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Migrating from a Palm OS handheld to an Android Phone
- requires Windows Desktop and Android phone running OS
2.0 or later
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| At this time you need a
V-2.0 (or later) Android Phone |
We don't recommend any specific phones, The most
popular models appear to be from Motrola, Samsung and HTC.
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Step 1 - get V-6.2 of the Palm Desktop Installed |
Earlier versions of the Palm desktop (4.x etc.) use an
undocumented, proprietary format for the PIM databases. V-6.2
switched to using MS Access databases which are far more
easily accessible and self-documenting and suitable for
migrating to other platforms. Ignore Palm's comments about
compatibility, as you will be installing Pimlical which
overcomes the unnecessary restriction that Palm placed on
getting their sync software to work with older devices. You
can download the Palm desktop from:
http://kb.palm.com/wps/portal/kb/common/article/32859_en.html
Before installing the V-6.2 desktop, it is recommended that
you make a complete backup of the palm folder containing all
your data, so you can always recover easily if an error is
made or some other problem arises.
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Step 2 - Install Pimlical |
| You can download Pimlical from a link on the
home page (click on
Home at top
left). Be sure to use the link for the version marked
Synching to the Palm OS. When you install it you will need
to choose whether to install for a Newer or legacy
Palm device: Newer Palm Devices:
any Treo model (except Treo-600), Tungsten T3/T5/Tx/LifeDrive,
Zire 72/31, Centro
Legacy Palm devices:
OS4 or earlier, any non-Palm brand handheld (Sony, Garmin,
etc.), or Treo-600, Tungsten C/T/T2, Zire-71
If you install for a legacy device, note that the palm
desktop will not display your data until after you get
Pimlical installed. Before moving to the next step though, be
sure that you can sync with your Palm OS handheld and see your
data in the Palm desktop and in Pimlical. T3's were the first
"newer" devices and you may have more success treating it as a
legacy device, so try that if the first install as a "newer"
device does not seem to work properly.
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Step 3 - Setup Pimlical to migrate your calendar data into Google
Calendar |
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If you have a phone other than Android, in which case the
final goal is to get the data into Google Calendar which you
can then sync with your phone (iPhone, Symbian, WinMob,
Blackberry, etc.), then launch Pimlical to view the calendar,
select the items you wish to export in Advanced Find (or hit
Clear to select all of them) and then use the Export ICS:
button to export the calendar in iCalendar format to your
desktop. You can then use Google Calendar's import feature to
import that calendar into Google Calendar (keep such calendars
under well under the limit of 10k events). From there you can
use Google's sync software or your phone's sync software to
migrate your calendar data into the phone. If you have an
Android phone, you can also use Pimlical on the Android
phone, and may want to continue using Pimlical Desktop, in
which case proceed as indicated below.
Your Android phone should be setup with a Gmail account and
Google Calendar which the built-in calendar application on the
Android phone will sync with. Future versions of Pimlical may
support a direct USB sync, but at this time (Jan2011) it is
still some time away. Most likely you will want to set up
several Google calendars to match existing categories on your
Palm device. Avoid using characters other than letters and
digits, space and these punctuation characters (-_@. ) in
calendar or category names.
If you have a huge calendar,
archive off older appointments so you can keep the calendars
to a fairly small size as the current Google Sync mechanism to
Android calendars does not work well with large calendars, and
older appointments may not be migrated anyway.
When you run Pimlical, be sure to set this preference:
AssignPimlicalCategoryToGC to true and the
preference UseGoogleExtendedProperties to false.
Then press CTRL/H to refresh the database. This will ensure
that an item assigned to say the Personal category will
be automatically assigned to the G_Personal category
(which corresponds to the Google Calendar Personal). Go
into File | Google Calendars in Pimlical and select the
calendars to sync with and you should then see those calendars
appear in Google Calendar, and from there appear on your Phone
and in Pimlical/Android. It is suggested that you run
some tests first - just create a new item in Pimlical and
assign to the G_Personal category and verify that it appears
as expected in the Personal calendar.
All DateBk and Pimlical Desktop attributes such as floating
events, custom colors, icons, floating reminders,
Advances, Action Tags, etc. migrate through Google Calendar to
Pimlical/Desktop and Pimlical/Android.
If you have a custom icon collection, you can get that
migrated into Pimlical by following the directions in the
Pimlical manual (see Help menu for reference manual). You will
need to export your icons (using the Export button in
Pimlical/desktop) in a different format for use by
Pimlical/Android. But when this is done, icons that you used
in DateBk will also appear in Pimlical on both the desktop and
the handheld.
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Export your Contacts in vCard format |
Using the Palm desktop, export your addressbook (contacts) as
a vCard file (File | Export vCard...). Then go into Gmail,
select contacts (link at top left), then go to bottom of page
and select Import from the More Actions dropdown list.
You can then import this file into your Gmail contacts.
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Memos and tasks |
| There is no direct equivalent on Android
phones for handling Memos at this time. You can copy and paste
your memos into text files that you can then save in a folder
on the Android phone and access with a text editor. Pimlical
for Android will be supporting memos shortly, and
Pimlical/desktop will allow you to copy your memos into that
database. There is no simple way at this time to migrate tasks
in the Palm Desktop into GTasks other than to use a sync tool
like CompanionLink.
A future version of Pimlical will allow you to sync
your tasks via a Google Calendar. |
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