Palm OS PmTraceDatabase causing hotsync to fail...

see here .

sorted.

Hard reset on Palm Centro

I always forget this...

1. take off battery
   
2. hold red power button & insert battery
3. palm logo appears, and scroll bar creeps along...  keep holding.
4. screen blanks, palm logo re-appears
5. let go of power button now!
6. reset instructions on screen, press up (yes, oui, ja, etc..)

Installing apps on SD card, for Palm

Stick the prcs & associated bits in SDcard/Launcher directory, and they'll show up in the menu.

Some things won't run from SD though, so copy em to device.

And sometimes that doesn't work, so hotsync 'em instead. (if you can get that to work consistently)

Palm desktop, Hotsync & Centro

Dug out my (early) Centro, and decided i'd use it again. Getting fed up with WM6 & 6.1 (too clunky).

So, needed to install the apps. Palm Desktop 6.2 seems latest, so grabbed that.

It complained about an old version of Palm desktop, and it couldn't find the .msi. This was an old issue (see previous...) so fixed that, and got new version in. (as an aside, got a new Dell D420, with corporate build on it. Usual fun & games with it half copying old laptop profile, which is why I think the old Palm desktop 'sort of' existed... needed to fix bluetooth too, although shortcut to control panel is dead - it opens in quickview... oh, and the old palm desktop reappeared in Start/All Programs too. nevertheless...)

Connected up hotsync to new bluetooth COM port (COM ports - this is the 21st century, sheesh...). Found laptop ok, paired up ok - a first really, maybe now we're in 2008 Windows bluetooth is working as i'd expect it to.

It took ages to sync the media, and I had to let it run otherwise it complained... After ~20 minutes (there were lots of photos on, well, somewhere)

Lesson learned: remove photos and large things before sync. Besides that, it was ok.

Ringtones: changing, adding and managing on your Treo smartphone

Ringtones: changing, adding and managing on your Treo smartphone

Works on Centro too.

I used the file:/// [three slashes!] method, and you also need to escape out any spaces; "my ringtone.mid" would of course be "my%20ringtone.mid" in browser URL.

The folder can of course also be the SD card location; file:///mysdcard/ringtones/nice%20music.mid

Sorted.

Apart from the fact it doesn't support MP3, like any other phone on the planet.

Google Mail App & Treo / Centro

Google Mail: Help Centre - Can I use the Google Mail application on my Treo?

This page pretty much explains it all - except for a few things.

So, instructions are:
1 - install JVM
2 - REBOOT!!!! it won't have the hooks from Blazer [browser] to JVM unless you do this (take the battery off)
3 - point browser (not JVM) at http://www.gmail.com/app/v1.0.0/en/gm-Palm-Treo_650.jad (or http://gmail.com/app/v1.0.0/en/gm-Generic-Advanced_MIDP2.jad - this generic version has rather dull default buttons, the Treo one has nicer buttons)
also, for now, gmail web browsing does link to 'faster gmail' at the top of the web version, which links to app download, but after the link it notes that Palm OS 5 isn't supported - i.e. you don't get link to java jad file
4 - browser will ask to SAVE it, do so
5 - have a look at JVM, it should be doing install stuff
6 - wait til it finishes, and change prefs of JVM

Done.

Annoyingly enough anyway, the URL form in the JVM install app doesn't let you type underscores (or other special characters probably) nor does it allow you to copy/paste into that form. The easiest way to get the URL onto the palm is to email it to yourself and click the link from the email...

Treo, Versamail & Exchange Activesync - Smartphone resets or displays error message when checking email with VersaMail's Exchange ActiveSync

Smartphone resets or displays error message when checking email with VersaMail's Exchange ActiveSync

Ok, so it says username and/or password is wrong, but the detailed error message is rather misleading when it talks of "Unauthorized content".

Not sure why it does this, I think the ActiveSync server password life is less than the XP domain password (they're synced here at work).

Solution: change XP password, and it updates both. Enter new one on Treo, fixed...

2Gb SD cards are far too awkward for their own good

I received a nice 2Gb Kingston SD card for Christmas. Lovely.

Formatting it, then getting it to work with my various devices is a problem.

Canon Ixus i (the original 4MP version): formats FAT with 981Mb free. Not good.
Treo 680 formats FAT32 with 1.91Mb free, a good start...
Windows XP SP2 formats FAT 32 with 982Mb free, doesn't want to consider FAT. Says it's has 1.91Gb capacity, but only half free. No good.
Mac OS X 10.3.9 won't format it FAT or FAT32, and I need that to make it work in other devices (which like FAT).

So, format in Treo. Insert into XP, recognises full 1.91Gb, and reads/writes all ok. Mac doesn't like it. It'll mount usually, else it'll throw up errors in system.log if it won't, usually 'disk corrupt' kind of stuff. If it does mount, you get lots (and lots!) of write errors when copying to it.

Two things to check:
1 - that I can ignore the write errors, on assumption Mac is going too fast for card
2 - the card reader

I use a cheap 8-in-1 USB 1 thing. I'm suspicuous to be honest. It may well be the write errors can be ignored, and it's just going to take a lot of time. XP took 25 mins to copy a 700Mb video over...

I do have a card reader in a Western Digital 250Gb external firewire/usb drive, and that SD card reader ignores the card altogether. A 64Mb card lights up and mounts happily, the 2Gb card doesn't even give me a green light on insertion...

Lesson: stick with max. 1Gb SD cards.

Palm & J2ME

Palm, Inc. - WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment for your Palm Device
Remember to install this on a Treo. And yes, you do have a Treo 650, really, you do.

Palm Hotsync & Sony Ericsson data suite

They don't work nicely together. Mostly problems with SE// suite taking control of COM ports and doing all manner of nasty things with bluetooth.

Advice: only have one installed. In my case, that meant removing the SE// software.

Palm Hotsync with a Treo works fine now. Except that little problem when it reverts back to COM1, and I manually have to set it to COM7 - which is the bluetooth server's port. Hmm.

Standby Issues & XP

Standby Issues

This page is really useful, and managed to solve a number of other issues while I was at it, particularly unsigned device drivers.

This tipped me off about my root cause, which appeared to be either:

- Sony Ericsson data suite not living nicely with Palm OS data suite
- infrared not working properly (COM ports...)

So, removing the SE/// suite, I can now standby and hibernate.

I still can't do IR...

DVZXLAddin.xla - Documents To Go again

As with previous post, a previous install of Documents to Go seems to have copied itself all over my XP profile, so it's causing problems.

This time, DVZXLAddin.xla is the problem.

See Dataviz's page on how to cure....

DVZAddin.dll & DVZWAddin.dot

Another profile problem this; my previous laptop had DataViz' Documents To Go suite on it, which came on the Treo 650 CD. I didn't really use it, so didn't intend to install it on my new box.

However, whenever I opened a Word document, it would complain about DVZAddin.dll.

The root cause is a .dot template file that was copied over from the profile, which referenced the dll which wasn't copied over...

Solution found here - basically find and delete the .dot file.

Installing Palm Desktop on Windows XP

Next new laptop problem - Palm Desktop.

Numerous problems here.

Firstly, use the version on CD that came in the box with the device (a Treo 650 in my case).

If you use the one from Palms website, it won't contain the Media conduit. It mentions this clearly on their site. If you use the operator version from Palm PluggedIn, it won't contain the Outlook conduit(s).

Secondly, don't install that CD version over an old version.

It probably won't work, and give 'error 1714' or similar. Similarly, since this was a special build, the installer .msi files weren't available, so even a manual uninstall didn't work. See the palm support website for the fix, which basically involves downloading, installing and running a Windows Installer Clean Up program, which seems to compensate for the fact that the normal installer isn't very good.

Thirdly, install the Outlook conduit patch before you actually sync.

If you don't, you'll probably get a ton of duplicates and have to clean it all up manually (due to Outlooks lack of a cleanup, or in fact it's inability to create such a mess in the first place).

You'll also probably get a lot of errors in the hotsync log, starting with OLERR:0B-0004 and then a whole lot more - see this page. The proposal to use Outlooks detect & repair didn't seem to do much. See the palm support website on OLE errors, which suggests using the conduit update found here.

Fourthly, be wary of doing Bluetooth sync afterwards.

Always use the Wizard on the Treo to initiate the connection, the PC clients i've used are too stupid. After that - and i'm not sure if it was a glitch or what - but a post-sync look on my device indicated everything had been deleted.

I tend to use cable sync since it's faster, so cable synced, all ok again.

Treo 650 and Gmail

Ok, Treo 600 does not natively support POP & SMTP with Gmail.

Treo 650 does, and config is easy. See the google document on the settings required.

Running the account wizard;

1. Choose Mail Service = 'Other' and Protocol = 'POP'.
2. Username and password is the full gmail stuff, inc. @gmail.com.
3. Email address is the same, with pop.gmail.com and smtp.gmail.com as incoming/outgoing servers.
4. Basic setup is done, choose 'Advanced'
5. Incoming Server, use port 995, and select 'Use Secure Connection (SSL)', but not the other one ('Use Authentication (APOP)').
6. Outgoing Server, user port 587, and select both 'Use Secure Connection (SSL)' and 'Use authentication (ESMTP)'
7. The username/password dialogue should appear, and be populated with the username/password as above.

Click done, and everything is good.

Treo 0x400b and 0x7143 errors with GPRS

I get these errors on occasion when trying to connect email or internet, which both use an internet GPRS connection. On Orange UK.

It's a glitch somewhere, if power cycling the radio doesn't help, do a soft reset.

Off-line reader for Palm / Treo 650

I just found Plucker, and I really like it. I was using Weasel on the Treo 650 but it crashed everytime an inbound call came in (and it's a hassle turning off the phone to read something).

Plucker installs and works 100% on Treo, and lets me read converted documents and do the AvantGo thing. Works nicely with Gutenburg content too.

I'm using the Windows desktop right now, and i'll probably install the Mac version too - cross fingers they work together with one client...

Oh, and it's free. Perfect.

Enabling iSync for Palm OS devices on Mac OS X

This one confused me for a bit, but it's fairly obvious.

When the hotsync / palm desktop installs, it will have a whole bunch of conduits setup. Run Hotsync Manager, it should be enabled (from the 'Controls' tab) and the right connection should be enabled (from the Connection Settings tab).

First off, you need to see the conduit settings - which is not a button nor tab on that window, it's in the Hotsync menu - Conduit Settings (or command-J). That'll open up a window with a list of conduits present.

If you've had a previous version of hotsync installed, it'll have all the old conduits - eg you'll see duplicates. This is easy; it warns you of which ones to remove once you've done a sync.

However, while it has iSync Conduit with 'Next Hotsync Action' as "See Conduit Settings", it doesn't mean 'go have a look at iSync'; it actually means, press the (only) button 'Conduit Settings' and check the "Enable iSync for this Palm device". Then the device will appear in iSyncs line up.

If you don't do that, the device is not noticed by iSync, and will never start when you sync (it'll only do hotsync). When iSync does start, then it will use the settings defined for that device.

bluetooth hotsync Treo 650 with Windows / Toshiba

This was a real pain.

After reading numerous articles on what to do, I was still stuck. The basic setup is to run the setup wizard from the treo, and follow the steps.

That's it. The wizard essentially says, create a local COM port on the PC, enter that port in the HotSync application (Settings->Local tab), make sure the 'Local' port is ticked, off you go.

My laptop (a Tosh portege) has the Toshiba bluetooth software installed. Looking at the COM ports (via Control Panel->Bluetooth local COM) shows a load. My mistake was to tell the PC HotSync to use the COM port tagged as "LocalCOM-Client". What happens is that bluetooth connects, but HotSync on the PC never starts. Eventually, HotSync on the Treo times-out.

Tell HotSync to use the port assigned as "LocalCOM-Server[SerialPort(TOSHIBA LocalCOM)]" instead, and is starts and syncs perfectly.

Palm OS & SD card directory structure

I had all manner of fun trying to install Frodo on my Treo. It's a Commodore 64 emulator, and a good one at that. The Frodo application itself is easy enough to install (via desktop), but I found it was easier to put the games (.d64) on the SD card myself (via care reader & normal file manager).

Put the games in Palm/Programs/Frodo/ directory, create it if need be. Most other apps seems to pick up stuff in the root directory. I tend to avoid the Palm/Backup and Palm/ directories.

The Frodo manual mentions this now.

The detail can be seen in the Palm programmers reference.