The Palm OS still offers one of the best PIMs around. It's simple and it's straightforward. However, if your day is anything like mine (with the need to make a quick voice note; check the wording of a document; dash off a few quick emails (often with attachments); and then do the minutes of a meeting), you'll soon come to love the Pocket PC way of working. It takes the best of Psion and the best of Palm and marries them to the few good bits from Windows CE. For me it's the perfect mix of Walkman, organizer, mark book, and text editor. It truly is a computer you can fit in your pocket. Well done, Microsoft. It's taken you three attempts, but you've done it.

Now lets look, a little light-heartedly, at an average day for my little Pocket PC and me:

A day in the life of a Pocket PC (ab)user
I lay in bed wondering what that blessed noise is. As the morning fog that inhabits the deepest recesses of my mind gradually recedes, it occurs to me that perhaps it could be an alarm. Bloody hell, it is an alarm. I get up quickly and eventually find the accursed beast and dismiss it. Yes folks, the accursed beast, with which I have a love/hate relationship, is the alarm on my Jornada. It's loud. There's no way you can miss it. I can even hear it in the car when I've got The Verve blasting out of the speakers.

Pocket PC and a nutritious breakfast
So where are we in my little life? Ah, yes, I'm now dressed, downstairs, and making my better half a cup of tea. It's amazing to see the civilizing effect a cup of tea can have on one's morning routine. While the kettle is boiling, I check my agenda. My Jornada is set to go straight to the Today screen when I turn it on. After having been a heavy user of Action Names on the Palm device, there are a few things I miss with the Pocket PC, not the least of which are icons I could attach to appointments.

The agenda reveals a very important meeting I have with a parent. A quick check of my notes reveals his youngster has been up to no good in practically every subject bar one. I make a new reminder to see the teacher of the subject that is deemed "acceptable" by the youngster.

Off to work
With the kids dressed and breakfasted, it's off to work I go. Not the best of journeys because it's rush hour on the motorway (we can drive at 70 miles per hour in the UK), and I've a load of road works to negotiate. Getting into work, I haul my bags up to my lab. Science teaching has one great advantage over other subjects: space. I check my agenda again to see if I have to leave a note for our technician. Then it's off to see the "acceptable" teacher. Jornada in hand, I scribble some additions to my notes. Seems our youthful friend, like many of the disaffected youngsters I'm happy to call my students, likes sport. Hates every other subject, mind.

After having been to morning briefing and indulged in some friendly banter, I move off to see the parent. Before doing so, I interrogate the school's behavior database. We keep a "criminal record" of each student. I collect the printouts and muse to myself the failings of today's so-called paperless office. The meeting with the parent goes unexpectedly well. Whilst returning to my lab, I scribble an addendum to my notes on this student.