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In case you don't
already know...
By: Dave
- September 7th, 2001
New to PDA's? Don't
worry, at one time, we all were. Finding a device, using it, and
talking about can often be more difficult then you might think. This
features will cover a few areas where people often get mixed up when
talking about their device, looking for one, or even while using their
device. The market changes every six months, so it is understandable
that people that aren't "PDA nerds", don't know what has
changed.
First, not all handhelds/PDA's
are Palm Pilots. In fact, Palm Pilots are no longer sold, though
Palm does make devices called Palms. Another mix-up that goes hand
in hand with that is a Handspring Visor is not a Palm. It is a
Visor, though it runs the Palm operating system (OS). The whole
"Palm Pilot thing" is really a big deal when someone has a
Windows CE based device. No, I don't have a Palm Pilot, I have a
PDA. For simplicity sake, I would just refer to all Palm, CE and
other handhelds as PDA's.
Windows CE devices have
different terminology problems. Pocket PC's run Windows CE, but not
all Windows CE devices are Pocket PC's. Pocket PC also refers to
Windows CE version 3.0. So when someone says I have a Pocket PC,
they have a device that has the Windows CE operating system (OS) version
3.0. If they say they have a Palm PC, then their device has Windows
CE 2.x (2.x just means version 2, 2.1, 2.11, or 2.2). If someone
says they have an HPC, then they have a handheld PC that run Windows CE
but also has an attached keyboard. Are you lost yet?
All devices have some kind
of expandability. When someone refers to a "PDA
expansion", that is a very general term. Often, you will find
that if someone said a "Palm expansion" or a "Compaq
expansion", that would be an expansion specific to that device, and
often connects via a specialized connector on the bottom of the
device. There also are expansions like Compact Flash (CF), Secure
Digital (SD), Multimedia Card (MMC), Memory Sticks, and PCMCIA, that
refers to a type of expansion card. All these products are based off
a card that slides into a device with that kind of slot. Often these
cards are memory, but they can also be modems, network cards, or wireless
solutions.
Something that hasn't completely
hit the market yet is wireless. There are few things you should know
about this. 802.11b is a type of wireless product. You don't
really want to know why it is 802.11b, it just is. This solution is
mid range, which means it goes a ways, but isn't really roaming
internet. 802.11b is more for connection to a computer network
wirelessly. Bluetooth is another wireless network solution, though
it doesn't go as far as 802.11b. Bluetooth also is for network
connections.
Feel like you know a little
more? Now you can start talking the PDA lingo, or at least speak it
better!
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