In computer news this week, 05/23/2000

James Bond, eat your heart out ! My Microsoft outlook contacts and calendar talk to my watch.

When I was a kid I loved Detective Dick Tracy comics, and his 2-way wrist radio watch. In the 1970's I was watching a James Bond movie and he had a wristwatch that had an alarm in it, to tell him when it was time to blow something up. I've always been into electronic gadgets, and since then I've had just about every new electronic watch that comes on the market. I had one with alarms, I had one with a calculator, I had one that you could play space invaders on. Then when the running craze hit, I had runners watches that had alarms and stopwatches that could measure laps and total time, and even sound an alarm near the end of the run to tell you to speed up if you wanted to break your personal record.

I played around with watches in the 1980's that you could hook up to your computer, but they were slow, used cables, and didn't have much memory. I also played with the credit card size electronic directory devices, but they didn't meet my needs either.

Electronic watches are, of course, microprocessor based, which is why we can legally discuss them on Raw Bytes, a computer show.

In recent years I had seen the Timex runners watch called the datalink, which lets you send data to the watch from your computer screen, but the reviews on the software and support were bad. Just last week however, it was time for a new watch, and it just happened that my local discount store had a sale on the Timex Triathalon watch with the datalink feature for $ 49.99 - such a deal I couldn't pass up.

I also bought one with a velcro watchband as the plastic ones tend to disintegrate after a few years and break, and then I end up dropping or breaking the watch before I get a new band.

As a watch, it's great. It keeps standard or military time in 2 time zones, has a night light, and a stopwatch that counts up to 50 laps. Then it has 5 countdown times, which is really nice. You can also label each countdown timer, so I have toast -2 minutes, Raw Bytes - 3:30 , running - 5:05 - for pulse checks, and 2 others I set for parking meters and other things.

Then it has ten - count 'em - ten alarms you can set and label. I'm in alarm heaven. You can set them for a specific day and time also, so I have them set for daily wakeup, weekly record Raw Bytes Show, Weekly church, weekly teach guitar class, and I was wondering what I was going to do with the other 6, before I found a special Timex program designed for Microsoft Outlook.

This actually lets you download appointments and contact phone numbers to your watch from outlook. Appointments are stored as different alarm times with the person's names, and contact's names and phone numbers are stored in a phone book.

The Timex triathalon Datalink watch also comes with very good software, that lets you set everything on your watch from your computer, as opposed to having to push tiny buttons. They also provide an excellent interactive computer tutorial on how to use it, so you don't have to read the book that comes with it. Gee - just like the computer world.

And of course their Microsoft Outlook interactive software works well too. The only limitation is watch memory, but I have been able to get some very important information I need into it. No cables either - you just hold your watch up to your computer monitor and it sends the data right to it from the screen. The monitor flashes in kind of a Star Trek scenario; your watch beeps when the data transfer is completed, and you can shout "Beam me up, Scotty !" as your fascinated office mates watching you wonder if you're going to disappear into the computer.

For Raw Bytes, this is Frank Delaney - still waiting for that Dick Tracy wristwatch. I know it's just around the corner.

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