Pilot AvantGo

I've often extolled the virtues of PalmPilots to keep reference data, as I do using the Memo application. I can paste in data from a desktop computer into the Pilot Desktop application, or into SideKick 98 or the Journal in Lotus Notes, and have that data ready to reference whenever I want. This doesn't work very well if the data is already in a hypertext form, like web pages, or if it needs frequent updates, or if it is already structured as a set of small packets of data. For some of these problems, Ric Bram's Doc (now Aportis Doc) is a good solution. You can build bookmarks into your documents to move quickly to the required locations, but it isn't suitable if the documents need frequent revision. I keep Ambrose Bierce's Devils Dictionary in Doc, and it is ideal for that purpose.

A couple of projects I am working on involve coordinating documents between several people, and receive updates several times a day over a long period. One example is a manual for one of my companies products, a substantial commercial spreadsheet for Apple's new operating system to replace MacOS, Rhapsody. I don't have the time to convert these notes to Doc each time, so I have put them into a set of web pages. I also like to refer to some FAQs that are kept on the web, and are constantly updated; Calvin's PalmPilot FAQ at http://www.pilotfaq.com/ is a good example.

AvantGo is a new product from an eponymously named new company, which will create hypertext documents to read off-line on a Pilot from a set of web pages. It is still in early stages, so has one or two uncomfortable features. The basic idea for the product sounds a lot like the channels concept in Internet Explorer 4, except that you have portable access to the channel on a Pilot.

AvantGo Desktop

I used AvantGo to build a copy of Calvin's FAQ. AvantGo includes both a browser that is loaded on to the Pilot, and a Desktop application. The desktop software provides both a conduit for synchronising the data with the Pilot at each HotSync, and a way of configuring all the channels you want to synchronise. Each channel is given a name and a URL. You can specify how many links you want to follow from the initial URL, and you can check an option to only follow links on the same site, and one to set a maximum size (which can't be bigger than 256K, which I found mildly disappointing). The channel can then be either built on demand, or rebuilt each time you run HotSync. There is also an option to include images or not.

Browsing Calvin's FAQ off-line

The AvantGo desktop application appears to be written as a Java application, which, apart from a splash panel telling you that it is loading a Java VM, is relatively unobtrusive. Buttons are pseudo 3D, and it doesn't have a window menu. This is mildly annoying because it means you can't copy or paste things, like the URL. As it rebuilds the channel during a HotSync, this can mean that a HotSync will take a very long time. It also seems to have a relatively short timeout setting for gathering pages, so pages that are slow to download into your web browser are missed out of the channel altogether. I'd rather have a way of rebuilding a channel separate from the HotSync process, with a much longer timeout.

If you want to download an entire web site, or just gather up a couple of individual pages, the settings are reasonable. But if the site you want to collect is a subdirectory of a web site, then the limited range of settings mean that you will either miss out some pages deeper in the site, or you will end up collecting the entire site including other directories of no relevance to you. I'd like to see an option to gather only from a site directory, not just from the complete site. If the site you want to collect is one of the geocities sites, for example, this would be a major problem.

AvantGo also takes up a lot of space. The programs take up 71K, which is large for a Pilot application. Calvin's FAQ site, plus a couple of help sites created by AvantGo, consumes 243K. If you are careful with space, it might all fit with your other data into a 1 Mb Pilot, but I wouldn't expect to be able to use it for email or web browsing at the same time.

I don't want to sound too discouraging, however. AvantGo is in early release stages at the moment (they claim a release number of 1.03), but clearly shows some good potential. The concept behind the application is a very good one, and the implementation is good, despite my minor complaints.

Words and design by:
Paul Lynch
Last updated: April 21, 1998