__/ [Moonraker] on Tuesday 25 October 2005 16:58 \__
> I have a one-man service business. Most of my inquiries come by telephone,
> and are currently hand-written onto work orders and then manually scheduled
> onto a monthly calendar. We are talking about 2-3 service calls per day.
>
> I would like to enter the service order into a desktop (need the ability to
> have custom fields for parts/materials needed, subdivision name, etc) and
> then sync to a handheld. Carrying a daytimer and all the attendant paper
> is getting to be a nuisance.
>
> I have Act! 6.0 and, of course, M$ Outlook. I've never seen Palm's
> Desktop, or for that matter any of the other OEM desktops. Are any of them
> customizable for data entry? I don't need to have much more data than the
> customer's name, address,a couple of phone numbers, and the nature of the
> service call. Having a secretary's name, a Fax number, the kids names and
> birthdays, and the dog's gender is pretty much worthless. My preliminary
> reading indicates that Act! is difficult to sync to the handheld? And
> Outlook is maybe overkill for my purposes?
>
> I'm not interested in a "pilot" with a camera, a phone, wireless internet,
> etc. I won't play games or listen to music or watch movies on it...just
> need a calendar and a contact manager that I can customize so that I have
> the pertinent data without all the paper.
>
> Sincerely interested in suggestions. While cost is of some concern,
> functionality and a short learning curve are more important. I'm way too
> busy to re-invent the wheel.
>
> Thanks!!!
For the processes you describe, any fundamantal Personal Information Man-
ager (PIM) would do. You could opt for the low-end Zire series, or even
look at some Linux altenatives such as:
* http://www.powerplaydevices.com/products/ppvs_info.html
Merely any haldheld device comes with desktop-side software that will en-
able you to do the necessary data entry with a full-sized keyboard and get
your information backed up regularly.
All the best,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Useless fact: Women blink twice as much as men
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 74572E8E
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