The pdaFN.com tutorial on hacks introduced Hackmaster, and several useful hacks. The purpose of this article is to expand on that information and introduce several other useful hacks, including Hack delete, Crash, Middle caps, Teal echo, and ClearHack hacks.

Hack Delete Hack

If you have tried out the hacks from the first tutorial you may have noticed that they can make your palm unstable. Hack delete hack prevents one of the most common causes for palm crashes while using hacks. If the user deletes a hack from memory while it is in use, it will cause the palm to crash. Hack Delete Hack will not allow hacks that are in use to be deleted, thus reducing the likelyhood of system crashing.

Hack Delete home page

Crash

Tired of fumbling for a paper-clip or unscrewing your stylus to find your reset pin severed? Crash is a hack that will automatically reset your palm when it crashes. Instead of displaying the normal 'fatal error' box with the reset button, the crash screen (which features a picture of a burning Palm V) appears, and displays the text of the error for a few seconds before resetting the device. I have used this hack for a few months and have found it to work quite well, although the burning palm V image is annoying. However, I just read on the author's web page that he will make a custom version of the hack for you if you send him an image!

Crash home page

Middle Caps Hack

Graffiti entry can be one of the great features of PalmOS, or a formidible evil depending on your skill and preference. Whichever it is for you, data entry is a key of integrating the palm into your practice, and daily life.

Middle caps hack allows you to make capital letters, just by changing the position of your grafitti stroke in the grafitti area. No more upstrokes to capitalize letters! This is my favorite hack, definitely very useful.

Middle Caps home page

Teal Echo

Teal Echo shows your grafitti strokes as you write them, allowing you to perfect your grafitti skills!

	Teal Echo

Teal Echo home page

ClearHack

ClearHack makes text on the palm much more readable by removing the dotted lines from the memo-pad, address book and todo list.

	Without ClearHack

	With ClearHack

ClearHack home page

Afterburner III

I recently started using Afterburner, and I would definitely recommend it to any user who is using large documents (i.e. Merck manual). When I first installed the Merck I found it sluggish (duh, it's 4MB!). Afterburner really improved the performance of the Merck reader. Another nice feature of Afterburner is that you can select the applications that you want it to overclock, saving on batteries! Also, for those who don't know Handspring Visors are optimized with some wait states disabled which allows them to run at 158% of a Palm IIIx or V. Afterburner will allow you to disable these wait states and run faster without overclocking the processor! A great utility. (Shareware $8 registration)

Afterburner III

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