized backs to make sure they don't slip out of your hand.

The Pre+ has a larger screen than the Pixi+ and a slide out QWERTY keyboard. The Pixi+ is thinner and has a candy bar format with the QWERTY keyboard fixed in position. The Pre+ has 16GB of memory and the Pixi+ has 8GB. Both have Bluetooth and Wifi. They both have great web browsers, email systems, and MMS (text and picture messaging) and there are thousands of apps available for both phones. Both also have digital camera's and LED flashes. The web browser displays web sites just like your computer's browser does and then you can just zoom in on different parts of the page. This means no more "mobile" versions of web sites.

A very cool accessory is the Touchstone charger. The Pre+ simply sticks to this little round charger using magnets and the phone charges using inductive technology. When the phone is on the charger, the screen displays the time and any notifications.

I use my Pre+ every day in my job as an educator and it truly makes my life easier. When I wake up in the morning I go over to the phone on the charger and see what notifications I have (emails, texts, alarms and alerts). I can address those right away or just put them off until later.

I can quickly look at my calendar for the day (synced with my Google Calendar), check notes in Evernote, check my email, RSS feeds (Google Reader), Twitter and Facebook and get my self ready for the day. I also check the weather using the Weather Channel's free app.

I can use the built in Google Maps and GPS for directions and use the media player to listen to music, videos, or use a streaming music service like Pandora (free) to get some great music.

Once at school, I use it for appointments, reminders (memos), taking notes, checking email, RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook and more from my Personal Learning Network. The multi-tasking feature means I can have apps open and running in the background while doing other things. I can even have multiple web pages open using different cards, just like I use multiple tabs on my computer. There is also a YouTube app for viewing videos. Full native Flash support is available now and the Flash app is scheduled for release by Adobe shortly. The ability to see Flash in the web browser is very important to me and education since many educational sites and science sites use Flash for demos, videos, and more. The updates are done over the air and can be automatic.

I have a scientific calculator and unit conversion app on it for use with my physics classes. I also use it to take notes, store my lesson plans, access student info and grades, and much more no matter where I am in the building.

The webOS and great hardware allow me to do so much of the things that I can do on my computer with my Pre+. It doesn't matter where I am in the school or what I'm doing, I have my files, a great web browser, email, and apps to get my work done.

I think it's a great smart phone for educators and it's just as good for students. Students can do research, take notes, go online, check email, and use tons of educational apps in their studies. (see the related article below).

The only downside to the phone is that it doesn't have the best battery life. UPDATE: The February update did bring enhanced battery performance and the battery can be switched by the user (unlike Apple products). The update to webOS 1.4 also sped up actions and applications and made a variety of other improvements.

The multi-tasking really makes things easy for me. I can have Pandora on playing music, and have multiple web browsers open, my URL shortener and a Twitter client and be able to post information to Twitter and my blog. Since all of the apps are running, there is no delay when switching from one to the other.

Overall, I am very impressed with the Pre+ (and my wife loves her Pixi+) and have found it to be a great tool for work and for fun. It is easy to use and very powerful.

I recommend it to anyone looking for a new smart phone or looking to purchase their first smart phone due to it's power, usefulness, and ease of use. The Pre+ and Pixi+ are available on Verizon Wireless and the original Pre and Pixi are available on Sprint.

It is also great for education. I'm hoping Palm will come out with a PDA version and maybe a netbook/tablet version with webOS. It is easy to use and powerful - perfect for students.

Related Articles:

Palm Pre+ Coming to Verizon

Palm Apps for Education

Most Read Posts

TOP READ POSTS

Here's a list of the top read posts. It was interesting to see the ones that had the most visits.

Creating a Personal Learning Network

What Technology I use on a Daily Basis

Palm Pre+ Coming to Verizon

Educational Apps for Palm Smartphones

Should We Force Students to Learn or How Can We Engage Our Students Better?

The Value of Educational Technology

Conquering Technophobia

Thanks again to all my readers and supporters over the last year. This blog has been a lot of fun to write and share resources.

Palm Apps for Education

(Treo 755p, Treo Pro, Pre, Centro, Pixi)

(cross posted at http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/26176)

The iPhone and it's apps always seem to be discussed on the web. I don't use an iPhone, and most of my colleagues and students don't have them either. There are plenty of Blackberry's, T-Mobile G1's and Palm smartphones around though. Since I use Palm phones, I decided to showcase some applications on Palm phones that are useful in education.

Palm's two new phones are the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, which both run on Palm's new operating system, WebOS. One of the unique features about WebOS is the ability to multi-task using cards (similar to windows on a PC). While WebOS only has about 700 apps and another 350 homebrew (unofficial) apps, there is one application that is very useful. Classic allows WebOS phones to use most of the 20,000 PalmOS apps that exist.

PalmOS was Palm's older operating system that ran on the popular Palm Centro and Treo smartphones. There are millions of Centro's and Treo's out there and Palm's PDA's (TX, LifeDrive, and others) and there were tons of educational applications and lesson plans written for Palm devices.

Basic Applications: contacts, email, web browser, text messaging, camera, phone, tasks, media players, note taking, and lots more, including Evernote, Twitter, Facebook and Google.

Educational or useful in Education: (both platforms)

Dictionary

Thesaurus

Docs to Go (Word, PowerPoint, and Excel)

Calculators

Teacher and Student organizers

WebOS Resources: (Palm Pre and Pixi)

Precentral - single best resource for Palm Pre and Pixi and WebOS

Homebrew apps for WebOS - over 300 including conversion calculators, organizing tools, and periodic table.

World Atlas

World Factbook (information about countries)

Classtracker (student grade and assignment tracker)

Scientific Calculator

Stopwatch/timer

Word of the Day - great resource for helping students learn new words and strengthen vocabulary

Periodic table

Unit Conversions - converts units

WebOS has hundreds of applications, many useful for education. Every week, more and more applications arrive in the app catalog, so there is always something new to check out.

The web browser in WebOS is excellent, rendering web pages like you were on a desktop computer. This allows teachers and students to access all of the great web pages and web based applications that exist for education. Adobe is also bringing Flash to WebOS soon so Palm Pre and Pixi owners will have the ability to see Flash content right on their device.

PalmOS Resources: (can run on WebOS with Classic installed on Pre or Pixi)

Centro, Treo, TX, T3, E2, Lifedrive

Listing of Palm educational applications - dictionary, unit conversions, calculators, translators, and more

Educational Applications for Palm - maps, productivity, games, and more

Due Yesterday - student organization, due dates, homework tracking and more

Student Mate - student homework and assignment tracking

K12 Handhelds - site has listings of Palm OS software for education, organized by category. The site also has ideas on how to use Palm OS devices in education.

Inspiration for Palm OS - graphic organizer and visual planner.

PalmGear - PalmOS applications

Handango - PalmOS applications

Teacher's HandyPack - includes time table, lesson planner, teacher planner, and student and class manager

Gradekeeper - electronic grade book. Sync's to desktop.

Applications for Palm OS range from calculators, conversions, periodic tables, study tools, flash card tools, quizzes, student organizers, teacher tools, language translators and much, much more.

Many of the PalmOS applications also have desktop counterparts (like Gradekeeper) and you can sync your handheld's information to the desktop. This acts as both a backup and it is easier to view and edit information on a desktop vs. a handheld.

This is only a small sampling of the thousands of applications available for WebOS and PalmOS. So you can see that Palm and WebOS have lots of applications that can be used in the classroom or for educational purposes. Android (Google's mobile phone application) and Blackberry do too.

I don't believe in schools requiring students to use any one product or software type because it becomes a defacto endorsement of the product and limits student choice. Instead, I think schools should use platform-independent tools (web based) or have lessons that allow student choice in which applications they use for class work.

Smartphones are a great educational tool. They are mini computers with the ability to do almost anything a student needs to do - write a paper, web research, graphing calculators, and much more. Schools shouldn't be outlawing cell phones and smartphones, they should be figuring out how to leverage them as learning tools.

Related Articles:

Operating Systems and Web Based Apps

Palm Pre

What do you think? What educational applications do you have for your smartphone?

Operating Systems and Web Based Apps

(cross posted at http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/21132)

Operating systems - this is the part of the computer that allows you to run software. Microsoft Windows and Apple OS are the two major operating systems out there. There is also Linux, which is an open source project with many varieties.

Most schools use Windows or Apple, and sometimes have both depending on the use. Apple was always thought of as the operating system to use for music and art, but it has gotten used more widely over the years. The iPhone has helped push Apple's OS out to more people.

Google has also release it's own operating system, Android, for use on smart phones and netbooks. Netbooks are small laptops that are mainly used by travelers to do email and web browsing.

Palm has just released it's new operating system, WebOS, on it's new smart phone, the Palm Pre. Palm has announced that this new operarting system will be used on many more devices and the industry rumors are pointing to a WebOS powered netbook in the near future.

I have just listed 5 different operating systems that currently run, or will soon run, on computers. This means that schools have to worry about compatability and interoperability among school computers and home computers used by faculty and students.

There are many ways to make this less painful. There has been a big push in the computer industry to standardize certain software formats, such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, so that anyone can open a file, no matter what operating system they have. Apple also has versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint that can read and edit the Windows versions, and Linux has OpenOffice, which can also read Windows and Apple file formats, and Apple has it's own iWorks.

Another push in the computer industry looks to eliminate the operating system as an issue. Cloud computing has been a major topic for years, but more and more companies are pushing it as a way to avoid operating system issues. Cloud computing is simply having all of your files and software hosted on a network somewhere. This means that all you need to acces the files and programs is a web browser. These systems work with any web browser. The system does not care what operating system you are using. You can use Windows, or Apple, or Linux. If you can get to the internet, you can get to your files and applications. Most people have already used a cloud system when they check their email with a web mail system. Cable, Verizon, AOL, Gmail, and Yahoo are all web based email systems that you can accces from any computer with a web browser.

The most popular cloud system is Google Apps. With Google Apps, you can create, edit, save, store, and share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. You could work on the file on an Apple computer at work, and then continue working on it on a Windows computer at home. There are other cloud systems out there, such as Zoho and Evernote. Many more companies are developing web apps so that they can have users from any operating system.

Schools should look into more cloud or web based applications in the future to eliminate the issues of compatibility between operating systems. Most web based applications offer offline applications that can run even without an internet connection as well as a way to save your files to your own computer. The other benefit is that most of these systems are low cost or even free.

As the operating system wars heat up with Windows 7, Apple Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Linux, schools need to make sure that no matter what OS their faculty and students use at home, they can access files and applications at school and home. It also helps avoid the issue of "I forgot my assignment file at home," or "my printer ran out of ink." By using the web apps, students could just log into their account at school and print it out. Teachers would also always have their files available to them no matter where they are. In many cases, these new web applications will also save on licensing fees since they are free.

Web based applications and files can also be accessed from smart phones like the iPhone, Palm Pre, Blackberry, and G1. This means that you would have access to your files and applications at any time.

There is a lot of information out there on cloud computing and web applications. Take a look at a couple of these:

http://www.google.com/educators/tools.html

http://www.zoho.com/

http://moodle.org/

http://www.labnol.org/internet/most-useful-web-applications/6278/

http://www.smashingapps.com/2008/07/11/21-online-free-web-based-applications-that-you-probably-would-love-to-use-every-day.html

http://nedwolf.com/Web-Applications.htm

http://www.techlearning.com/article/7902

http://www.techlearning.com/Blogs/18764

http://www.techlearning.com/Blogs/18598

http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/20444

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

Palm Pre Release Info

Palm will officially release the Pre smart phone on June 6th. It will launch on Sprint and be available at Sprint stores, Palm, Best Buy, Walmart and Radio Shack. Pricing is $199 with a 2 year contract and rebate.

The Pre is Palm's newest smart phone and the first device to run WebOS. WebOS is a dynamic new operating system that is easy to program for and is the first smart phone OS to have multi-tasking. This means you can have an open email that you are editing, have music playing, check your calendar, and go on the internet. The new web browser is also more functional and renders web pages better than most mobile systems. 

The Pre also has a system called Synergy which keeps all of your contacts, from various sources, in sync and combined on the Pre. It also has the ability to sync your data to Palm's network for backup.

The Pre also has a slide out QWERTY keyboard instead of a virtual keyboard like the Blackberry Storm or Apple iPhone. This makes composing emails and work easier.

The Pre has been one of the most anticipated devices of the year and won awards at trade shows this year.

There are already many launch partners and applications available for the Palm including one that allows users to use their old Palm OS applications on it. There are also applications for gaming, data access, and using your Microsoft Office files on the Pre. And of course, any web application is accessible through it's web browser. 

I can see the Pre being a very useful tool in a classroom. Imagine a class of students with instant access to research materials, the ability to send information to the teacher, the ability to interact with each other and other classes, the ability to do their work anywhere, anytime. The classroom just got expanded to outside the building. The challenge - changing many school district's outlook on cell phones in school.

For more information:

www.palm.com

www.sprint.com

Disclaimer - I own Palm stock.

Palm Pre coming soon?

I'm a Palm fan. I have been using Palm products for 12 years, starting with a Palm III, moving to a Palm Tungsten T3, then Lifedrive, then TX, and currently using a Palm Centro on Verizon. I've always thought that Palm had the best PIM (Personal Information Management - calendar, tasks, memos, and contacts) system of any PDA or smart phone. I use my Centro for everything - Calendar, Contacts, Memos (over 1600), Tasks, email, web browsing, text messaging, games, productivity, lesson plans, and even as a phone.

I've been anxiously awaiting the Palm Pre. Palm announced their new smart phone back in January. The phone has a new operating system (webOS) and a great form factor (touchscreen with a slide down QWERTY keyboard). The applications and operating system look great and all the industry analysts are calling the Pre an "iPhone killer". 

The problem - it still hasn't been released and I'm dying to get one. It will be released on Sprint for the first 6 months, and then go to other carriers after that. Palm has announced that it will be released in the first half of 2009. There are indications that the release is imminent. There are commercials being filmed, reports of Sprint employees being trained on it, and reports of Pre shipments being sent out to stores. 

I'm hoping it will be out soon. I love the idea of a smart phone as an educational tool, and I think that the Pre will be a great educational tool.

For more info: www.palm.com and www.sprint.com 

Disclaimer - I do own Palm stock.

Smartphones - what a great invention!

I love my smart phone. I have a Palm Centro, running Garnet (Palm) OS and on Verizon's network. It is the single most useful technology gadget I have.

First, it is a phone and it works well. What I like most is that as I update my contacts on Palm Desktop, it sync's to my phone. That makes editing, and backing up information, very easy. In fact, all of the PIM (Personal Information Management) data is backed up on my computer and is editable through the Palm Desktop software.

This leads into the next part of the device that I love - the PIM. The Calendar and Task lists keep me organized. You are able to set reminder timers for both of these, which comes in very handy. The other PIM function I love is the Memo's function. This is basically a very simple text editor that allows you to create individual memos and categorize them. I have over 1600 memo's that I use for reference notes, lesson plans, financial information, account information, medical records, and more. You can even make them private and secured with a password.

Some other things I use my smartphone for include web surfing, email, test messaging, and viewing and editing Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files. I can also view pdf files. I have a microSD card that has all of my files from school. I use Microsoft Hot Sync and software on the phone to sync the files on my classroom computer, with the smartphone, and then my home computer. This makes my life easy by allowing me access to the files at any time, without having to have them hosted on a web site.

The other feature that I use alot now is the camera. I take pictures of magazine articles, papers, white board notes. and other things as reminders, and a way of keeping a permanent electronic record of things. The resolution is pretty good, so it works well. There are also some online services that will take the picture you to and they can convert it to text.

The phone also has Goggle maps so that I don't get lost, an MP3 player to listen to my music, games, reference information, and even a video player that allows me to load DVD movies onto the phone to watch. The small screen is actually pretty nice to watch on, and this is a nice way to pass the time when working as a paramedic and sitting at post in an ambulance.

Today's smartphones have a lot of power, features, and applications and are extremely useful devices. I'm not sure how I managed in the past without one.

I have a Palm Centro, but most other smartphones have similar features and applications. Some run on multiple networks, like Blackberry and Palm, and others are only on a certain network, like Apple. Before you purchase one, do some research and see which one that seems to work best for you.

Disclosure - While I do own stock in Palm (not a lot though), I am not trying to sell this to anyone. I tell people that a smartphone is a very personal thing and their own personal preference is what should lead them to which smartphone to purchase. Apple's iPhone, Palm, and Blackberry's are the most popular and all of them are very useful. I found Palm's to be the best fit for me and what I do. People who need a really outstanding email system usually go for Blackberry, and people who are looking to do more multi-media tasks look at the iPhone.

To each his own.