PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide, Second Edition

America Online

In general, America Online’s mail system isn’t compatible with the usual email standards used by the rest of the Internet. That’s why so few Palm email programs can get mail from America Online. However, if your email account is with AOL, you’re not necessary out of luck.

PocketFlash

PocketFlash ($25 from http://www.powermedia.com) does one thing very well—it dials your local AOL access number, grabs your email, and deposits it into the built-in Palm Mail application. From there, you can process, file, and reply to this email exactly as though it had arrived from the Internet or via HotSync, as described earlier in this chapter.

Like other polished email programs, PocketFlash can fetch only the message subjects, saving connection time, and then later download the full messages you select. As a bonus, setting up PocketFlash is far simpler than setting up a full ISP-access program. All you have to tell the program is the local phone number and your AOL screen name, as shown in Figure 13.22; the program does the rest. (PocketFlash can check email from all five of your AOL screen names in a single call.)

Figure 13-22. PocketFlash is a no-brainer to set up for America Online email.

TransAOL

TransAOL (http://members.aol.com/VinceDeb) doesn’t dial AOL directly. Instead, it uses your desktop PC as the home base for email and simply uses a HotSync to shunt your AOL mail onto ...