To me, the timing seemed right. I recently concluded that a personal digital assistant would do everything that I needed to help me get and stay organized. Personal digital assistants (PDAs) are compact, calculator-sized electronic gizmos that store contacts and telephone numbers; track appointments, tasks and commitments and record your notes. They’re designed to replace those personal paper organizers that lots of people carry around.
PDAs have touch sensitive screens so you can "write" on them with a stylus. You can choose whether you want to hunt and peck for letters on an onscreen keyboard, or, you can write letters on the screen, and the devices translate your scribbles into letters or numbers. I have used PDAs before, but they never seemed to fit my work style.
These days, cell phones offer lots of the same capabilities as PDAs: they track phone numbers and contacts, take and store pictures, play games and more. It's clear that the PDAs are no longer as popular as they once were. Just a few years ago, there were lots of models to choose from several companies. These days, when you look at the PDA sections in office and electronics stores, you'll find fewer choices, mainly from Hewlett-Packard and PalmOne.
Why is the time seemingly right for me to use a PDA? These days, I have to schedule and juggle lots of shows, and I often receive calls from agents when I’m away from my office. Prior to owning a PDA, I stored my show schedule on my desktop PC and had to print a current calendar before I left my office. And because I rely on my PC to store appointments, I often ran into problems when someone called to book a show and had to wait for my PC to boot to check my schedule.
For a time, I also relied on a master paper calendar to manage shows. The advantage with the paper calendar was that I didn’t have to turn on my PC to check my schedule. But I found that I still wanted to store the same information on my PC. As a result, I performed a juggling act-taking down show information on either my paper calendar or my PC, and then having to make sure that the information was current on both. And there were times that I nearly forgot to transfer the data.
A PDA, on the other hand, "'synchs" data, making sure that the appointments and contacts on both the PDA and PC are current and the same. Thus, I should be able to carry along my schedule on a PDA and quickly and easily refer to them. And the PDA’s synching capability should allow me to enter appointments on the road and synch the dates with my desktop PC.
