What is TrackFast Tracking Software?

How does TrackFast software work?

What are the requirements for TrackFast tracking software?

How do I purchase TrackFast tracking software?

What is the maximum amount of text allowed in a Track title or an Entry?

How many Tracks, Entries, and Links can I store?

How many categories can I create?

How many keywords can I create?

How do I share my keywords with others?

What is the maximum length of a keyword?

What characters are allowed in keywords?

Can I create new keywords from text in my Entries?

How can I view and print Entries on my desktop PC?

What happens when I edit or delete a linked item?

How do I insert a new Track other than at the top of the list?

Can I sort Tracks alphabetically?

When I tap the Go button for a link to a repeating event, why doesn't it go to the date shown?

Why do some repeating events not appear in the Date Book at the date shown in my Links?

Where do I get updates?

Where do I send comments?

Copyright and Trademarks

TrackFastä tracking software for Palm Computingâ organizers is a contact relationship and activity tracking tool. It helps you to organize and keep track of important business relationships, progress toward goals, completion of assigned tasks, and preparation for events. The built-in applications provided by Palmä handhelds do a great job of helping you to plan your days and weeks ahead. TrackFast tracking software is the perfect addition to these applications because it helps you to track your past and present activities, so you can see how youÆre progressing and decide what you need to do next.

• TrackFast software organizes your activities into Tracks and Entries.
• Tracks can be created for specific business contacts, customers, vendors, projects, key objectives, meetings, or anything else you would like to track (even personal diet and exercise, frequent-flyer mileage, etc.). Each Track contains a list of Entries.
• Entries have a date and start/stop times to organize them chronologically and to help you see how much time you spend on each activity.
• Tracks and Entries can be assigned and viewed in categories such as Business, Personal, Phone, Travel, Planning, Meeting, etc. You can customize your category list to reflect your own business or personal needs.
• TrackFast software uses links to connect to information in other Palmä applications.
• A unique feature of the TrackFast software is the ability to link Tracks and Entries to existing Palm Address Book, Palm Date Book, Palm To Do List, and Palm Memo Pad items so you can reference important contacts, meetings, and objectives from within the TrackFast application. Links are used to allow you to change the original information, such as a contact phone number, and still remain current within your TrackFast database.
• Multiple links can be added to any Track or Entry so you can reference more than one contact or a mix of contacts, appointments, etc. For example, you can track all the attendees to a meeting Entry by adding multiple links to Palm Address Book items and one link to a Date Book item.
• You can view or edit a linked item by jumping directly from the TrackFast application to the Palm application for that item. Deleting a linked item automatically removes the link.
• TrackFast software helps you to quickly enter information with keyword and name completion.
• Just enter one or two letters using the Graffitiâ writing area and tap the keyword box to insert the word or name shown. Tap the expand popup arrow to pick a word or name from a list of matches. Names are shown from the Palm Address Book. Keywords come from your customizable TrackFast keyword database.
• Modify your keyword database to suit your own data entry needs. Add, remove, and prioritize keywords so you get the most useful match first.
• Share keyword databases with other TrackFast users. You can copy and install a keyword database separately from your main Tracks database. Users can create and share keyword lists that apply to their business or profession (sales, legal, medical, etc.).

TrackFast tracking software requires the Palm OSä version 2.0 operating system or greater. That means it runs on the PalmPilotä Personal, PalmPilot Professional Edition, Palm IIIä, Palm IIIxä, and Palm Vä connected organizers as well as the IBM WorkPadä PC companion. The TrackFast application and initial keyword database take approximately 60 Kbytes of memory.

Vision7 Software has arranged with PalmGear H.Q. to provide users the benefit of downloading and purchasing the TrackFast application online. The price is US$30. Just visit http://www.palmgear.com and look for it in the business section. If you wish, you can download a free 30-day evaluation copy and return later to purchase the registered version. When you purchase online, you will be asked to provide the user name for your Palm connected organizer. You can find your user name by tapping on the HotSyncâ icon on your device and looking in the top right corner of the screen. Please be certain that you enter the name correctly online. After payment is received, a registration code for your device will be sent to your e-mail address. There is no need to re-install the TrackFast software or lose your existing Tracks or keyword databases. Simply tap the TrackFast icon, tap the menu icon, select the About TrackFast option, tap the Register button, and enter your registration code. If your 30-day evaluation period has expired, just tap the Register button on the Evaluation Timeout screen and enter your registration code.

The maximum length of a Track title is 240 characters. The maximum length of the text portion of an Entry is 4096 characters.

The total number of Tracks, Entries and Links you can store in the Tracks database depends upon a number of limitations. First, there are some limits placed on the size and number of records in any Palm OS database - the maximum number of records is 65,536 and the maximum size of a record is 65,536 bytes. That means that no single Track or Entry can exceed 65,536 bytes in length. Second, there is a limit of the amount of free memory in your Palm Connected Organizer - if you only have 1 MB of free memory, the number of Tracks and Entries you can store is going to be smaller than the theoretical maximums. Here are all of the limitations:

• The maximum number of Tracks is around 8100.
• The maximum total number of Entries and Links in a Track is around 8100.
• The maximum number of Links in an Entry is between 7600 and 8100, depending on the amount of text in the entry (up to 4096 characters).
• The amount of memory required to store a Track is 12 bytes plus the length of the Track title (up to 240 bytes).
• The amount of memory required to store an Entry is 20 bytes plus the length of the Entry text (up to 4096 bytes).
• The amount of memory required to store a Link in either a Track or an Entry is 8 bytes.

The formula for calculating total memory usage is:

Memory (in bytes) = [Tracks * (12 + AvgTrackTitleLength)] + [Entries * (20 + AvgEntryTextLength)] + [Links * 8]

An example calculation for 100 Tracks with 50 characters average title length, 4000 Entries with 200 characters average text length, and 4000 Links is:

Memory = [100 * (12 + 50)] + [4000 * (20 + 200)] + [4000 * 8] = 972,000 bytes, or 949 KB

The total number of categories, including the Unfiled category, is 16. All categories except the Unfiled category can be modified.

The total number of keywords you can create in the keywords database is a function of the length of each keyword and the maximum length of a Palm OS database record. Keywords beginning with each alpha character, 'a' through 'z' are stored in a separate record in the keywords database (and one extra record for keywords beginning with a numeric or international character). That means the maximum length of all keywords starting with the letter 'a' is 65,536. One additional character is used per keyword as a separator. At an average length of 7 characters plus a separator, the maximum number of keywords starting with the same character is 65,536 / 8 = 8192. If every starting character is at maximum usage, the total number of keywords would be 27 * 8192 = 221,184 keywords. That's a lot of keywords.

The TrackFast tracking software uses a separate database to store keywords. This allows users to install a keywords database without affecting their Tracks database. To share your keywords database with another TrackFast user, follow these steps:

• When youÆve completed adding or modifying your keywords to your satisfaction, perform a HotSyncâ operation with your desktop computer. This will backup both the Tracks and keywords databases.
• On your desktop computer, open the Windows Explorer and browse into your Palm Desktop folder. This might be called C:\palm or some other folder name you selected when you installed your Palm Desktop software.
• Find and open the sub-folder named after your Palm OS user name. If your user name is John Smith, the folder will be named SmithJ.
• From within your user folder, open the Backup sub-folder and locate the file named "TrackFastKY-TFAS.PDB". This is your keyword database. You can copy this file to a floppy diskette or send it as an e-mail attachment to another TrackFast user. DO NOT delete this or any other database from the Backup folder. They are important backup images.
• When you want to install a keyword database from someone else, save the new "TrackFastKY-TFAS.PDB" file in a convenient location on your hard drive. DO NOT copy this file to your Palm Desktop Backup folder.
• Browse to the folder where you stored "TrackFastKY-TFAS.PDB" and double click it. Select your device User Name and click OK. Click Done and then click OK to the confirmation dialog.
• Place your Palm device in the cradle connected to your computer and press the HotSync button. The new keyword database file will be downloaded and installed on your device.
• Access your new keywords as usual from within the TrackFast application.

The maximum length of a keyword is 47 characters.

A keyword must begin with an alpha-numeric character (aûz, A-Z, 0û9, or international) to allow fast lookup in the TrackFast keyword database. A keyword may not begin with a punctuation mark or space, but hyphens, spaces, etc., can be included within a keyword with one limitation: A keyword will only match with entered characters up to the point where a space or punctuation mark occurs. For example, if you create the keyword "anti-particle", it will be available for matching during text entry up to the point where you have entered "anti". As soon as you enter the "-" character, the keyword lookup system assumes that you are starting a new word. This is also true for name completion from the Palm Address Book. Name matching is available up until a space or punctuation mark is entered, such as the space between a first and last name. Note that although keywords are stored in full upper/lower case, matching is case-insensitive and keyword insertion will maintain the case of any characters you have entered prior to insertion.

Yes. Sometimes you realize that you are frequently entering a particular word that would be a good keyword. Just open the Entry, highlight the word using the stylus and tap Menu | Edit | Copy to Keywords. Tap the Add button in the Add Keyword dialog to add the keyword.

You can save Entries to a Palm Memo Pad item and then create and print reports on your desktop PC. Just open a Track to display the Entries view and tap Menu | Entries | Save To Memo. Use the dialog to select a date range and category of the Entries you want to save. The default settings in this dialog will select all of the Entries in the Track. If more than 4096 characters (the maximum memo size) are needed to store the Entries, multiple memos are created. After synchronization, open the Palm Desktop application, right-click on the memo and select Copy. Now open your favorite spreadsheet or word processing program and click Edit | Paste to save the Entries in a document. The Entries are stored in tab-delimited format to preserve fields. The Track title is posted in the first row of the memo and both the Track title and Entry text fields are placed inside double quotes. Dates and times are saved in the format selected in the Palm Preferences Formats panel. You may use the Menu | Entries | Purge command to delete Entries that you no longer need to store on your device.

When you edit an existing Palm Address Book, Date Book, To Do List, or Memo Pad item from within those applications, links to those items from TrackFast Tracks or Entries are not affected, even if the editing includes changing names, phone numbers, appointment dates and times, text, or categories. ThatÆs the great thing about using links. If you delete a linked item, the link will be removed automatically within the TrackFast application when you go to the Links view for the Track or Entry with the link. The Links view validates all linked items prior to displaying them.

You will notice that you can select a Track in the main Tracks view by tapping it with the stylus. You can also de-select it by tapping it again or scrolling the list. If you select a Track and then tap the New button, the newly-created Track will be inserted just above the Track that was selected. If no Track was selected, the new Track will be placed at the top of the list. You can move a Track up, down, to the top of the list, or to the bottom of the list by selecting it and tapping Menu | Track and selecting the appropriate Move command.

Yes. You can sort Tracks on a one-time basis by tapping Menu | Track | Sort, or tell the TrackFast program to always maintain a sorted Track view by tapping Menu | Options | Preferences and selecting the AutoSort Tracks checkbox. Once you've enabled AutoSort, TrackFast will automatically place new Tracks in sorted position in the Tracks view. If you try to move a Track out of order while AutoSort is enabled, TrackFast will ask if you want to disable AutoSort or cancel the move.

The Palm Date Book application treats repeating events a little differently from non-repeating events during a Go To operation. When going to a repeating event, the Palm Date Book tries to find the next occurrence of the event starting with today's date. If the repeating event ended before today, it shows the last occurrence of the event.

During the course of modifying a repeating event in the Palm Date Book application, it is possible to create exceptions that "blank out" one or more dates in the repeated series. For example, you can do this by deleting just a single occurrence of the event. It is also possible to "split" a repeating event into a non-repeating event on the same date and time and an exception in the repeating event for that date. For example, this happens when you add a note to a single occurrence of the repeating event. In all cases, the original starting date of the repeating event remains the same and this is what is displayed in the Links and Add Links views of the TrackFast application.

You can go to http://www.vision7.com at any time to download updates to the TrackFast tracking software or learn about the other neat things Vision7 Software has been doing lately. Be certain to check the release notes for the new version and compare the Version History section to the version number displayed in the About TrackFast menu option on your device.

We welcome suggestions and comments from you at any time. Please send your comments to TrackFast@vision7.com

Copyright ã 1999 Vision7 Software. All rights reserved. TrackFast is a trademark of Vision7 Software and Randy Rorden. Palm Computing, Graffiti, and HotSync are registered trademarks and Palm, Palm OS, PalmPilot, and Palm III are trademarks of Palm Computing Inc., 3Com Corporation, or its subsidiaries. IBM WorkPad is a trademark of IBM Corporation. All other brands and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.