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Palm Desktop Replacement?

Posted by Cliff on from the finding-a-better-PIM dept.

rueger asks: "Almost from Day One I've found the Palm desktop and handheld software to be sorely lacking. The Address Book only allows you to record one address, not one for home and one for work, and only lets you sort or search by name and company name, not by city for instance. The calendar won't let you link contact names to appointments which again seems an obvious missing feature. I've been looking for a software replacement that would add these features and more, and still sync with my Palm (well, Clie). Outlook is not a possibility for all of the usual reasons. What I've found is that there are some very nice PIMs out there, but most won't hot-sync. Those that do, like Time & Chaos, have no more functionality than the Palm software, and lack some features that I use. What are other handheld users turning to? Is there an Open Source replacement?"

3 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Correction by NanoGator · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "I don't use OE so I don't know about the express version."

    The Express version is scary. Not only are a bunch of things implemented in a half-assed way, but it also uses a different extension than OL2k does. If somebody forwards you an OE message as an attachment, it attaches a .EML file to the email and opens OE even if you have OL2k installed. Nasty security risk there, thank you very much M$. I'd recommend to ANYBODY to change the .EML extension to Notepad.

    Outlook XP (haven't used 03 yet) was locked down pretty hard. Unfortunately, you had to edit the registry for somebody to send you a .EXE file. I don't mind them blocking .EXE files to begin with, but editing the registry to get it back? Son of a bitch.

    Ah well. Them's the breaks. I really do enjoy how well Outlook interacts with PocketPC. The dude who posted this Ask Slashdot would love it if he tried it.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  2. Why did you get a Palm, pray tell? by Craig+Maloney · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I know this might be construed as flamebait, but I'm quite sincere: why did you get a Palm in the first place? The simplicity of the Palm is one of the major draws for it, but it's no Outlook replacement by far. What it does, it does very well. What I've found with most software that tries to replace the Palm or Desktop software is that it either needlessly complicates the interface of the Palm, or features only exist on the desktop or Palm device. DateBk5 will allow you to link up contacts with appointments, but I haven't run across an application on the desktop that recognizes those links. There are several address book replacements, but the ones that go beyond the contact database of the Palm require special software, special conduits, and Windows. You can make the Palm Desktop work for you without a whole lot of additional software, but it might take some dilligence. Instead of making one contact name for a person, why not make two or three for their roles? If you need it, why not make a friend at home and a friend at work entry? You'll know the difference between them.

    As for linking entries to appointments, do you really need that, or is it just something that would be nice to have? Generally I've found that people who bitch about the Palm interface haven't really sat down to think about what they really need. They're too busy trying to micro-manage their lives instead of using the tool for what it's good for. They give themselves the illusion that they're really being productive because they have a list of all of the people involved with the appointment linked to their appointment. This functionality is mostly a toy, and after spending 20 minutes setting up an appointment and linking the contacts, most people give up on their organizer altogether.

    If you're seriously constrained by the Palm interface, you maay want to consider a different device. Perhaps a Pocket PC or something with a PIM that's more like Outlook would do better for you?

    Hope this helps!

  3. Re:Evolution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Even when the pilot-link backend was used by gnome-pilot, pilot-links was not used for syncronization of individual addresses and calendar entries. pilot-link simply uploads and downloads the .pdb and .prc files while the higher-level packages (e.g. gnome-pilot-conduits or kpilot) manage (and potentially maim) the individual entries. The most failsafe backup method is likely pilot-xfer -b.