Trans/ACT For Pocket PC

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.pinpointtools.com/products/ta-pocketpc.htm">http://www.pinpointtools.com/products/ta-pocketpc.htm</a><br /><br />"Trans/ACT for Pocket PC is the best way to have an ACT! experience on your Pocket PC. If you know ACT! on your PC, you'll feel comfortable immediately with Trans/ACT! on the Pocket PC -- it's just like ACT!, only smaller."<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2003/20030428-transact.gif" /><br /><br />Note that this is not a link to Outlook but a full blown ACT! database on your Pocket PC and is compatible with ACT! 2000, ACT! 5 and ACT! 6 and works with Pocket PC 2000, Pocket PC 2002 and Pocket PC Phone Edition devices. As of this writing, there is a glitch with Siemens SX56 and TMobile Pocket PC Phone Editions so you can go to the link above and give them your email so they can notify you when the bug is worked out. You can buy it for $99 at <a href="http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&platformId=2&productType=2&catalog=0&amp;sectionId=0&productId=43641">Handango (<i>affiliate link</i>)</a>. $99 isn't cheap, but given what I've seen at their site, this is a comprehensive package and a 10 day trial version is available, so you can't go wrong. Just remember to come back here and buy it through the affiliate link. :wink:

[dh]

In the past I have been an Act! user so this would have been very helpful. I used to sync Act! with my Palm using an Act conduit. A real version of Act would have been much better.

Now that I use Outlook on my PCs and Pocket Informant on my PPC I have no need to try this product.

$99.00 is a lot for PIM software, especially as you still need an email package as well.

One rather amusing thing is the FAQ section for their webite. For the question "do you make a Palm version?" the answer is No, go buy a PPC because it's better!

Seems to me that they are giving up on the largest part of the market by not offering a Palm OS version, even if PPC is better.

[John C]

Seems to me that they are giving up on the largest part of the market by not offering a Palm OS version, even if PPC is better.

I agree, $99 is steep. They don't make a Palm OS one because now ACT offers one of their own (ACT for Palm OS) - not linking s/w but a mini version of ACT for the Palm. It looks like if you are into ACT then you can get it for the PDA of your choice...

John

[gfreda]

Has anyone tried this app.?

[EricMCarson]

I've been using each version of Trans/ACT since the 1.0 beta test, and have used everything, up to the latest 2.01. This app is actually pretty nifty in that they have figured out how to put the entire ACT! database on your PPC. The contact user interface is very nice, and completely customizable, just like the desktop version. However, the app has several issues:
1) Steep price, at $99, I can get the desktop upgrade version of ACT! cheaper than this
2) The PPC app is super slow (it takes well over 1 minute just to load up on my PPC).
3) The calendar views are a separate app from Trans/ACT (VOCalendar) and take another 30 seconds to 1 minute to load initially (but if you leave them open, you're fine)
4) The calendar view contains no customization capability, particularly puzzling is the lack of an "Agenda" type view that most PDA PIM programs have had since 1998-99.
5) I have had difficulties with the synchronization process while connected to a VPN (actually sync failures are more appropriate). These difficulties don't appear to be resolved in version 2.01.
6) Steep price, did I already mention this?

Overall, if you are dying without your ACT! user-defined fields being on your PPC, and like the slick user interface for contact views, spend the $99. Otherwise, look elsewhere for a full-time PIM, at least until this program speeds up substantially and/or gets reasonably priced (like $50 or less).

[ricksfiona]

I've been using Trans/ACT 2.01 for several weeks now. It's SO nice to have all my ACT! information on my Pocket PC. But there are drawbacks.

My setup:
Compaq IPAQ 3870
128MB SD Card
Microsoft Money
Vindigo

It's a huge program. The program takes up about 13MB of space on my Pocket PC. You have Trans/ACT and a partner database. Once you have the program loaded, it's fairly fast. I have a 128MB SD card where I store my 700-contact database and performance is reasonable. When loading the program, it can take about 20 seconds for it to start. Best to start the program and keep it memory before you actually need it.

I can't use either Bluetooth/Adobe Acrobat with Trans/ACT. I'm always asked to soft reset my device if I want Bluetooth to work. I get an error saying that the 'Bluetooth hardware failed to start'.

Even if I soft reset and load Trans/ACT, I tend to run out of memory. If I have 18MB left on my device, I will run out of memory in a few hours and will need to soft reset again.

I'm using version 2.01, which is much nicer than version 2.0. There were ugly problems when trying to synchronize with ACT! v6. Synchronization problems look to be a thing of the past now with version 2.01.

Okay, enough of the bad stuff. Now for the good.

You can have Trans/ACT replace parts of the Today screen. I was hoping this would be the case. I don't use the bundled Tasks/Contacts/Calendar program that came with my Pocket PC. Now that Trans/ACT is integrated, it's much easier to work with

The amount of information you can bring over from ACT! is customizable and you can have all of your fields come over. You also get Groups to come over.

It seems the Trans/ACT developers are on top of the problems. When I submitted my problem about synchronization, they responded to me via e-mail within a couple of hours and sent me a link to download the updated version of the program.

Improvements I would like to see:
1) Have a built in e-mail program and be able to send e-mail to groups.
2) Have the program be 'Keyboard Aware'. I enter a lot of text and you can't move around the fields via keyboard consistently.
3) Synchronization speed. I only have 700 contacts and it can take a good 5 - 10 minutes to fully synchronize. If you are doing only an 'Update' synchronization, it should only take a couple of minutes in my opinion.
4) The interface needs more polish. You can't customize the look of the calendar. You can have a lot of items overlapping each other.

In short, I am satisfied with the program and believe the Trans/ACT people will turn this into a great program within a year. I was extremely disappointed with ACT! and their implementation of ACT! on the Pocket PC. Trans/ACT is what ACT! for the Pocket PC should've been.

[gfreda]

Thanks for the feedback!
I use the direct CompanionLink conduit (Isn't dependant on Outlook) & is really fast and reliable on my 1800+ ACT 6 database.
The only thing that I miss is about a dozen customized fields, which is why I'd consider a full ACT app. on my Axim.
I don't have a problem with the $99 if it performed well, but based on your comments of slowness & some issues that I hear about with the Calendar views, I'll wait for PinPoint to refine it. :|