[missing-sync-palmos-talk] Missing Sync 5.0 Comments

[Jay]

Hi All,

I've been a Missing Sync user since version 3.x for Clie. I paid for  
the upgrade to 4, tried it, and never used it after the first day,  
and I've now paid for the upgrade to 5, and given it a really good  
bashing, and would like to share my thoughts.

I'll start with some background on my environment:

PowerBook G4, 867MHz, 1.12 GB of RAM, completely up-to-date.
Treo 650, 512 SD card, latest firmware
Contacts: 1300
Events: 1300
Tasks: 1800 (all but 30 are completed)

The Events and Tasks date back to 2003 and I set Missing Sync to only  
sync as far back as the past 6 months, so not all of those should be  
syncing.

Lastly, I completely uninstalled Palm Desktop and performed a hard  
reset on my Treo before installing Missing Sync for ideal conditions.

Let me start with the good:

NEW FIELD MAPPING
=================
This alone is worth the price of admission!!!! How wonderful it is to  
see color coded calendars and have my contact categories back. There  
is some weirdness with time zones, but I'll research that further

FOLDER SYNCING
==============
Another gem.... I gave up on the DocsToGo conduit a while ago. I  
think I'll use Folder Syncing instead of Card Backup (another nice  
feature, mind you) as I don't need to backup the whole card.

ITUNES AND IPHOTO
=================
Nicely done, although does not appear possible to simply sync the  
Palm device with an iPhoto library. By downloading from one album and  
saving to the same one, things get all weird... I'll work around that  
for now or go back to the SplashPhoto conduit.

There are many other features many others will find useful, but those  
are the big ones for me. Now, unfortunately, the problems:

CPU USAGE
=========
Now, the biggest problem I had with version 4 is still to me a major  
problem in version 5, and that is the CPU usage... which is  
extraordinary! With Palm's Conduit Manager, CPU usage was always  
quite minimal, although I had to annoyingly keep Conduit Manager in  
the front, it was quick, quiet and resource lean. Missing Sync makes  
my computer's fan scream, and everything else slow down accept  
Activity Monitor, which looks like it's gonna bust through the top of  
its icon. Here are a few things I've noticed regarding this:

1. When I'm syncing with Missing Sync, I notice in Activity Monitor,  
that Missing Sync for Palm OS and Conduit Manager (Markspace's of  
course) are heavily competing for resources, and this is before  
Apple's SyncServer process even gets a shake. It would appear that  
the Missing Sync for Palm OS process is only for feedback to the  
user... if so, why must is soak up so much juice?

2. I like the idea of the second progress bar showing us how far we  
are into each conduit (when available e.g. during Backup and  
Install), but the barber-shop-pole effect for conduits that we are  
unsure of their progress, namely Contact, Events and Tasks,  has got  
to go. I've noticed that with the Missing Sync for Palm OS process  
(and the barber-shop-pole) visible, the WindowServer process sits  
around 13% CPU usage, but when I hide Missing Sync for Palm OS, it  
drops to 6%. Is the barber-shop-pole worth 7% of CPU? Not to me.  
Lastly, regarding that, I always felt the barber shop pole effect was  
synonymous to "calculating..." or something like that. Can't the  
second progress bar just not appear for conduits with unknown  
progress? OR, can you at least make the secondary progress bar like  
the old-school Finder's copy progress window, with a collapsable  
triangle to hide or show the specific conduit status message and  
progress bar? There is the ability to COMPLETELY hide progress in the  
prefs, but that's a bit too drastic... I just want to be without that  
dreaded barber-pole, as it's distracting, resource wasting, and  
really of no benefit.

3. On average during a sync, my CPU is maxed out with about 35% going  
to Conduit Manager, 35% to Missing Sync for Palm OS, 15% to  
WindowServer, and drips and drabs elsewhere... would love to just see  
80% going to Conduit Manager.

SPEED
=====
Now, the speed of synchronizing Events, Tasks and Contacts, both on  
the initial sync, and on future incremental syncs (even syncs with no  
changed info), is still QUITE SLOWER than Palm's Conduit Manager. I  
suspect that the above CPU usage will have a lot to do with that, but  
I'd still like to hear feedback from others and/or M/S regarding the  
performance. I swear the Markspace testers must all have Dual G5s :)

LOGGING
=======
You guys have really nicely modernized this product to suit OS X.  
However, there are still aspects that make it obvious that it was an  
older Mac OS based product... namely your log file... "Sync Log". How  
about adding a ".log" onto the end of this file so it can be  
comfortably opened and monitored in Console (as you don't allow it to  
be monitored during syncing). Also, it would be nice to stick the log  
file in ~/Library/Logs , but perhaps you have other reasons for that.  
Lastly, it would be good to have a time stamp for EVERY log entry,  
not just sync start and end times.

MISSING SYNC.PRC
================
Why is this installed and backed up EVERY HotSync? Is it me?

STATUS MESSAGES
===============
There are HotSync status messages update on the Palm during HotSync,  
e.g. during backup, the Palm reflects "Synchronizing Saved  
Preferences" when it's backing up Saved Prefs, etc. When Markspace  
starts backing up the card, or doing something that Palm's conduits  
didn't provide, the actual handheld reflects the last status it new.  
Any chance you guys can send appropriate status messages to the  
handheld so you can see what's going on when you can't see your  
computer's screen?

Hope this isn't too much to digest. Comments, replies and feeback  
welcome and encouraged.

Many thanks,

Jay