My new Axim x50!
I finally got my Axim x50 from Dell. After a little mix up with the billing address, the order process was pretty smooth sailing (although there was absolutely no feedback at the Dell website). My first impressions are: LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT! It’s certainly a great leap forward from my old Palm IIIc, which I’ve used religiously until a few days ago.
I won’t go into a lot of technical details here, but rather I will attempt to describe a few key points regarding setup and choosing good applications for the Axim.
Read on for more software tips.
- MSN Messenger Date/Time Bug
- Set the date and time! O.k. this was subtle. When you start your Axim for the first time or after a hard-reset, the date/time is set to a default time. If you try to use MSN Messenger you will get a completely unhelpful “cannot connect error”. Do not upgrade! Don’t upgrade Messenger, it’s already up-to-date (as of Oct 10/2005).
- Good Applications
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- SP TimeSync 2.2: A freeware ntp client. Synching your time with an ntp time server is very helpful. Note that this does not work through the USB connection (UDP packets aren’t sent). I had a heck of a time getting this to work, but it was on the router side not the Axim.
- Eval 1.0.0.4: A freeware scientific calculator with a layout that wasn’t designed by a kindergartener.
- Big Two 1.10: Freeware card game.
- AvantGo: Freeware Online/Offline web portal. Keep up to date with the latest news from newspaper, tech, and news sites. Axim does not have this automatically installed, although it looks like it should have, based on the documentation.
- PocketTTY 1.10: Shareware Terminal Emulator with SSH. I tried several freeware SSH options, and none seemed to work on the Axim. However PocketTTY came to the rescue. I will probably fork over some cash, because the unregistered version only stays connected for 5 minutes.
- Microsoft Money 2.05 PocketPC version of Money 2006. This is extension is a free addition to the Microsoft Money suite. This lets you make entries into your account registers while on the go, and it resynchronizes seemlessly into Money on your home PC. This was one of the big selling points of the PocketPC for me. (The palm solution is Ultrasoft Money, which is good, but costs money and needs an upgrade everytime Money is upgraded). You might want to turn off some of the display in the Settings/Personal/Today section, otherwise all your balances show up on the “Today” page!