Commercial Applications
Bonsai
[Version described: 2.0.4]
Narara’s Bonsai product is an outliner application for Palm OS devices with a fully functional companion desktop application. Each Bonsai database is a hierarchy of items. Each item has a description, a type, a category, a priority, an optional note, optional start, due, and completed dates, and a progress value. The types of items available are simple, to do, and task; simple items have no progress value, to do items have a simple checkbox progress value, and task items have a percentage complete progress value. Items can be exported to the To Do list or can be linked to other Bonsai outlines. Changes made in the To Do List to items exported from Bonsai are reflected in the Bonsai item. Individual items or entire trees of items can be easily moved around the outline, or copied from one outline to another.
Functionally, the handheld Bonsai application is similar to Progect. However, Bonsai has a number of advantages over Progect. Notes on items are limited to 4 kilobytes (600 words) in Progect, but can be 32 kilobytes (5,000 words) in Bonsai. Also, Bonsai has a sophisticated desktop companion application, which permits easy entry or importing of large amounts of data into Bonsai and easy exporting of data from Bonsai to other applications.
If Bonsai were substantially cheaper than it is, it would be a no-brainer, at least until Progect goes through another few versions. Bonsai with its companion desktop application, however, is $25. While this is not large compared to the retail price of a color Palm OS device, it is half the price of a refurbished low-end Palm OS device. Fortunately, Natara permits a 30-day free trial of its software. If, after trying Progect for several weeks, you find it lacking, you might try the free trial of Bonsai to see whether it justifies its price to you.
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Copyright © 2002 Brian Hetrick
Page last updated 15 July 2003.
