Syncing Your Palm over the Network

Consider a scenario where you’re in another part of your network, maybe in
another building or another city, and want to synchronize the data on your Palm
with that on your desktop. This may be for any reason, from syncing additions to
your contact lists to your sending and receiving mail from your desktop e-mail
client. Let’s see how you can do this remote operation.

The
Palm communicates with your PC through a program called the Hotsync Manager,
which synchronizes the data on your Palm and the desktop. To do remote
hotsyncing, you first need to get your desktop ready. Set up Hotsync Manager on
your PC to be able to Hotsync to your Palm. This has to be done even if the Palm
will sync from a cradle other than the one physically connected to your PC.
Right-click the Hotsync Manager icon in the System Tray and check the Network
option at the top. Next, choose the Setup option and go to the Network tab.

Make sure that your name as set in the Hotsync and Palm appears here and is
checked. Click the TCP/IP settings button on this screen and make sure that the
particulars here point to your machine. Your desktop is now ready for a network
Hotsync.

Now, do a local Hotsync by placing the Palm on your cradle and pressing the
Hotsync button. This will automatically enter the network details of your
machine into the Palm, so that you can Hotsync from elsewhere too. To check
whether this has been entered correctly, go to the Hotsync application in your
Palm. Click the Menu silkscreen button to access the application’s menu and
check the following details. In Modem Sync Preferences, select the Network
option. In LANSync Preferences, again select LANSync. Now go to Primary PC Setup
and verify whether the details you entered on your PC have been correctly
transferred here. If not, enter them manually.

You
can now use your Palm to sync with your PC from any other PC that can see yours
on a network, and has a Palm cradle and Hotsync Manager running. This will work
even across large geographical locations through routers, satellite connections,
etc, as long as both computers can ping each other through TCP/IP and firewalls
don’t prevent Hotsync ports. So, when you’re attending a meeting in a
different city, you could use your colleague’s computer (that has a Palm
cradle) to create a back up of all your new contacts on your office PC. All it
will take is a press of the Hotsync button.

What actually happens is that when the Hotsync Manager of your colleague’s
PC connects to your Palm, the Palm informs it that the computer that it Hotsyncs
with uses a particular name and a particular IP address. The Hotsync manager
then, instead of syncing the information with the local computer, looks for the
specified computer on the network. Since your computer is now configured to
handle Hotsync requests from the network as well as the local cradle, it’ll
accept the sync request and start the process. You don’t need any
configuration on the desktop that has initiated this request. However, that
desktop must have the same kind of cradle that your model of the Palm expects.
That is, you can’t use the cradle of a Handspring Visor to sync your Palm as
the pins at the bottom are very different.

Network Hotsyncing is a powerful and useful feature. Even if you aren’t
physically using your PC, it lets you access the information stored there, or
vice-versa.

Vinod Unny is a technology
consultant at iSquare Technologies