Reset City

So today was a pivotal point in my Lifedrive chronicles.
Last week I sat down ready to explain a few things to a
patient, using the wonderful memory capacity that is my
Lifedrive. We are a computerized outfit, thus interconnectivity
is our only desire. Bluetooth and 802.11b and soon -g permeate
our offices.

We can send charges to our billing clerk, immediately from rounds,
or in my case, at the end of the month. So far, so good. Lifedrive
has lived up to its promise.

The downside comes from the other things that we need it to do.
Inexplicably, the device will go through a series of soft resets.
"Free Handle" errors are the norm. Once I start seeing a few of these,
there is a simple solution. If "File" still works, I look for a stray
file, usually a numbered file ie. "38.txt." I then look at the Checksum
file and note that the Lifedrive, just as with a PC, has made a file, that
is surprisingly useable. I then reenter the program that crashed and see
if it crashes again. If it does, I make a backup of the file that crashed.
I then go to the "38.txt" file - again if "file" is working and I erase the "38.txt" file. I then return to the offending application and usually it starts working without a problem.

I believe the "Free Handle" errors are termed by programmers, "Memory Leaks."
It turns out that Palm, somewhere in their documents, or perhaps it was on
a web site, (lifedriver.blogspot.com) gives a good discussion on this.
However, if the "file" program crashes, it's usually "lights out!" You will
probably have to do a hard reset to get everything back.

I am certain that there is a clever programmer out there who knows how to stop
the memory leaks. This was apparently a problem with the Dell Axim and it was apparently fixed without problems.

My problem last week was that I downloaded some contracts that I had saved, large
documents, over 30megs a piece, some incredible medical videos, playable on the
TCMP program. Soft resets throughout the entire presentation. At 3-5 minutes
per reset, I ended up spending twenty minutes during a busy day trying to
show this important video and print out a contract.

This was not what I envisioned I would be doing with my Lifedrive. I really love
the device, but really a solid state solution may need to be obtained, or the
software developers need to learn how to work with non-volatile memory. It is the
latter that I believe may be the biggest problem of all. Documents to go was a big culprit in this.

Anyhow, I am begining to think that Software sales are going to decline substantially, at least from clients who have upgraded to the Lifedrive. This does nothing for the Palm Lifestyle.

PALM, IF YOU ARE READING THIS, YOU NEED TO COME UP WITH AN UPDATE OR SOMETHING, OR MANY OF US WILL BE MIGRATING TO MICROSOFT. This type of delay in documentation input and the numerous software crashes, requiring -- at least on my part -- a hard reset once every 2 weeks is completely unacceptable.

As our institution is looking into obtaining more devices, the LD sounded the most promising, due to storage, but the woes that I and a few others have encountered, are leaving us second guessing our decision. We have critical data on our Lifedrives that needs to be accessed quickly and distributed quickly - sometimes to patients, sometimes to other physicians. Crashes are not an option. During a busy day, I do not expect to wait for the machine to start up; slow down graffiti input because of a delay; wait for 5 minutes as the machine boots from a soft reset. TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE !!!! Last week, during a telephone call with another physician, I actually had to open up my Rolodex, something I haven't used in 5 years, to look for a name, because the Lifedrive was too slow.

This is a great device, but we need to leave Reset City and get back to Nirvhana.
The Hard reset went well today, but another hour wasted in setting up parameters and waiting had to be done. I also have to find other data files that I saved on a CD.
Let's hope that the acquisition of Palm Source will entertain a new avenue of progress for this company. It would have been easy for me to switch to a Microsoft product, but I have grown up with Palm and I wish to stay with them. Hopefully they will oblige and give us what we need.