With VuOne Software

Build a better mousetrap and you're going to catch more mice, more often. In the PDA industry, there are many minds working on building a better information trap, to help people store and carry more information. The goal is to make entering data intuitive enough that users will actually enjoy using their PDAs, catching more data, more often.

The FUGA Corporation is aiming to do just that: make data more easily entered and retrieved. They've taken their VuOne software concept and wrapped a box around it much like Palm Computing did when they took their Graffiti software method for entering data into the Newton and other platforms and built the extremely successful Pilot. FUGA calls their device the eDiary. It's roughly the shape of a Newton Message Pad, complete with the flip lid from the MP110, shrunk down to the size of a PalmPilot.

The unit fits in the hand nicely and the lid flips over, holding the unit at a slight angle for easier desktop usability; this is only somewhat helpful, but of greater assistance is the brief icon guide on the inside of the lid. I referred to this a few times as I got used to the VuOne way of doing things. The screen's data area measures 2.5" x 2". Along the bottom of the screen run the selection icons and up the right of the screen are the brightness controls and the on/off switch. The battery door hides two AAA batteries and the reset button; there is also a memory battery door which comes off with a few turns of the philips screw.

Finally, there's a door on the bottom left for accessing the small card edge for connecting to the data synchronization cable. So that sums up the hardware, but what FUGA wants you to know is that this is all about the software interface and your data.

The VuOne software is very tightly integrated, and the company's hope is to attract users of paper organizers that the Palm didn't already get. They believe that the Palm attracted people who "get" computers: people who already use computers in their daily life and understand the concept of drop down menus and different programs for different purposes. VuOne tries to get users interested in entering and retrieving their data in one view, hence the name.

There are actually three views, the first one being the VuOne DateBook. This is where you do most of your data entry and is the main view for seeing your appointments, expenses and To Do items. The second view is the AddressVu, where you'll find a tabbed index for accessing your address book entries in alphabetical order. Then there's the ListVu, which is actually like the To Do function, but its items do not appear in the main DateBook; this is handy for entering and managing large project lists without cluttering your main DateBook view, and items can be organized into separate files.

Learning curve

FUGA has noted that Palm users seem to have a hard time grasping the concepts of VuOne, but users of paper diaries get it pretty quickly. I was struggling with the interface myself, so I took it to a neighboring office to a woman I know who has a paper organizer. With a brief introduction, in less than two minutes, she had entered an expense item, an appointment spanning two hours, and a To Do item. "Pretty simple to me," she said. I guess they weren't kidding.

Humbled, I headed back to my desk to grab the manual. It really does do a lot with a little space. The DateBook uses tags to categorize everything, helping differentiate between types of data. In general, one starts by selecting the tag, by default an Appointment, To Do item, Expense or Birthday reminder. Other tags can be added for your own purposes. Then you can click on the clock column if it's a time-scheduled item, and a simple chart of times comes up, horizontally arranged, which allows you to select a range of time with ease. To start at 7:00 am, one has to select a little to the right of 7, as clicking directly on 7 selects 6:45, and one must carry through to the center of the next number to select that exact time. A little practice makes this easy. You can also easily set up repeating items for all types of tags, expenses included. Where in the Palm you'd have to enter each hotel expense for a number of days, with the VuOne interface, you just create the expense item and then click on the repeat icon (two overlapping pages). Then you simply select how often you want it to repeat ("daily, weekly, monthly, 6 monthly, yearly"), then tell it how many times to repeat.

When it comes time to tally your expenses, you can do so for a range of dates, categories and even types of expenses, whether it was charged to your visa or paid in cash. All this is accessible from the same screen, by pressing on the Advanced Find button.

In all the main views, you'll find a small Qwerty keyboard. This is important, since there's no handwriting recognition on the eDiary.

With every FUGA eDiary comes a version of the program that gets loaded on the computer. It operates very similarly to the handheld version, so users needn't learn two separate interfaces. Data can be synchronized with the desktop, but the unit was not designed with constant synchronization in mind. The main focus is on the user entering data on the eDiary itself.

The VuOne model is quite an interesting one, offering users a way to see all their data at once with a few simple taps. Just sliding one's pen over the days of the week display (SMTWTFS) will show all the appointments, notes, expenses, and To Do items for a given number of days in one single view. Such a model could be useful on other platforms as well, making me wonder if they won't be releasing a software-only version sometime soon. Those tired of switching between applications to see all their action items for a given day might give the eDiary a look, and paper planner users might want to try this new PDA that seems to be custom made for them. www.fuga.com US$149.95

- Shawn Barnett