Q: I use Eudora Lite for e-mail, and sometimes it crashes when opening e-mail with images (typically spam). I'd like Eudora to only show me text, so that spam with images would look like HTML and I'd have to click deliberately before I'd actually see the images. Is there a preference I could toggle to get that as my default view?
A: Yes, there is. You'll need to do some delving into the innards of two categories of Eudora settings, but your wish can be granted.
Eudora has problems with some HTML mail. I've never bothered figuring out if it's because there's something actually wrong with the HTML or if Eudora just has a poor HTML parser. Anyway...
To turn off displaying HTML and images rendered in Eudora, you need to adjust two sets of settings:
Open Eudora's Settings. Scroll through the list of setting icons until you see "Fonts & Display". Uncheck the following: "Automatically download HTML graphics", "Animate animated GIF images", and possibly "Display graphics in messages". Try out the first two and see if that's enough to solve your problem. The last one is for graphics actually attached to the message itself rather than referred to on a remote web site. Most spam e-mail accesses graphics remotely so you can be tracked and doesn't attach graphics to the actual message. If you're still not happy, continue on.
Find the Styled Text settings. Under the section "When receiving styled mail, pay attention to", uncheck everything you'd like to get rid of. This isn't an all or none kind of thing, so feel free to play a bit.
Click "OK" when done to update your settings. I think they take effect immediately.
Q: What app do I need to read ebooks and text files on my Treo 600?
A: You'll need a document reader for the Palm that can read Palm doc files as well as a converter program for your Macintosh to change RTF or text files into Palm doc files prior to transferring them via a hot sync.
Now that my beloved Handera is 3 years old and still running Palm OS 3.x, I haven't looked at reading software in ages, but here's some general commentary on programs I know about or use regularly.
For e-books/text, I primarily still use a version of TealPoint's TealDoc software. TealDoc can read plain text and .doc files, and supports landscape mode and scrollwheels on devices which have those. It also can deal with documents stored on cards rather than in RAM. It does not render HTML; however, version 6 can strip out HTML tags. TealDoc is $19.95 US. I've read hundreds of books on my handheld with my trusty copy of TealDoc. Good investment for me.
If you need a reader which renders HTML, people used to suggest MobiPocket Reader. I haven't used it in ages, so I can't really comment on it. Baen Books' online subscription service recommends using MobiPocket as they distribute their books in HTML (but it's really basically just paragraph tags, which are easy enough to visually ignore for me in TealDoc). This is also $19.95 US.
Palm also offers eReader (used to be Palm Reader) for both your Palm and for your Mac, so you can read Palm .doc files on your Mac. It supports some kind of digital rights management. It is possible to buy DRM books from somewhere for it, but it will also handle just regular text files converted to Palm doc format. While I don't use this on my handheld that often, I do use it on my Mac. It has a nice visual page display. The desktop and Palm versions are available in a free version.
Most of these programs would go quite handily with PorDiBle for your OS X box. PorDiBle converts RTF and text files to Palm doc files (.pdb) which can be read with most document readers for the Palm.