YadaYada, the wireless Internet service provider for handhelds, is offering a array of services to help out their subscribers this holiday season. Cocktail Finder provides subscribers with a list of 7,000 drink recipes, listed in categories such as cocktails, shooters, hot drinks, punches or non-alcoholic. Wine Helper gives advice on choosing from 8,000 wines from Bordeaux to Napa Valley. And finally Smell the Coffee provides local directories of coffee shops throughout the world. -Ed

For a long time, the Palm Tipsheet has been available only by e-mail. Finally, a new, dedicated Palm Tipsheet website is now online. It offers the most recent issue and an archive of old ones. -Mike Rohde

An eBookNet.com feature takes a look at electronic book hardware and compares these to Palm-powered handhelds powered by software such as Qvadis Express Reader, and to Pocket PCs powered by MS Reader. -Qvadis

This past Saturday, Jeff Musa, president and CEO of Cutting Edge Software, was interviewed on CompuTalk, the syndicated radio program. Mr. Musa discussed his company’s new Quickoffice productivity suite and answered listener’s questions about the state of the mobile computing industry. The interview is archived through the end of this week on Broadcast.com. -Kevin Doel .

A small company named MatchBook Products announced yesterday that they will begin immediate production of the MatchBookDrive Adapter, the first commercial product to allow the use of Compact Flash memory cards in the Visor. It is a passive adapter that fits into the Springboard slot and allows files to be copied from the RAM to a Compact Flash card for storage.

The MatchBookDrive Adapter relies on software being developed by Kopsis, Inc. that is scheduled to be commercially released in January, 2001. Presently, it is available as a time-limited free beta.

The MatchBookDrive Adapter will retail for $30 U.S., including shipping to U.S. addresses. Shipping to Canadian addresses will be $2 extra, and shipping to other international addresses will be $5 extra. Until January 15, 2001, MatchBook Products is discounting the Adapter to $20 including US shipping.

eyecontact is a new application for the EyeModule Springboard that allows users to add pictures taken with the camera to the Address Book. The app is free and available now.

eyecontact also provides the capability to beam an address – with a thumbnail image attached – to another Palm OS handheld unit with the eyecontact app installed.

DDH Software has selected five finalists in its contest looking for the best custom-designed applets for its HanDBase database application. Now that the judges have spoken, it is up to the voting public to choose the winner of the $1,000 grand prize. Users of HanDBase were asked to create applets to help them in their personal or professional lives and submit them to the company's online gallery of free, downloadable applets. The ballot is now online and will remain available until January 15. Winners will be announced January 31.

There is an interesting article in Wired on how a school district in Illinois is integrating 2,200 Palm IIIxe's into its curriculum. Students use the handhelds to take notes, gather data during science experiments, and write papers.

The experiment is going so well they are expanding it next year. "This is going to be the dominant technology that students use at school," said Darrell Walery, director of technology for the district.

Daedalus Venture Group has released a study that says that venture capitalists are over-investing in Bluetooth chip technology, while not investing enough in the applications that will create a demand for those chips. They are predicting a glut of Bluetooth chips in coming years. According to DVG, 74% of VC money for Bluetooth went to semiconductor firms, while only 23% was invested in applications.

"Irresponsible supply-side projections showing tremendous growth in the number of Bluetooth-enabled devices are driving manufacturer demand for chips," the study said. "However, there is still no widespread demonstrated market demand for the technology at an application level."

IatroSoft Corporation, a developer of handheld medical applications, has released ePatient2000. ePatient is a healthcare productivity suite containing a patient tracking application, built-in medical formula calculator, and a collection of exclusive medical references including a pharmacy database of over 1,000 drugs, herbal medicine & microbiology databases, and even a English-Spanish translator. It also offers customizable pharmacy & documentation, multi-patient views, infrared beaming, and a desktop application.

Qvadis's new version 1.30 release of the Express Reader GT is now compatible with documents stored in flash memory (using JackFlash or FlashPro). It also sports enhanced color support and the same range of functions with a 20% smaller memory footprint for the program itself. A free 30-day trial version is available. The full version costs $15. -Team Qvadis

Firepad, Inc. will release a Macintosh version of its FireConverter program in January 2001. FireConverter allows the conversion of graphics in JPEG, GIF, and others into a format viewable with the free FireViewer client application.

Just a few weeks ago, Bluelark Systems released Blazer Personal Edition 1.0, a free Web browser for the Palm. Apparently, Handspring liked the browser so much, they bought the company. They will pay up to 450,000 Handspring shares (about $16 million) in a deal expected to close in the first quarter of 2001.

This is part of Handspring's plans to improve the wireless functionality of the Visor. A Handspring spokesman said that over the next three years 50% to 70% of Handspring's products will have some sort of wireless capability.

To no one's surprise, Palm debuted the MyPalm service today, thought the official announcement went out a day later than expected. To drive traffic to the service, all newly registered members will be entered in a daily contest to win a Palm IIIc and a Kodak PalmPix camera. Keep in mind, the MyPalm web clipping application is still in beta. -Ed

Pocket.com, who provides e-mail service from anywhere via the PocketMail Backflip, is now bundling the Solvepoint DockV Pro with every Backflip, a $35 value. The DockV Pro gives Palm V series users access to Palm III-style accessories including the Backflip and many others. -Mark Karaman