Very Computer

by **Scott Andres** » Thu, 11 Jun 1998 04:00:00

pilot.org is pleased to bring you a review of AvantGo for PalmOS. Get the
full scoop at pilot.org!

http://www.pilot.org

by **Dean Johns** » Fri, 12 Jun 1998 04:00:00

>pilot.org is pleased to bring you a review of AvantGo for PalmOS. Get the
>full scoop at pilot.org!

>http://www.pilot.org

It's a pretty glowing review and I have to say that I agree
completely. I tried the demo that was on the PalmIII extras CD and
liked it so much that I paid for the full version two days later. The
demo is limited to only one level of pages but is a good demonstration
of the capabilities. It's the most expensive pilot s/w I know of
(shoot, it's probably the most expensive s/w I've purchased in a year)
but it's great. I use it every day, I love having up to date news on
my pilot.

I've been writing web services encouraging them to make palm friendly
versions of their pages. I'm especially looking for weather reports,
and television and movie listings.

yours, Dean

by **John Goerze** » Sat, 13 Jun 1998 04:00:00

I must disagree completely. AvantGo's largest problem is that it is
proprietary. This makes it useless for me -- I have no use for
Microsoft OSs (that can't do what I need, but that's a different
topic) -- and not being able to get a Linux port or write one myself
is a serious issue. Had they been responsible and at least released
the spec, there would not be this problem.

Secondly, there are already multiple other programs out there with
offline caches that do the same thing, except with 4-bit
better-looking graphics and no requirement of a desktop app. So why
would one want AvantGo?

John

> It's a pretty glowing review and I have to say that I agree
> completely. I tried the demo that was on the PalmIII extras CD and
> liked it so much that I paid for the full version two days later. The
> demo is limited to only one level of pages but is a good demonstration
> of the capabilities. It's the most expensive pilot s/w I know of
> (shoot, it's probably the most expensive s/w I've purchased in a year)
> but it's great. I use it every day, I love having up to date news on
> my pilot.

> I've been writing web services encouraging them to make palm friendly
> versions of their pages. I'm especially looking for weather reports,
> and television and movie listings.

> yours, Dean

--

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by **Dean Johns** » Tue, 16 Jun 1998 04:00:00

Quote:>I must disagree completely. AvantGo's largest problem is that it is
>proprietary. This makes it useless for me -- I have no use for
>Microsoft OSs (that can't do what I need, but that's a different
>topic) -- and not being able to get a Linux port or write one myself
>is a serious issue. Had they been responsible and at least released
>the spec, there would not be this problem.

You're right, it's a drawback that their format is proprietary but it
works better for me that the other browsers so it's hard to worry much
about what is inside the black box.

Just because it's propietary doesn't mean a person couldn't reverse
engineer it. If you wanted to, you could probably grab and pre-chew
pages with a pretty straightforward desktop-based perl script.

Quote:>Secondly, there are already multiple other programs out there with
>offline caches that do the same thing, except with 4-bit
>better-looking graphics and no requirement of a desktop app. So why
>would one want AvantGo?

All the other browsers (that I tried at least) used the TCP/IP stack
which is fine for online browsing but is incompatible with Palm's
hotsync. The TCP/IP based browsers that I tried seemed to expect me to
load pages by manually browsing to them. Further, the TCP/IP
requirement won't work for users who have Pilots older than a Pro.

With AvantGo, I drop my Pilot in it's base in the morning and a normal
hotsync downloads and syncs the web pages that I've previously
specified. I grab it and go with a customized daily newspaper in my
pocket.

There are many browsers and I certainly didn't try them all. Is there
another one that's as convenient as AvantGo?

yours, Dean

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