Because of staff limitations we cannot respond to all letters or e-mail. Please send us questions, suggestions for improvements in the Magazine or in Windows CE, ideas for new software, or general comments. All responses, unless otherwise indicated, are from Rich Hall, Editor of Handheld PC Magazine. You can reach Rich at rich@thaddeus.com.

Any Handhelds with floppy drives?

Do any of the handhelds include a floppy drive? A handheld would be perfect for my son's work in school, but since he would be interfacing with a lot of different computers at middle school, it seems a floppy is the best, maybe only, way to move documents from his handheld to the PC. I looked at all the handhelds on your excellent site, but saw no mention of floppy drives. Please let me know if i'm missing something.

Mike Feazel

culh14a@prodigy.com

One company offers an H/PC with a floppy built in. Check out the Dreamwriter I.T. from NTS Computer Systems (nts.dreamwriter.com; Phone: 604-465-3323). They specialize in the educational market, but their devices are more expensive than other H/PCs. A company named Accurite (www.accurite.com) markets an external floppy drive for H/PCs. The Travel 120 Floppy Drive, priced at $269, interfaces with the H/PC or H/PC Pro via cable and PC Card adapter; and accepts 120MB as well as 1.44MB and 720KB floppy disks. Addonics (www.addonics.com) offers a similar product.

Tablet input for PC Companions?

I'm looking for what I consider to be the ultimate peripheral for my Casio E-11. I use handwriting recognition software from ARTrecognition and it's pretty good. It certainly gets me out of having to write one letter at a time. The problem is, with the screen only being 2 inches wide I still can't get a natural writing rhythm. To me the ultimate peripheral is not a keyboard but a touch sensitive writing pad that would be maybe 8" wide by 4" high. With better and better recognition software what could be a faster mode of input? I could see doing letters and email exclusively on my palm device and leaving my laptop at home when traveling. Do you know of anyone that makes or is planning to make such a device? I'd love to get in contact with them. With CE and palmtops/HPCs just starting to really take off Handheld PC Magazine is a great resource. Thanks!

John Kringel (Jkringel@aol.com)

I've seen a half a dozen such tablets at computer shows. The problem is, they're designed for desktop PCs, not for the Palm-Size PC or H/PC. I don't think hardware is much of an issue. The devices I saw connected to a desktop PC using a serial cable. All you would have to do is find or create an adapter to connect a tablet to the serial port of a Palm-size PC. The problem is that they were designed for desktops. They don't have software drivers that let them communicate with the P/PC.

There is a product that works the other way around. ActiveTABLET for Windows CE is a software driver that lets you connect your H/PC or P/PC to a desktop PC and use the devices touch screen as a tablet to draw in desktop graphics programs. The developer of this product may be able to point you in the right direction (Softscribe (Canada); Phone: 604-730-0900; Fax: 604-730-0918; E-mail: info@ softscribe.com; Web: www.softscribe.com). Hope this helps, and thanks for your kind words about the magazine. ­Rich

Which version of Power Toys for the H/PC Pro?

I love Jim Christian's Quick Tip about PowerToys, but had a problem when I tried to install it on my Jornada 680. The tip said it worked with Windows CE version 3.0, but the Microsoft page says not to download it if I don't have Windows CE version 3 on my Jornada 680 (which has Windows CE version 2.11). So I downloaded PowerToys version 2 and tried to install it on my Jornada. It said it wasn't compatible with the Jornada. So which one do I use?

Loretta Lilly

Lilrett@earthlink.net

The Microsoft Web site is confusing. When they say "PowerToys for H/PC Pro Edition ver. 3.0" they are talking about the version of the built-in Pocket applications, not the operating system. Your Jornada 680 uses the Windows CE 2.11 operating system, but has the H/PC Pro Edition (ver. 3.0) of the Pocket Applications. When you download PowerToys, download "PowerToys for the H/PC Pro Edition ver. 3.0."

They also have a nice, free download titled "Plus! Pack for H/PC Pro Edition ver. 3.0" that you might want to take a look at.

Am I better off with a laptop?

As a student, I feel I must have a portable computer to take with me to help me stay organized and productive. The first time I saw the Vadem Clio I just above fell in love with it. Its very cool style and relatively inexpensive price just turned me on. I was already looking at laptops, but they seemed too pricey. My question is, am I better off with getting a laptop (a portable but completely functional computer) or the less-expensive Clio (which is more of a desktop PC companion)? I could get a laptop for $1,000.

AJ Corbelli (Dial0Kid@aol.com)

The answer to your question is an unequivocal "it depends." I think the Clio, or one of the other mini-notebook-sized H/PC Pros can take care of word processing, organizing, communications, Web browsing, and other basic needs. It's less expensive, has better battery life, turns on instantly and comes with most of the basic software built into it. If it doesn't have the software you need, you can probably get it.

The traditional, powerful, and more expensive Windows 95/98/NT notebook computers make sense if you need to run applications written for those operating systems and not likely to be made available for Windows CE. I'm thinking here of graphics and page layout programs like Adobe PhotoShop and Quark Xpress. Some power users don't want to give up the features of desktop word processors, spreadsheet programs and the like.

Will this be your only computer? If so, you might want to consider a Win98/NT notebook. Do you have a desktop PC at home or in your dorm room? If so, how much do you intend on using your companion computer and for what tasks? I suspect that the Clio will do most, if not all, of what you want it to do.

Are you a big game player? You won't be able to use the memory-intensive games written for desktop PCs on your Clio. If fact, you won't be able to use any software written for Win95/98 or WinNT on a Windows CE computer. Some, but not all, application developers create Windows CE versions of their software. They are usually smaller in size and have fewer features than the desktop PC versions. This is no problem for me because I find that most desktop applications have far too many features. There are an increasing number of games available for Windows CE devices, but they tend to be simpler (card games, arcade games, a few simple role games).