Palmpilot Calendar Sharing Solution?

Anonymous Coward asks: "We've been looking for a solution for sharing calendar data from our Palmpilots with other users on the local net. We'd prefer not to use Outlook/Exchange (or other expen$ive groupware) or a Web-based service. Is there an app, preferably open source, that perhaps has a Unix based server with Windows client software to sync the Palms?" Anyone have any clues? This is not the first time something like this has come through here. It would be interesting to know how far any Open Sourced calendaring solutions have progressed and if they offer any Palm compatibility.

Comments

yahoo! to the rescue

[marks]

Try Yahoo! Calendar (http://calendar.yahoo.com/). It uses the TrueSync Client (for windows) and pulishes your calendar (right from the Palm Calendar app) to the web. You can share items from the calendar with other users on yahoo. Drawbacks are that you can't run your own server, and that the client is for windows only (as of a few months ago).

-mark

Re:yahoo! to the rescue

[turg]

Hmm. If you consider Yahoo to be a solution... There are plenty of web-based calendar programs on freshmeat and CGI Resources Index... If none of these already accepts input from the Palm Calendar, adding this capability shouldn't be too dificult (I'm assuming the Palm Calendar API is published)

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Re:yahoo! to the rescue

[drix]

Huh? Why bother? Yahoo is free, it works now, and their servers are probably up more than yours. They have a client for Palm that does exactly what this guy wants. Why reinvent the wheel?

I guess I'm a fan of the KISS theory when it comes to stuff like this. I see the rabid and often pointless impulse on /. and esp. in the Linux/FreeBSD communities to code whatever you want to prove your hackerish balls - go download one of the 53 different IRC clients off Freshmeat and you'll see what I mean. What a waste of resources. The economist in me screams.

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Re:yahoo! to the rescue

[Bud]

Huh? Why bother? Yahoo is free, it works now, and their servers are probably up more than yours. They have a client for Palm that does exactly what this guy wants. Why reinvent the wheel?

Because of security reasons. I would not trust Yahoo in keeping my data safe. The next thing you know somebody's broken into their system and stolen the 300 e-mail addresses I have in my address book along with a hundred thousand other precious addresses that other people put there.

Besides, the wheel Yahoo invented may have several spokes broken, and you wouldn't even know about it until it breaks under you.

--Bud

Re:yahoo! to the rescue

[Bud]

Addresses are not "precious". If you honestly think that it would be impossible for me to find your address given your full legal name, in this time, in this cyberspace, then you are sadly mistaken, my friend.

Very well. One address is not very precious. But I've got 300 e-mail addresses in my Palm, and what if you could get hold of them? And what if Yahoo has a database of millions of e-mail addresses, all of which are freshly updated by unknowing users every time they hotsync?

--Bud

Consider these:

[sysadmn]

Groupsync
GroupSync enables groups of Palm device users to share information in their handheld databases during the normal
HotSync process through the use of configurable conduits. Shared categories are subject to different access levels and privacy
restrictions.

Features include:
- Full access or read only synchronization between users' categories
- 3 levels of restriction on Private Records*
- Category manipulation from the desktop (Native Datebook users can have categories too!)
- Optional record tagging for clarity**
- Automatic detection of mapping conflicts to ensure unauthorised indirect access is avoided
- Synchronization with users of remote desktops (over a LAN)
- Dynamic updating of both local and remote Palm Desktop displays.

* Datebook only, 2 levels for other databases.
**Datebook only

There are three parts to the GroupSync package, namely the GroupSync desktop tool, the GroupSync Conduits and the GroupSync
Remote Server. The GroupSync desktop tool does not replace the Palm Desktop but works in conjunction with it.

Yes, I saw you don't want a web system. If you exhaust all other possibilities, try WeSync.
WeSync is a web-based system that requires a special viewer on the palm.

Others have suggested My Yahoo. Before you try them, search deja for the fun you'll face. Currently syncing seems to be renaming categories, and Support isn't answering emails...

sysadmn

Re:Consider these:

[sysadmn]

Sheesh following up on my own post - sure sign of senility.

A commercial alternative is Corporate Time by CS&T. They offer a Palm Conduit. There is a Unix -based server and clients for WinXX. There is also excellent web-based access.
See http://www.cst.ca.

Re:Consider these:

[Bud]

A commercial alternative is Corporate Time by CS&T. They offer a Palm Conduit. There is a Unix -based server and clients for WinXX. There is also excellent web-based access.

CS&T makes enterprise-level software, so unless you have 500+ users this may be out of your league. It's expensive and not very administrator friendly.

I have successfully used the Palm conduit in conjunction with HP OpenMail (essentially CS&T's software repackaged by Hewlett-Packard) and can testify that it works just as well as the alternatives. Repeating events tend to split into multiple non-repeating ones, and multi-user events will get cloned a couple of times if you try to modify them.

Even though there are clients and servers available for several operating systems, the Palm Conduit requires HotSync Manager and Windows.

--Bud