Review: Butler

Have you ever been frustrated with how Palm implemented the use of buttons on your Treo. Butler is your personal assistant to making things work like they should.

Review: Butler

Ratings:
By: Christopher Meinck

There is no doubt about the functionality of the Treo 600 and 650 smartphones. This is due to years and years of product development. However, there are certain things that as Treo user I have always wanted to work differently. Hobbyist Software, a developer of Treo-specific utilities, has answered the call with their Butler utility.

Make These Buttons Work

The first selection under the Butler application allows you to make the Volume Buttons work. Yes, they work on current Treo smartphones, but only for the volume and ringer. Butler puts them to work and enables them for scrolling through applications. Enabling these buttons made the most sense when I was web browsing. It is just natural to want to use the volume buttons to scroll up and down. It also allowed me to cycle through my applications which was a nice feature.

Colors, Alerts and more...

Perhaps you have a thing for Orange or Red. Well, with Butler you can change things such as the color of the LED. If the LED bothers you, then you can turn it off as a default. One of the featues I found particular useful was the setting of the color and flashing of the LED when I have a voicemail. I have my LED set to Orange as a default and then Green when I have a voicemail.

Annoying SMS

If you do not want SMS alerts popping up everytime they come in, then you’ll appreciate the Hide SMS Pop Up feature. Instead of the getting the pop-up, you will continue to get a flashing asterisk letting you know there is a new SMS.

KLaunch

One of the great features of the Treo are your favorites. They can include contacts or applications. You can then select a key that will become a Hot Key. Simply hold down the key and it will launch the application or call your contact. No matter what application you are in, KLaunch allows you to use your Quick Key. Caution: Quick Keys have been known to become addicting.

Odds & Ends

Butler cleans up with miscellaneous tools such as key guards, alarms, beaming of business cards and more.

Overall

This is just a fantastic utility (ahem, 7 utilities) that are a must have for Treo owners. It works with both the Treo 600 and Treo 650.

Butler is available as a free trial and retails for $14.95.