13. What About Lotus Notes And Other Apps?

Not everybody loves Microsoft Outlook. Palm offers so-called conduits (agents for data synchronization) for other email programs and organizers as well. They are not on the installation CD, however. If you want to use Lotus Notes or Netscape Communicator with your Palm, you must download the utilities from the Web first. Below this section you can check whether the appropriate conduits are available.

Hotsync - How To Synchronize Data

Put the Palm in the cradle, which is also a kind of docking station and battery charger. Verify that the serial cable is connected to the correct COM port on the PC or notebook. Tap on the 'HotSync' button in the Palm menu. It will take you to these screens:

The default is set to 'Direct Serial' and does not need to be changed. Advanced users can also choose the infrared option. We do not recommend it for beginners, however.

Tapping on the red-blue double arrow starts the data synchronization with the PC. The PC version of HotSync runs in the background and is loaded automatically after booting (if you have not disabled it).

Both the PC and the Palm display the current progress of the HotSync data synchronization. The picture above shows the Windows program. The very first data synchronization required some patience. Because of the slow transfer rate of the serial interface we waited 5 minutes for all data to synchronize. The transfer of the extensive address list (more than 100 entries) and the 300 emails took the longest time. The following synchronizations just took a few seconds because only new entries are transferred. Generally the data synchronizations were no hassle because it runs in the background. Meanwhile you can write a letter or work on your Excel spreadsheet while PC and Palm take care of the synchronization.