This section
describes applications which can synchronise their data with your PDA. The
applications generally use pilot-link to provide communication with the
PDA. Coldsync provides conduit capabilities to application that are not
specifically written with PDAs in mind.
JPilot is a
Personal Information Manager (PIM) that provides a replacement
for the Palm Desktop software provided for Windows and the
Mac. JPilot provides desktop versions of the Palm address book,
todo list, calendar and memopad. JPilot can also be used to install
applications onto the PDA.
JPilot is available with
most Linux distributions. You can also download JPilot from http://www.jpilot.org. To use JPilot
you must have pilot-link installed. As JPilot is a gtk+ application,
you will also need gtk+.
Gnome-pilot
aims to provide PDA connectivity for the Gnome desktop. Gnome-pilot
provides conduits for the Gnome PIM applications, a control centre applet
for configuring the link, and a panel applet for dislaying the hotsync
status.
Gnome-pilot uses a daemon process to communicate
with the PDA via pilot-link. Client applications use the daemon, rather
than call pilot-link directly. The daemon must be running in order
to use the client applications such as the conduits.
Gnome-pilot should be available as part of Gnome. The home page for the
project is at http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnome-pilot/.
Gnome-pilot configuration is done through the Gnome control centre. If you
have gnome-pilot installed, you should have a "Pilot Link" section under the
peripherals section of the control centre.
The Gnome control panel Pilot Link applet allows you to configure your PDA for
use with Gnome. You must set up your PDA before you can use any of the Gnome
conduits.
The first step is to add a device. Start the Gnome control centre, and click on
"Pilot Link" in the left hand pane. The right hand pane should show the pilot
link applet.
Click on the devices tab, then click "Add". You should see the "Device Settings"
dialog box.
The "Name" field can contain anything to help you identify the port that you
create.
The "Port" field should contain the port to which you attach your PDA. The port
should be the same as you use for pilot-link.
The speed and timeout values will depend on your device. Try the defaults, and
change them if you have problems synchronising.
The "Type" should be set to your device type.
Once you have configured the device, you can configure the actual PDA:
Click on the "Pilots" tab, then click on "Add...". You should then see the
"Pilot Settings" dialog box.
If you already have a user
name set up on the PDA, click "Get from pilot" to download the username and ID.
Otherwise, click "Send to pilot" to set up your username on the PDA.
The "Pilot Attributes" allow you to name your PDA and set a local directory to
use for the conduits.
The "Sync action" determines what happens when you press the hotsync button on
your PDA. The default is "Use conduit settings". This allows you to customise
set different sync actions for each conduit.
Once you have configured your PDA, you need to configure the conduits.
Start the Gnome control centre, then click on "Pilot Conduits" in the left hand
pane. If you have a PDA configured in the pilot link applet, you will see a
list of available conduits. If you have more than one PDA, you can use the
drop down list to select the one that you wish to configure.
Each available conduit starts out disabled. To enable a conduit, select it in
the list and click on "Enable". You will then be given a choice of methods for
synchronisation.
Evolution is a Microsoft Outlook clone for Gnome from Ximian. Evolution comes
with a conduit for gnome-pilot. The conduit can be configured through the
gnome-pilot conduits control centre applet described above.
Warning: Mandrake 8.1 comes with a beta
version of Evolution. This version seems
to have a bug whereby it does not correctly identify records when synching.
This can lead to records being duplicated on the PDA.
The latest version of Evolution can be downloaded from http://www.ximian.com. Evolution is
designed mainly for use with Ximian Gnome, and installing it independently
involves resolving a number of dependencies.
KPilot is the KDE
equivalent of Gnome-pilot. KPilot provides basic PIM functionality,
as well as conduits to KDE applications such as KOrganizer.
As with gnome-pilot, kpilot uses a pilot-link
via a daemon process.
KPilot is available from http://www.slac.com/pilone/kpilot_home
TODO: Again, I don't really use KDE, but will give it
a spin.
XNotesPlus provides a means to
post small notes on your X-Windows desktop. These notes can be shared
as memos with your PalmOS device.
In addition to the notes, XNotesPlus provides PIM features, and integrates
the notes feature with the todo list and addressbook. Note that XNotesPlus
does not perform a true synchronisation, but simply replaces changed
databases.
The XNotesPlus web
page at http://www.graphics-muse.org/xnotes/xnotes.html contains full
installation and use instructions.
XNotes is shareware, and not freely distributable.
If you use WindowMaker, this might be useful. From the website:
Wmsync is a WindowMaker dockapp that starts your favourite sync program
for your Palm(TM) PDA. It displays a small animation when syncing.
It is controlled by a small perl script via SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2 so it
is highly customizable. Thatīs all.
Wmsync is available from http://home.t-online.de/home/db7ne/wmsync.html
