FIGURE C


When an entry is changed on both platforms, DayNotez recognizes it and allows you to choose which one to keep. Roll over picture for a larger image.

There's also an option to always use either the handheld or desktop's version in the case of a collision, or you can skip the record for this synchronization (although the same dialogue box will appear on each HotSync until the issue is resolved).

Oddly, though, when I changed a record on one platform and deleted the same record on the other, the record was deleted without the dialogue box. On the Palm, I was warned that the deletion would be permanent, but not on the desktop. While an accidental deletion is probably less likely than inadvertently editing the same record on both platforms, I think it would be better if DayNotez warned me that I was deleting an entry I'd edited.

DayNotez does not offer a feature explicitly intended to delete old entries. However, you can choose to archive entries without specifying a location to save them, which is supposed to delete them. I did this on my Palm and did a HotSync, only to find the entries still on the desktop. When I did a second HotSync, they did disappear, but I'm not sure why it took two HotSyncs to make it happen.

User interface
For the most part, both the Palm and Windows versions behave as I would expect. The only exception was for days with no entries.

When I click on a day with no entries on the desktop, I would expect the 'Entries' tab to give me a 'New' button to allow me to start an entry. The first time into a date, it does do this, but if I leave and then return, I instead get the next entry in the list. For example, if February 10th has no entries but February 12th does, pressing 'edit' on February 10th's date will bring up the entry from February 12th for editing. This concerned me, as I could easily have ended up editing the wrong day's entry. Clicking on a day that does have entries always showed them, as I'd expect.

On the Palm, blank days also present a problem. Clicking on a blank day and then pressing the 'edit' button (which is, by necessity, small, and also right next to the 'new' button, so accidental clicks are a fact of life) again brings up the next entry in the list.

In all cases, the correct date and time of the entry is shown, so keeping a careful eye on the date means you won't accidentally edit the wrong entry. However, the software should not be showing me entries not applicable to the date I've selected. If there are no entries on that date, the 'edit' button should give me a new blank entry.

To make good use of the limited screen size on the Palm, DayNotez changes its buttons depending on the view you're in. For example, when you're looking at a list of entries, the first button will take you to the details of a particular entry. Once you're in those details, though, the button changes to the list button. It took me several days to notice this happening, and I think it's an interesting method of providing functionality.

Additional features
The application can record voice memos (on a Palm that provides this functionality) and store them as an entry. When recording directly to my Treo's SD memory card, the memos were choppy and unintelligible. Not going directly to the card worked properly, but I found it took a long time to transfer a completed memo (even one of only a few seconds) to the card.