Everybody's asking?

[questionfear]

Apple Support article on isync and palm desktop

You absolutely can use the USB cable, it should work fine. The nice thing is that if something gets borked, you've got a backup in PD and can swing back to that if things need fixing.

Most likely you'll have a painless sync from PD to iCal and then you can do what you wish with your calendar data from there. iCal will sync to GCal, and all devices that support Macs will sync with iCal as well. Lots more flexibility!

[r0k]

Apple Support article on isync and palm desktop

You absolutely can use the USB cable, it should work fine. The nice thing is that if something gets borked, you've got a backup in PD and can swing back to that if things need fixing.

Most likely you'll have a painless sync from PD to iCal and then you can do what you wish with your calendar data from there. iCal will sync to GCal, and all devices that support Macs will sync with iCal as well. Lots more flexibility!

Every now and then, I lose something and I can go back to my old Palm Desktop data to recover. I exported from PD and imported to ical. I use Ical and address and I use Missing Sync to sync those to my Blackberry. The only thing I'm still having trouble with is google. If I try to sync between address and google, I get duplicates. The same happens between ical and google. I'm not sure why. If I ever switch to Pre, I'll need to get the cloud thing working but until then I tolerate the mediocre ical and address and I tolerate the fact that for me they only play well with mobile me and nothing else.

[questionfear]

Weird on the contacts duplication. Address book does funky things sometimes. I have had issues where it decided that it didnt want to be overridden by newer data, and it started discarding new phone numbers when sync'd. That's when I dealt with the pain and moved everything to google. It took some time to get everything weeded out, but now that I've fixed most of the duplication it has worked like a champ with google sync. And it hasn't deleted new entries like Address Book, so I'm happy.

[ward.smith]

Before I do this, I have a few questions. I have only used Mac Address Book for email purposes since I use Mac Mail. If I have an entry for John Doe in Address Book that is just his email and I have another entry for John Doe in PB contacts that has everything, what happens to John Doe when I sync? Do you think that iCal and address book are better than their respective components in PD or just more versatile?

[questionfear]

Before I do this, I have a few questions. I have only used Mac Address Book for email purposes since I use Mac Mail. If I have an entry for John Doe in Address Book that is just his email and I have another entry for John Doe in PB contacts that has everything, what happens to John Doe when I sync? Do you think that iCal and address book are better than their respective components in PD or just more versatile?

I don't know what would happen then...hrm.

I think iCal and Address Book are more UNIVERSAL than their components in PD, and that's a big plus. PD locks you into a specific OS and a specific company; iCal doesn't care what you are using. So your data is infinitely more portable.

I gripe a lot about iCal and Address Book, but thats a huge point in their favor. They can export in normal formats, they can sync to cloud based systems, there's no software lock-in...

And if you don't move out of PD now, you're going to have to do it eventually. Palm isn't going to support PD forever, Access is doing who knows what, and as Mac OS and Windows march onwards and upwards there's going to a point where PD doesn't get to come along for the ride. If I were you, I'd move my data now just to get it over with, and even if you switched back to PD after it's very easy to swap between iSync and hotsync...so you could swap to PD for the majority of your syncing and once a week take a few minutes and use iSync/iCal/Address Book to keep everything up to date. But I wouldn't wait until Apple broke Palm Desktop support in Mac OS, or they updated iSync right out of Palm support. Z

[ward.smith]

Thanks for the advice, I am going to start fooling with iSync. I know that I will be shut out eventually. I have been a Palm user for a long time and have owned a III, IIIc, V, M500, T3, Tx, and Centro. I probably forgot one, but you get the idea. I have been using PD the entire time and I have never had problems with it. I use a lot of conduits (FileMaker Mobile, DocsToGo, Movie Events, SplashID, SplashMoney, and SplashPhoto). I am used to storing, backing up, and manipulating data on my Mac. I feel confident that SplashData and Docs To Go will make the necessary jumps but I know I will eventually loose that ability for FileMaker and Movie Events. I like having the ability to manipulate data on my Centro on the go and then sync it with my Mac later. After all I have been doing that for a long time.

[questionfear]

Thanks for the advice, I am going to start fooling with iSync. I know that I will be shut out eventually. I have been a Palm user for a long time and have owned a III, IIIc, V, M500, T3, Tx, and Centro. I probably forgot one, but you get the idea. I have been using PD the entire time and I have never had problems with it. I use a lot of conduits (FileMaker Mobile, DocsToGo, Movie Events, SplashID, SplashMoney, and SplashPhoto). I am used to storing, backing up, and manipulating data on my Mac. I feel confident that SplashData and Docs To Go will make the necessary jumps but I know I will eventually loose that ability for FileMaker and Movie Events. I like having the ability to manipulate data on my Centro on the go and then sync it with my Mac later. After all I have been doing that for a long time.

Just so you know: iSync is not going to totally replace PD/hotsync. Hotsync will start to do its thing, then hand off PIM sync to iSync, then hotsync wraps up. So your non-PIM conduits will continue to chug along every time you hotsync, and iSync will come along and take care of the rest.

[ward.smith]

Just so you know: iSync is not going to totally replace PD/hotsync. Hotsync will start to do its thing, then hand off PIM sync to iSync, then hotsync wraps up. So your non-PIM conduits will continue to chug along every time you hotsync, and iSync will come along and take care of the rest.

As I understand it, iSync will sync contacts, calendar, and to do's; but it does not sync memos. Is that correct.

One more question: If I want to sync with PD, I just enable pims on PD and disable iSync. Is that correct?

[questionfear]

As I understand it, iSync will sync contacts, calendar, and to do's; but it does not sync memos. Is that correct.

One more question: If I want to sync with PD, I just enable pims on PD and disable iSync. Is that correct?

No memos, but PD can take care of that.

It's all pretty simple. You might need to hunt in your palm file for the PIM conduits to re-enable PIM syncing. It's been a few years since I last did it so I'm slightly fuzzy. But it will take you maybe 10 minutes the first time and less than 5 after that (once you know the steps it's all very quick).

Alternately you could spring for the Missing Sync, which IIRC automates a lot of the switching for you...and I think they offer discounts when you move to another platform. But I would double check that with them.