[missing-sync-palmos-talk] Re: Palm Desktop to Apple-Mark/Space apps?

[MikeG]

Hi,

I sent my original message with the above subject (reproduced below  
in Robyn Philips' August 3 email) on July 11. I was stunned at the  
lack of reply, especially from the usually-helpful Mark/Space  
engineers who frequent this list. Can this be put down to people  
being on summer vacation?

I've had two people contact me to say they continue to use Palm  
Desktop with M/S 5.1. That's great, but I don't like Palm Desktop for  
a variety of reasons, one of which is it can't be searched with  
Spotlight. I also don't like that it hasn't been updated for years,  
looks clunky and seems to use older standards for vcards. (Thanks,  
anyway, Nico Macdonald!)

But I'm no further ahead.

I have most of my data in Palm Desktop. While I waited for MS 5 to  
stabilize, I started putting some of my data in Address Book and iCal.

I'm ready to start using MS 5 (I'm using MS 4 still.)

What is the best practice for getting all of my data together in iCal  
and Address book, along with the M/S Memo apps, synched to my palmOne  
Tungsten T3?

1. Do I delete everything in iCal and Address book, then overwrite  
them from the T3? I hear this is possible using a workaround  
involving resetting the Sync history. But how would I then get the  
data which I would have backed up from iCal and Address Book merged  
back into the Apple apps?

2. Export my data from Palm Desktop as .vcf and .vcs files and import  
it into Address Book and iCal, merging the entries with my existing  
data? What about the To Dos and Memos? How can they be exported and  
imported? The only way to export them from Palm Desktop is tab and  
return. I don't see a way to import tab and return into iCal, and I'm  
not sure if you can with Mark/Space's memos app.

3. Marc Bizer, on August 4, suggested using iSync to sync my T3 with  
iCal and Address Book. I'm not clear on whether this would involve  
deleting what I have in Address Book and iCal or whether it could  
handle merging the records. But forgive me, isn't MS 5 supposed to be  
a complete replacement and upgrade over iSync? I tried iSync once  
before but had a lot of problems - it was a while ago so I can't be  
specific (well before MS 5 came out). Why would I use iSync as an  
intermediary step to MS 5? I seem to recall iSync causing me data  
loss and category loss issues. Am I wrong or out of date?

The ideal situation would be to have some method that takes the data  
in Palm Desktop or on the T3 - which are synched via MS 4 and synchs  
either of them with MS 5, in such a way that the data already in  
Address Book or iCal is merged with what's on the T3 or in Palm Desktop.

The reason I want to by hyper sure about the "best practice" way to  
do this is that I recall during the early days of MS 5 many, many  
emails on this list emphasizing that things must be done "just so" in  
order to avoid some of the hellish situations people were reporting.  
I don't want to mess things up with Sync Services.

Can someone please either be more comprehensive than Marc Bizer was  
or point me to a How-To document that addresses my situation? I'm  
assuming I'm not the only person who had to deal with this situation,  
given how long iCal and Address Book existed before MS 5 provided a  
decent way to sync a PDA with them.

Thank you,

Mike Gordon
Luxembourg


On 4-Aug-06, at 9:00 PM, missing-sync-palmos-talk- 
request at lists.markspace.com wrote:

> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Re: Palm Desktop to Apple-Mark/Space	apps? (Robyn Phillips)
>    2. Re: Palm Desktop to Apple-Mark/Space apps? (Marc Bizer)
>
> From: Robyn Phillips <robynphillips at email.com>
> Date: August 3, 2006 8:39:37 AM GMT+02:00
> To: Missing Sync <missing-sync-palmos-talk at lists.markspace.com>
> Subject: [missing-sync-palmos-talk] Re: Palm Desktop to Apple-Mark/ 
> Space apps?
> Reply-To: "The Missing Sync \(Mac/Palm OS\) Discussion List"  
> <missing-sync-palmos-talk at lists.markspace.com>
>
>
> on 12/7/06 03:45, MikeG wrote:
>
>> I've been following the discussion on Missing Sync 5 since its
>> release, waiting for the initial flood of problems to subside. It
>> seemed that the app has become fairly stable with the release of 5.1.
>>
>> I'm ready to upgrade from version 4. But I am stumped as to the best
>> way to do this.
>>
>> The bulk of my data is in Palm Desktop. Some of it is in Address
>> Book. A small amount in iCal. But I understand that proper procedure
>> is you have to have all your information in Address Book and iCal and
>> overwrite the Palm on the first sync.
>>
>> Has anyone got any tips on how best to do this? Is it as simple as
>> exporting all your Palm Desktop items as their various .vcf, .vcal
>> formats? What about the memos? They go that Mark/Space Memo app,
>> right? How?
>>
>> Then I suppose it's important to get your iCal data into the
>> calendars, and make sure your Address Book categories are as you
>> want. But since I've got categories in Palm Desktop, isn't there some
>> way to preserve them as I transfer to the iCal/Address Book/Memo app?
>>
>> I'd really appreciate some pointers on the best way to do this, so I
>> can successfully transition to the Apple-Mark/Space apps and finally
>> leave that inadequate Palm Desktop behind.
>>
>
> Hi Mike,
>
> I am using Missing Sync 5 with Palm Desktop. Although Palm Desktop  
> has not
> been updated for the Mac in a long while, and unlikely to, it still  
> does an
> acceptable job, even though it is a basic program. The one  
> advantage I think
> Palm Desktop has over iCal and Address Book is that I can choose  
> handheld
> overwrites desktop if necessary.
>
> I understand that you may want to migrate across to iCal and  
> Address Book,
> but please be aware that it is not compulsory to do this to use  
> Missing Syn
> 5.
>
> Robyn
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Marc Bizer <mbizer at mail.utexas.edu>
> Date: August 4, 2006 9:30:35 AM GMT+02:00
> To: "The Missing Sync \(Mac/Palm OS\) Discussion List" <missing- 
> sync-palmos-talk at lists.markspace.com>
> Subject: [missing-sync-palmos-talk] Re: Palm Desktop to Apple-Mark/ 
> Space apps?
> Reply-To: "The Missing Sync \(Mac/Palm OS\) Discussion List"  
> <missing-sync-palmos-talk at lists.markspace.com>
>
>
> On 8/3/06 at 4:39 PM +1000, MikeG wrote:
>> The bulk of my data is in Palm Desktop. Some of it is in Address  
>> Book. A small amount in iCal. But I understand that proper  
>> procedure is you have to have all your information in Address Book  
>> and iCal and overwrite the Palm on the first sync. Has anyone got  
>> any tips on how best to do this? Is it as simple as exporting all  
>> your Palm Desktop items as their various .vcf, .vcal formats?
>
> That will definitely work for the addresses (although the  
> categories won't be preserved), but the simplest way to get  
> everything into iCal is simply to use the iSync conduit with Palm  
> Desktop.
>
>> What about the memos? They go that Mark/Space Memo app, right? How?
>
> You set that conduit to do "Handheld overwrites Desktop"
>
>> Then I suppose it's important to get your iCal data into the  
>> calendars, and make sure your Address Book categories are as you  
>> want. But since I've got categories in Palm Desktop, isn't there  
>> some way to preserve them as I transfer to the iCal/Address Book/ 
>> Memo app?
>
> I don't think so.
>
> 	--Marc