Bringing your Hand-Helds to Life with Photos

A look at the Visor Prism and other Palm-Based Devices as Photo Wallets

By Bob Kaehms

I’ve always been bad about carrying around pictures of the kids. Usually I find my wallet too cluttered with old receipts and too many credit and loyalty cards to consider packing in anything else. But I am proud of the family, and like most fathers, want to show them off. So when I had an opportunity recently to take a look at the Handspring Prism, I made sure to give it a close look.

What first caught my eye about these hand held devices was the notion of expandability and modularity. Slightly larger than many of the slim-line hand-helds, the Prism is 4.8" x 3.0" x 0.8"and weighs 6.9 oz.. But if you can get over the size, the color screen and modularity makes these things quite interesting. And with a price that's dropped to $299 list, they are well within a frugile techie's budget.

Like other Handspring Visors, the Prism has a Springboard slot at the back of the device. You can find modules that turn it into anything from a camera, to a GPS locator, or even ones that allow you to add additional memory to the unit to store even more of your mobile data than the standard eight megabytes allows.

Besides use as my own personal photo wallet, and the associated bragging rights, my goal in studying these devices is to make it easy for visitors to eastbaysports.com to be able to download a game’s photos and store them on their own Prism or Pilot.

So Here’s what I’ve found out.

First you need to download and install additional software for your Prism. There are a number of software packages available that allow you to store and display photos. Two free packages that I found are the Handspring Photo Album software at http://handspring.com/software/hs_software.jhtml (for both the Mac, and PC) and a third party package, Album to Go, available from ClubPhoto at http://www.clubphoto.com/tools/atg.php

What makes Album to Go interesting is that it is integrated with ClubPhoto’s online digital printing Web site. So if you install the additional Photo Drop software, also available on their site, you can drag and drop your images to upload to ClubPhoto, as well as load them into your palm device. The software includes a slideshow mode so that you can turn your Palm OS device into a dynamically changing picture frame.

To install the software:

· First download the software to a temporary directory.
· Next, click on the file you just saved to run the install program.
· Set your Prism into its hotsync cradle, and synchronize with your PC

It’s that simple! Once you’ve installed the software, you are ready to start adding photos. Both software packages allow you to open a photo from your hard disk, and adjust such things as brightness, contrast, color depth, and with the newest version of ClubPhoto, even the save size of the image. However, you need to do all pre-processing, such as cropping, in a separate package, like Jasc Paint Shop Pro, or Ulead PhotoImpact.

I tried the Album to Go software with both a demo Handspring Prism, and my own Palm V. With the Palm V, I used the earlier 1.0 release of the software because I lacked the required version of the Palm Operating System to run the newer version. Both worked fine, and gave me sharp pictures, as long as I kept detail to a minimum. What this means is that portraits and close ups are great, while team pictures and action shots from any distance are less than desirable.

Also, the color screen of the Handspring Prism is much more vibrant and viewable than the Palm’s grayscale screens, but the grayscale Palm seems to give a crisper, less pixilated picture. Both LCDs are 160x160. If you want higher resolution, you will have to spend more money, and compare a Sony Clie’, such as the PEG-N6IOC, against a Compaq iPAQ, such as the Pocket PC 3765. Both have a higher resolution 320x320 screen, and a cost of $100-200 more than the Prism. While the Clie’ runs Palm OS, the iPAQ runs Microsoft Pocket PC software - another decision point based on your preferences.

The Bottom Line

One thing’s for certain. Adding color, and photos to your handheld brings them to life, and makes you want to remember to carry them around, or place them proudly in their cradle at work or home. They make a great conversation piece, and when they aren’t showing off the pictures of the kids, they will certainly be a handy place to store the phone numbers of all the parents on the team!

In the next Digital Dad, I’ll start looking at some of the software that can be added to the Prism, and other Palm OS devices, that can turn them into a tool for coaches and sports enthusiasts! Until then, download the software, and try loading some of your favorite photos from EastBaySports.Com. If I get enough interest, I’ll start packaging up the games in a nice size package for mass download and palmtop display.

If you are interested in such a feature, drop me a line!

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