Integration with PDA

There are lots of programs for Palm OS. Some of them allow to synchronize the data with the desktop computer.

Basic synchronization is supported by Palm with Palm Desktop. Memos and To Dos go smoothly. Photos and videos are harder to move.

Real problem is, the desktop client and conduits from 3rd parties are almost always available only for Windows (with some exceptions, for example The Missing Sync for Mac OS X)

Database programs like HandBase or SmartList To Go are more useful when integrated with a PC. SmartList synchronizes only with Access (hence, only with Windows).

Luckily, HandBase 3.5 Professional seems to synchronize with FileMaker and Excel (Mac OS version) and Access and ODBC (Windows version). Still, Linux users have no choice...

Another interesting app is Documents To Go, which also seems to sync with Windows and Mac OS.

Desirable features of an almost perfect OS (from the user's perspective)

• Tons of software to choose from (more on this later)
• Good hardware support (not everything is USB!)
  
• Stability (I love blue and its variations, but I hate blue-screens-of-death and its variations - like the Classic bomb)
  
• Ease of use (or, keep simple what it is simple)
  
• Respectful with the user (sometimes the user is not a complete idiot and knows what she wants to do)
• Customizable at different levels (I love HUGE fonts and clean notification areas)
  
• Cheap (or even better free. Or even even better, open source)
• Audiovisual experience (suddenly they realized how beatiful OS X eye-candy was, and they cloned for their own joy - from Windows to Ubuntu)

More features coming...

In the beginning...

With the recent shipping of Vista, everybody seems to look for a perfect OS. I think perfection does not exists, so here I'm posting my quest for the "almost perfect" OS.

The quest started some years ago. I was missing the speed (in terms of fast responsiveness to user interaction) of "old-school" operating systems. But at the same time, I needed tons of software (since I perform many differents tasks with my computers). And last but not least, I was enjoying some of the new features of the OS at that time.

Today I'm still searching and the solutions catalog has widened: take for instance the "OS as a (web) service" approach. I hope some day in the (near) future I'll satisfy my computing needs, like Scott Finnie did.