Palm users: what has your experience been with syncing? Tips, tricks?

[M A V I C]

So my Palm Centros should be arriving today. All I really care about is syncing my contacts. After that, the calendar would be nice.

Last time I dealt with syncing a Palm device was back in the OS9 days. Does it work pretty well now? Any tricks or tips? I contacted Palm before buying and they said it's fully Leopard compatible and "You can Sync all the data which you have on the device. Like Calender, Contacts, Tasks, Memos etc,."

Thanks.

[The UnDoug]

I sync my Treo (palm based) with my OS X (Tiger) Mac at home and a WinXP Dell at work.

The only issue I have is that going from Address Book on the Mac to Palm Desktop on the PC causes some duplicated e-mail address fields because of how things are mapped, or something. I think I could fix it, but haven't bothered since it's not that big of a deal. I don't think you'd have that problem going just from Leopard to the Centro and back.

Will you sync via bluetooth or usb?

The Missing Sync is *really* cool, in that it can sync photos from iPhoto, music from iTunes, and lots of other cool stuff. It's like $40. There are some free solutions I've found, but they require a bit more effort.

Does the Centro have Wi-Fi? Or internet access via cell provider? If so, see if you can get Google Maps for Palm on it. It's just like the real one, you can see satellite or street maps, drag the map with the stylus, etc.

I also have a GPS receiver (very small, and only cost ~$80) that can communicate with the Treo via Bluetooth, and I have Tom Tom maps installed so can use it for GPS in car or while walking..anywhere.

And also have tried MobiTV to watch live TV. It's very cool, but also not free.

[M A V I C]

I'd like to use Bluetooth.

The device does not have Wi-Fi but it does have web access. Google Maps comes on it, and I've used it a bunch on my previous Windows Mobile phone. I don't care that much about GPS, but I hear it does do navigation based on cell phone tower triangulation.

Mark/Space, the makers of "The Missing Sync" is the name of the company that I described in this thread: http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/439...msg-439293

I had their product for Windows Mobile. They offered a refund for me, but not to any other users who complained about the same problem. (And they say no one else has complained which means either they're not being honest or they removed the posts from their forum and the person responding didn't know that.) I'm not sure what the next step is for me, but I'm avoiding them as much as I can. They are pretty much standing behind that the marketing material on their site was written a year+ before Leopard's release and that they couldn't have known if it would be Leopard compatible or not until Leopard was released. Then version 4 of their software was released after Leopard was originally slated for release so they only updated it for Leopard.

[Silencio]

Launch iSync, open iSync help, and search on "Palm". That will show you how to set it up. When I still had a Palm, that's how I synced contacts, calendars, and notes (though SOHO Notes). I think To Dos sync with the ones in iCal, but I never used those.

[MartyStickle]

I have a Palm TX which I synch with missing synch to ical and address book without any real issues. The TX has wi-fi and you can download mail and search the web, etc., although it's a bit cluncky at times unless the wifi signal is strong.

I'd like to get a smart phone of some kind with wi-fi capability to use with Verizon. Would love to synch that with missing synch. Don't even know if this is possible.

[testcase]

Various Palm OS devices over the years have a general sync success rate of about 98% for me. The few times there is a problem, it's often a beaut! I'd reccomend that you try to have it synced on more than one computer and, even on more than one OS. Make sure you keep up with Palm updates; especially before installing new software.

[M A V I C]

Man, I cannot get the syncing to work at all. It's annoying because when I start the sync from within iSync I get a message to push the hotsync button on the devices cradle. This device has no cradle and even if it did it wouldn't matter because I'm using bluetooth.

Are you guys who have had easy syncing using bluetooth?

[The UnDoug]

Did you enable Palm syncing in iSync? I forget where it is....

somewhere in iSync prefs, I think...or one of the other iSync menus.

[john-o]

Launch HotSync from the Home window. Then you may need to configure it a bit, but initiating the sync should be obvious from there...

Let us know how you do...

Good luck,
John

[M A V I C]

[quote The UnDoug]Did you enable Palm syncing in iSync? I forget where it is....
Yeah, I did.

[quote john-o]Launch HotSync from the Home window. Then you may need to configure it a bit, but initiating the sync should be obvious from there...

Let us know how you do...

Good luck,
John
I followed all the instructions three or four times. Finally gave up and tried the USB cable. There's a button on the USB cable that I didn't see. That worked fine. Then I tried bluetooth again and it worked. I think they key is to initiate the sync from the phone and not from hitting sync in iSync.

Now it works more smoothly than The Missing Sync for Windows Mobile ever did.