In 2002 I got what was then the still relatively new m500 Palm Pilot. This is a greyscale version based on the older Palm Vx series form factor, they also had a color one at that time (the m505), but I wasn't impressed with the screen I saw and I knew the battery wouldn't last quite as long as on a greyscale model. I used the Palm daily, finding a multitude of free, open source and some paid software to make it more useful. I knew that the battery wouldn't last forever, but mine seemed to be lasting a whole lot longer than anyone else's that I knew of. It wasn't until the middle of last year that the battery finally bit it, and three years of almost daily use came to an end. If I had known it would be so easy to resurrect it, I wouldn't have procrastinated so long... (read on for links to the great programs I've used and how I brought it back to life)

What did I use this thing for that was so important to me?

• I would sync the palm daily with my Linux box (where I used jpilot and pilot-link) first and then the Mac (synced with a combination of Palm desktop software and iSync) and since the battery died, I've missed being able to have a more portable copy of all my addresses and phone numbers (I no longer have a cell phone that could conceivably carry that info).

• I liked having an up to date copy of my iCal calendar (which I also keep synced with iPHPcalendar here on this site) and although the datebook that came with Palm OS 4 was pretty lame I had supercharged it using DateBk5.

• I used Wordsmith for the hundreds of text file memos and Docs (the one for new music I hear on the radio and the other one for good Books I hear about were particularly missed) that I liked to have with me at all times: reference docs with notes on how to do all kinds of stuff, books I wanted to read (and those I wanted to read again), set lists, Lyrics and chord progressions and the like.

• I would use Plucker to grab websites of useful info, or spider sites that I wanted to read offline later.

• I found my (to this day still unregistered) version of Planetarium was really useful when visiting the folks in Vermont, as I could carry it outside with me and the backlight wasn't too bright. I have a friend at work who uses that same program with an older Palm which he has strapped to his telescope and can control it through this program - he just taps in what he wants to see and the tele moves to the correct orientation - darn cool!

• Matt Marsh's Converter is a handy app to have at the ready.

• Although Palm has a built in Notes program that lets you draw notes on screen like you would on a regular old yellow sticky pad, I always used the open source Diddlebug instead which offers some better drawing tools and alarm options.

• At work I would connect the palm (while in it's serial cradle) via Mocha ppp (mppp) which creates a TCP/IP connection to the PC as a host, allowing me to get 'online' with the palm and run any number of apps. The main ones being Yanoff (a newsreader) and the Eudora suite (though generally only for email) so I could plug in, grab the latest news from a couple of newsgroups I read for offline perusal, check (and send) any personal email which I could then take away from work with me.

• ChordDB by Richard Myers is an awesome guitar chord reference program that's always handy when out an about.

• PilotDB is an open source database which I used to use to keep track of all kinds of stuff - gas mileage (Yes, I would log in every fill-up), gifts I got from people at work so I could send an appropriate thank you, and get appropriate stuff the next year, oh - all sorts of spreadsheet type stuff.

• I only had three games on the thing that I ever liked: ChessGenius (still unregistered - though I never played it very often), PilotGO (that's right - since the palm has a minute processor it provides me with the only GO player I can actually beat). I couldn't find a current link to PilotGo but I would probably try Go81 next time anyway which is supposed to be a bit stronger, KMoria (based on the nethack games of old, it's great to pop on an adventure game sometimes and kill some skeletons in a dungeon and hunt for gold)

How did I resurrect it?

It was fairly simple stuff, but depended on the fact that I have two m500s since my boss had given me his after his battery died and I had (thankfully) kept it in a drawer. I found a replacement battery on ebay for $15! The new one is a higher capacity but made specifically for the Palm m500. To open the palm you need a set of torx drivers (a set with T4 through T6). The one my boss had given me had been made in Mexico and used T4 screws, while mine had been made in the states and had T6 screws. I don't know if they possibly used others as well, so watch out! I pried the thing open carefully starting at the bottom, the cover clips onto the back nicely. After replacing the battery (which was trivial and not worth explaining), I put it all back together and charged it up for 3 hours.

It didn't work. The display became corrupted after a couple minutes, a restore of my last backup failed twice, and after resetting the palm a bunch of times I almost gave up. Then I remembered about the other palm I had - unfortunately, the screen on that one was in really bad shape - all scratched up from a couple years of my boss tossing it around. I took that one apart, and removed the main board, I swapped it with the main board in my old palm (keeping my better screen) - luckily the main board and the display are connected at a tiny connector so I could do this. I put the new battery in and charged this new construct up overnight. Works great! Having a great time with my resurrected palm!