Original review published on Steve Litchfield's 3-Lib.

For this (brief but conclusive!) group test I'm going to look at three very similar applications. Haus of Maus' BugMe, Mitch Blevins' Diddlebug (both downloadable from PalmGear HQ) and Neuon's Doodler.

Many of you will already be very familiar with Steve's review of Doodler for EPOC machines (e.g. Psion Series 5 etc.) Both BugMe and Diddlebug are of the same ilk but on the Palm platform (e.g. Palm IIIx etc.) If you've never heard of any of these apps then the next bit is for you.

All three are the electronic equivalent of the little yellow 'Post It' notes. That is they each give you a clean sheet on which you can draw a diagram (e.g. a map) and then annotate it. BugMe is very similar to Doodler in terms of layout and aspirations in that it doesn't set out to be either a drawing application or a word processor. But this freehand jotter has an ace up its sleeve in that it is linked to the alarm function on the Palm. Diddlebug has similar look, feel and functionality to BugMe.

Doodler at work...

If you've never seen a Palm organiser, let alone used one, you need only know one thing. It doesn't possess a keyboard. You 'write' on a special area of the screen using Grafitti, a gesture recognition system. This isn't too dissimilar to Western handwritten script and doesn't take too long to master. The Palm(Pilot) was originally designed as a simple tool for organising your day. However a few enterprising souls deemed it necessary to show the world that there was an MPV hiding under the bonnet of this Mini. The cult of the Palm(Pilot) was born and it has gone on to be the world's best selling handheld computer. Whoa! I hear you all cry. This is mainly a Psion site, so what's Ray up to? Well, give me a moment and I'll tell you.

The venerable Palm(Pilot) is good for a great many things, but drawing isn't really one of them. The screen lacks the resolution and sensitivity of the EPOC devices or (dare I mention them here - No, definitely not allowed. Steve L), the Windows CE devices. In fact, I liked the Sketch program on the Series 5 so much that I used it as a 'graphics tablet'. And therein lies the rub. If you are expecting accurate drawing in BugMe or Diddlebug then forget it, it's just not the Palm(Pilot)'s bag.

Diddlebug: - - BugMe:

Diddlebug makes a good fist of it though because, unlike Doodler or BugMe, it's a drawing program under the doodling veneer. You can do all sorts of clever things with Diddlebug; like smoothing, for example. You can even insert shapes, just as you can in Sketch on the Series 5.

Of the three, I like Doodler's accuracy but its usability would be much improved by an alarm or link to the built-in Time. BugMe is good and usable but is outgunned by Diddlebug, which I doff my hat to. You might also like to note that, unlike the other two applications, it's freeware.

At the end of the day, it has to be said that all three beat a beer mat or fag packet hands down!

Thanks Ray! The raison d'etre of BugMe and Diddlebug, as I understand it, is to be somewhere to scribble bits and pieces down when you haven't got time to do some Graffiti gestures, and both utilities succeed admirably in this. In fact, Diddlebug includes the best of both worlds as it includes a facility to later interpret your scribblings as Graffiti strokes, exporting text to another application. -- Steve Litchfield

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