Microsoft Chairman William Gates announced today that his company has stopped all development on the Pocket PC platform. He said, "Damn, these things stink! I don't know what we were thinking. We wouldn't have have released CE at all if Satan hadn't told me to. I found some extra cash in my tuxedo jacket; I guess I'll just buy Palm."

Boxing promoter Don King was recently given a Palm Vx as a present, which he described as "outrighteously gradilomentitudious". He went on to say, "The palmumental interficasivness was expertaciously efficinicated with e-mailiffication."

Zshades has begun selling a line of color, snap-on faceplates for Palm III, IIIx, IIIe and IIIxe handhelds. The covers, in translucent blue, red, teal, and purple, snap on tightly and provide additional protection as well as personalization Unlike complete case case replacements, using them doesn't void the handheld's warranty. They are available on the Zshades web site for $20 plus $5 shipping.

It's been a quiet week Palm Infocenter (with apologies to Garrison Keillor). The big news story was Palm's prediction that next quarter they would have a loss of 8 cents per share, which dropped their stock price 48% and hit the stocks of the other handheld makers, too.

Other topics that sparked some interest are the long awaited release of the Parachute PC card adapter for the III series and the coming release of AvantGo 4.0.

Business 2.0 has devoted much of its current issue to Palm and its rivals. They have articles on The Palm Phenom, in which Palm's CEO admits he never liked the VII series. There is also an interview with Jeff Hawkins in which he says, "it's almost certain that we [Handspring] will have products that won't run Palm OS".

In case you haven't seen it yet, the Wall Street Journal has a review of the m500 and m505, which is generally favorable, though it describes the screen on the m505 as "dim, dark and dull".

Everyone has to travel occasionally and most of us take our Palms along but you might want to carry some extras so it will feel at home. If you want to HotSync on the road, you should consider the Folding Travel Cradle, if you are worried about running the internal battery down you should get a 9V Pocket Charger, and if you would like to extra protection for your Palm, take a look at the Aluminium Travel Hardcase, all from iBiz.

Palm Inc. is buying Extended Systems with stock and the recent drop in Palm's stock price has put the deal in a bit of jeopardy. Palm had originally offered $22 worth of Palm shares for each Extended share, subject to certain restrictions. But one of the restrictions that if Palm's stock price falls below $16.60, they will instead pay 1.325 shares for each Extended one. This week, Palm stock fell to just over $8 so the deal has dropped in value from $264 million to about $128 million.

PalmStation was down for most of yesterday and continues to be off-line today. Hal Schechner, the webmaster for the site, said,

Apparently the people providing the lifeline for Palmstation have gone and shut their doors rather abruptly. I'm working on getting the data and stuff, and will get the site back up as quick as I can.

Update 3:PalmStation has returned to normal operation at its regular address.

Pendragon Software has launched Pendragon Internet Forms, a Web-based development platform for building database applications for Palm OS devices. Based on the company’s Pendragon Forms development tool, the new platform lets users design, deploy, and manage mobile database applications via a Web browser. Pricing depends on number of users; a 100-user license is $5,000.

The Rand McNally StreetFinder GPS for the Palm III is now an amazing $60. It was originally $170. It comes with three CDs of StreetFinder Deluxe software (U.S. maps only), an in-car cigarette lighter charger, a car mount, and a carrying bag. According to one reader, registering on their site reduces the price an additional 20%. Better hurry; these are going to go fast. -Ed

The SoundsGood Springboard MP3 player is now only $150 from PalmGear, down from $250. It has 64 MB of memory letting it store more than an hour of music and comes with earbud headphones.

Handspring has entered into a distribution agreement with Ingram Micro, a global technology distributor. The deal will help Handspring develop a system of value-added resellers (VARs) who can focus on selling Visors and Springboards in the corporate market.

"We are seeing great demand for our products in corporate America. As a result of the Visor's easy configuration capability and plug-and-play expandability these products really appeal to businesses in enterprise and vertical segments," said Greg Woock, VP of North American sales. "We plan to bring on a targeted and proven set of reseller partners that enable us to better serve the needs of these customers."

Palm handhelds, especially color ones, make great game players but many games require pushing the application buttons far more than they were designed to handle. It isn't unusual to read a Usenet post from a frequent Palm gamer asking if there is a way to fix a button that has been used to the point where it is loose and rattles whenever the handheld is moved. A great solution for this is the WorldWideWidgetWorks Palm GamePad.