I received the mug you see at the top of this post many, many moons ago from my dear friend Mike Rohde. It’s been a permanent feature in every office that I’ve had and I’ve had quite a few over the years. Unfortunately, while moving some equipment yesterday, this little treasure was knocked off its shelf and it broke quite epically. I was very sorry to see it go because it was a fond memory from a “previous life”.

The PalmTipSheet was an e-mail newsletter created by Mike Rohde in 1999 as a way to share information about the then new, Palm Pilot PDA. His newsletter ended in March of 2003 when he handed it off to Brian Beeler, founder and director of BargainPDA.com in Issue #40.

Mike’s newsletter was a great source of information in the early days of the Internet when web design was still in it’s infancy. The PalmTipSheet could easily be seen as an early blueprint of The Magazine and that mug reminded me of those young, heady days when it was difficult to find information on things that we were passionate about – like the Palm Pilot.

This very lack of information that so many of us took to the web with projects of our own — PalmGearHQ (started a list of available software), InterPUG (started as a way to help users find local groups), PalmStation (started to help share news and information) and of course the PalmTipSheet, just to name a few. I made a lot of friends during that time, many of which are still friends to this day.

The Demise of my PalmTipSheet Mug

I suppose that makes me a bit of an old fart, but I’ll refrain from comments like “You kids don’t know how good you have it!” and “Well, back in my day…” However, looking at that mug always put a smile on my face and I am sorry to see it go.