I was kind of disappointed with the printed results of the PrintBoy/Scribble feature. The printed version of a drawing is the same size as the one on the screen, but because it's surrounded by so much white space, the drawing looks much smaller when printed. It would be nice if you could choose to double, or even quadruple, the size of a drawing before you print it.

The thing I found most frustrating about using PrintBoy Deluxe was the lack of IR enabled printers. This isn't a problem with PrintBoy Deluxe, but it does limit how functional the program is. In fact, out of 20 printers in my organization, I only found two that had IR ports. Next, I began looking at the printers connected to my friend's home computers, and I noticed most of them didn't have IR ports either. As I mentioned earlier, you can use a cable to connect the serial port on your Palm device to the printer, but the cable costs over $70. Also, who wants to carry a bulky cable everywhere? The other option is to purchase an IR device for your printer, but the cost for these devices is around $100.

Since my biggest complaint about PrintBoy Deluxe was the lack of IR enabled printers, I was very excited when, on April 17, 2001, Bachmann Software announced the introduction of their InfraReady Adapter, a portable and relatively inexpensive IR adapter that'll allow you to use your Palm device to print to any printer. The adapter plugs into the parallel port on any printer and has a three-foot cable that leads to an IR transceiver that's about the size of a thumbprint. The largest part is the piece that attaches to the printer, measuring about two inches wide, three inches long, and half an inch high. This size is required to house the nine volt battery that provides power to the IR eye. At $55.99 (plus shipping and handling), this new product is half as expensive as any other IR adapter, and it's much more portable.

The bottom line
Overall, I was very pleased with the performance of PrintBoy Deluxe. It was easy to use, and I was able to print everything I wanted to. The program appeared to be very stable, and I didn't find any bugs.

The only things that would keep me from purchasing this program are the lack of IR enabled printers and the price of the program. PrintBoy Deluxe sells for $34.99, which seems like a lot of money considering you'll probably also need to buy the IR adapter. If your home or office has a printer with an IR port and you want to do a lot of printing from your Palm device, this may be a good investment. I found I have very limited opportunities for using this program, and at that price, I'd like to be able to use it on the majority of printers I encounter.

PrintBoy Deluxe is available at http://www.bachmannsoftware.com. It'll work on any Palm device with an infrared port running Palm OS 3.0 or later.

Chris Phillips is a Senior Project Manager for UMB Bank and a member of the Kansas City Palm Users Group at http://www.interpug.com/kcpug. Comments can be sent to chrisof4@hotmail.com.