Quickies: Stowaway, Tip Assistant, HandStory

Posted By: As Listed Wednesday, July 31, 2002 7:58:41 AM

A spokesperson for ThinkOutside has confirmed that her company will definitely release next month a version of the Stowaway folding keyboard for the T and NR series. The SL10, SJ20, and SJ30 should be able to use this keyboard as well. -Ed

LandWare is now offering the Money Magazine Tip Assistant for free. The user enters the check subtotal and this app calculates the tax, tip, and divides a bill evenly among a group of people. -PR

The just-released HandStory Suite 2.2 allows users to update Web clips (downloaded Web content) through a wireless Internet connection to HandStory's central clip server, without having to synchronize with a desktop or laptop computer. The new Web content comes from the server in pre-converted, compressed form for maximum transmission speed. The new version also supports the hi-res+ screens on Sony's NR series. -PR

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Tip calculators

I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 9:16:13 AM #
OK, I think we have enough tip calculators for the Palm OS now. Talk about technology that nobody asked for!

Just in case you are stranded at a restaurant, needing to come up with a tip with no calculator or PDA, here's what you can do in this emergency situation: 1) Take the last digit off of the total bill. That's 10%. Add 1/2 of that number. That's 15%. If you want to tip twenty percent, simply double the 10% number. Voilla! You're a walking PDA tip calculator.

RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 9:32:43 AM #
first digit
RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 9:40:49 AM #
> first digit

Hey, you DO need a tip calculator!

RE: Tip calculators
big_raji @ 7/31/2002 9:51:32 AM #
LOL!

Trust me, there are TONS of people out there that can't perform simple calculations. I've seen cashiers struggle with change from $10 for a $9.75 purchase. I've seen people struggle with how to split a $30 bill three ways.

It's very scary.

---
For all the people that have suffered through my "What's Wrong With This Picture" Signature:
http://www.americanheart.org

RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 10:30:13 AM #
I must be extremely stupid since I cannot figure out how to use this program. How in the world do you enter the base amount? I've read the documentation I can't seem to find anything about it.

Sheesh.

RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 10:54:09 AM #
"Simply enter the check subtotal and the figures are instantly calculated for you."

99.9% of restaurant bills provide a tax inclusive subtotal. So by just entering the subtotal the application calculates the tip, total *and* automatically verifies the restaurant's tax calculation and addition.

You have also got the flexibility to alter the tax amount and percentage, tip amount and percentage and guest totals to quickly provide the answers to a range of different problems.

However if you would really prefer to be able to enter the Base Amount as well email landware and they will look at it for the next revision.

Hope this helps

-- LandWare support

RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 10:54:25 AM #
I need a calculator that can solve this problem that I can't figure out:

3 guys attending a convention walk into a motel asking to share a room for the night. The clerk tells them it's $30 so they each pay $10. Later, the clerk realizes that they should receive a $5 discount on the room for the convention attendees. He calls the bellhop and gives him five $1 bills to divide among the guests. On the way up, the bellhop is trying to calculate how much to give each guy. Not having his PDA, he decides to make it simple and pockets $2. He gives each guest a $1 bill for the overpayment.

Now, how much did each guest pay for the room? $9
In total, how much did they pay? $27
How much did the bellhop keep? $2
What happened to the other $1? ????

RE: Tip calculators
Beavis @ 7/31/2002 11:04:26 AM #
This one continues to amaze me just like it did when I first heard it 30 years ago. The answer is so obvious once you see it that I won't spoil it for others. You should probably put the answer on a website instead of posting it here.

Since you updated it to mention a PDA, you could have changed it from three guys to two girls and a guy :)

What Other Dollar?
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 11:05:19 AM #
9 x 3 = 25 + 2 = 27
RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 11:15:08 AM #
Bill Gates has the extra dollar.
MS seems to get their fingers into everything these days
RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 11:24:24 AM #
There is no extra dollar. They actually paid $~8.33 each for the room (25/3) and $~.66 (2/3) each for a stolen 'tip'. ($~8.33+$~.66)*3 = 27 (and add $1 each for their refund).
RE: Tip calculators
Token User @ 7/31/2002 11:47:29 AM #
Tipping in the US:

If you are paying the whole bill, take the tax and double it. Adjust for service.
If you are splitting a bill, add up what you ordered and add 25% - this covers tax and tip.
If you are at a buffet - $1 per person, plus a little if they cleared plates, filled drinks, etc. in a timely manner.

Tipping in Australia:

Whats a tip? Minimum wage MEANS minimum wage, and serving staff make better than that. You round up the bill if the service was real good.

RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 12:34:37 PM #
The program powerOne that comes with Sony Clie also has tip calculator under the General button.
RE: Tip calculators
LanMan @ 7/31/2002 5:48:37 PM #
I don't drink, so it would be more useful to have a Tip Assistant that doesn't split the bill evenly, but rather by individual meal price. I don't want to have to help pay for anyone elses expensive drinks.

<><
RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 10:20:49 PM #
They paid $25 total for the room.

Thats $8.33 total.

Then they got a $1 refund. $9.33 x 3 = $28.

$2 for the tip = 30.

Bodgy maths will not set you free.

RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 10:27:03 PM #
Im an Australian and I tip a fair bit at restaurants if the service and food is good.

I don't feel the need to tip every bellboy and service station attendant.

Gotta love America, built in charity for those people with stupid jobs :)

RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2002 9:58:23 AM #
Hey Aussie, you DO realize that it's common practice in American restaurants that if you don't leave a tip, your waitress spits in your food the next time she serves you, don't you? Gotta love America. Built-in payback for cheap bastards.
RE: Tip calculators
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/30/2002 3:44:23 AM #
why can't you just charge what you're meant to?


Hooray!

I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 9:45:04 AM #
At last! ThinkOutside will definitely release the T-series Stowaway! It's about time.

Now if we can only get Margi to release a Memory Stick-based Presenter-to-Go, I'm set.

RE: Hooray!
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 9:55:03 AM #
Stowaway's got a pretty good thing going...Instead of making keyboards that could incorporate a changeable connector when people upgrade their PDA's--say Visor to Clie--they're able to sell brand new entire units to people who have already purchased one, with nary a question or complaint.
RE: Hooray!
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 11:21:58 AM #
That's why I just bought the Pocketop keyboard from MicroInnovations. After buying two Stowaway keyboards for devices I previously owned then having to sell them at a ridiculously low price when I changed PDAs, I'm sick of buying more non-upgradeable keyboards. The Pocketop has small keys but I'm getting used to it. It is very cool to be able to use the same keyboard on my kid's Palm3, my wife's Visor, my Clie and a buddy of mine came over with his Treo and, yes, it worked on that too. I hope to never buy another keyboard...
RE: Hooray!
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 11:50:05 AM #
ThinkOutside dropped the ball by taking so long to get one out for the T series. I have a Stowaway for my old Visor, but got sick of waiting for a T series model so I picked up Belkin's G700. I like it so much I don't need to get a Stowaway. They obviously don't need or want my money anyway. Even the "news" of a forthcoming Stowaway was hard to get from ThinkOutside. Screw you TO!
Slightly OT Rant ...
Token User @ 7/31/2002 12:55:43 PM #
Was in a cellphone shop the other day and was amazed to see a Stowaway Keyboard attached to a Motorola phone (and called the "iBoard").

We were amazed that they had a full sized keyboard for the cell phone, and the sales associate started the sales pitch of how easy they are to collapse, and how good the keyboard is in conjuction with browsing the web (WAP maybe?) and text messaging.

I think she totally missed the point that the screen was the size of a postage stamp, and by attaching a keyboard (and needing to carry a keyboard around) defeated the purpose of the device being small.

FFS, get a wireless PDA.

Back closer to being on topic - why don't Thinkoutside make their Stowaways with swapout adapters? I'd love to be able to upgrade to a new PalmOS 5.0 UberDevice and take my Stowaway with it, and have my wife be able to use the keyboard with a Clie.

RE: Willing to Wait
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 2:24:02 PM #
I was willing to wait for the Stowaway for the T-Series Clie because of the quality, and how well their Visor keyboard worked for me.

Tried the PocketTop, and didn't like it at all -- cramped typing. The G700 is definitely nicer, and a real competitor for Stowaway; but it still had smaller keys (I got big hands).

RE: Hooray!
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 10:25:36 PM #
>Back closer to being on topic - why don't
>Thinkoutside make their Stowaways with swapout
>adapters? I'd love to be able to upgrade to a new
>PalmOS 5.0 UberDevice and take my Stowaway with it, >and have my wife be able to use the keyboard with a
>Clie.

They don't want to destroy their market, maybe?

RE: Hooray!
I.M. Anonymous @ 8/1/2002 5:46:14 AM #
Margi is supposedly working on a MS version of Presenter to go and actually if you are really interestd in contacting them about it you can go to their homepage and click on the About Us link and from there use the contact Contact us link and there is a link to email their CEO Directly.

File size pretty big for a tip calculator.

I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 10:04:02 AM #
Why is the executable nearly 600kb? Something like this shouldn't be bigger than 50kb, should it? Is it exceptional bloatware, or are they making us download something else?...
RE: File size pretty big for a tip calculator.
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 10:40:18 AM #
Actually its 26kb on the Palm and the rest is advertising installed on the PC which can be uninstalled after you copy the PRC file to a safe place.

Tip Assistant is useful if you need international tipping guidelines, if you split bills, and for its ability to round the tip up or down to a whole dollar amount.

Tipper! from www.dentonsoftware.com is also free and has a much more extensive and much more easily accessible discussion of who to tip and how much to tip.

I find the latter much more useful.

RE: File size pretty big for a tip calculator.
ardee @ 7/31/2002 10:54:25 AM #
I think it could be done in way less than even the 50k you mention. Maybe this should be the target of a contest: smallest Palm app with the same set of features. I'll bet somebody will do it in well under 5k.


RE: File size pretty big for a tip calculator.
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 10:58:45 AM #
The app is only 26K - look at the Launcher Info menu command to see the size. I think you are looking at the size of the desktop installer.
RE: File size pretty big for a tip calculator.
Galley_SimRacer @ 7/31/2002 11:09:41 AM #
If you download the Unix/Zip version, then it is only 167KB, most of which is documnetation.

--
"Life is what you experience between racing games"
Galley

Any HandStory user(s) wish to comment

ardee @ 7/31/2002 10:59:00 AM #
Is this a good tool? Does it *really* replace all those other apps it claims to (memo pad, eBook reader, .DOC viewer, image viewer, etc.)?


RE: Any HandStory user(s) wish to comment
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 11:24:51 AM #
Basically-yes. I have been using it since inception and it is my memo pad, doc reader, image viewer, and the best way to get text to the Palm fast from anywhere on the desktop. I don't even use the web browser (clippings) part, and it's still great.

Handstory
dwarchbold @ 7/31/2002 11:32:41 AM #
I've been using Handstory for quite some time on my T615, and can't imagine PDA life without it. It's a great memo pad/DOC reader but the offline web content and image viewer are quite impressive. And it integrates very nicely into Windows (can't speak for the Mac). See an image on a web page you want to keep? Right click on it and select "Save to Palm". You can even resize/crop the image, etc.

Handstory is very, very cool.

RE: Any HandStory user(s) wish to comment
Wilson @ 7/31/2002 12:06:11 PM #
I have been using HandStory for a long time now. It is an absolute dream at getting images and text into your palm easily and quickly.

BUT - now that it can do webclipping...it is indispensable. I have completely dumped AvantGo and use HandStory exclusively. It performs flawlessly and very quickly at grabbing webclippings. I love it.

YMMV of course.

Dwayne

RE: Any HandStory user(s) wish to comment
CharFeld @ 7/31/2002 12:52:50 PM #
There were many good user comments (including my own) posted after PIC's article "Get Selected Info from Any Site with HandStory Suite 2.1" from 5/23/02. You might want to take a look.

As I posted then, overall I think it's a great program that does everything it promises. One of my few nitpicks that has now apparently been fixed with ver2.2 is the ability to close a document by pressing the back button.

RE: Any HandStory user(s) wish to comment
Ed @ 7/31/2002 1:14:00 PM #
You can find that article here:
www.palminfocenter.com/view_Story.asp?ID=3516

---
News Editor
RE: Any HandStory user(s) wish to comment
I.M. Anonymous @ 7/31/2002 1:37:09 PM #
I love this program too, but there is two issues that have kept me from purchasing the demo I downloaded:

1. The "Save to Palm" feature does not work properly if you use Pocket Mirror to sync to Outlook. This because when you "Save to Palm" it creates a memo or contact entry in the Palm Desktop application, but if you sync to Outlook, you are not using Palm Desktop, therefore the memo/contact never gets transferred to the Palm.

2. It does not use a custom conduit for moving information to the Palm. It uses a combination of installing DBs and modifying the memo pad and address book directly If it did, Issue #1 could be solved.

Does anybody have a work-around for #1? Does anybody know if Handstory plans on addressing #2?

Like I said, it's a great program - but not entirely "there" yet.

RE: Any HandStory user(s) wish to comment
D_Russ @ 7/31/2002 2:45:22 PM #
Thanks for the headsup about Handstory and PocketMirror. After seeing your comment I checked the HandStory Support page and found this faq that seems to answer the question about a workaround for this issue.

http://www.handstory.com/support/index.html#5

With this workaround in hand, I believe I will download the demo and try the program out, but I won't register until something is done about this lack. I would strongly encourage the developer to consider adding more direct support for his potential customers who use a desktop application other than the Palm Desktop.

RE: Any HandStory user(s) wish to comment
ardee @ 8/1/2002 12:40:02 PM #
Thanks to all those who answered my question!

Looks like I'll be a customer of HandStory's!

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