BigWarpGuy (19 May, 2004 14:52):
Is there a way/program to sync a Palm Pilot with OS/2-eCS?
That depends on what you are syncing with. StarOffice 5.1 has a snyc program that will sync the palm device with some of the apps in StarOffice. There is an article about it in OS2Ezine.
ManplatoSync will backup, restore and load applications on a palm device. It will also sync between Lotus Notes and the palm (or else there is an add-on product that does it with ManplatoSync - I don't remember which.) That is available from IBM Alphaworks. ManplatoSync also has an API that you can write your own conduits for syncing between the palm handheld apps and OS/2 apps, butt there are no already-written conduits that I know of. This runs with Java 1.18, but you need a DLL for handling the communications between the serial port and Java. There is also an article about ManplatoSync on OS2eZine that describes the DLL, and how to install Manplato. I use this to backup my palm on Ecs 1.0 and 1.1
jSyncManager is an updated, open-sourced version of ManplatoSync, written by Brad Barclay, who also wrote ManplatoSync. Steve Levine is writing a conduit to sync the palm application(s) with Sundial's relish PIM. jSyncManager requires Java 3. I tried to get jSyncManager to work on my machine around Dec of 2003 and was not successful, although obviously lots of other people have gotten it to work.
As a side note - we are trying to get Brad to teach a class on writing conduits for the palm using jSyncManager at Warpstock 2004. He is very enthusiastic about it but doesn't know if he will be able to get the time off to come. If that interests you check www.warpstock.org to see if the class gets scheduled.
There is also a "sync" or communication product called PilotLink (I believe that is the name). It is a port of a sync/communication program developed in the Linux world. I tried that a number of years ago and was not successful getting it to work. As far as I know there are no conduits to sync data between OS/2 applications and the handheld for Pilot link.
Finally you have two other possibilites: ODIN and Virtual PC. In both of these instances you would load the Palm desktop and run that, either under ODIN or VPC. HotSync would happen via the HotSync Manager provided with the Palm Desktop. There is an article in a previous VOICE newletter (www.os2voice.org) describing how to run the Palm Desktop under ODIN.
I have tried both of those with no luck. If I remember correctly I never did get the Palm Desktop to install under ODIN. I got the desktop to install under VPC but the HotSync would never complete; it would run for a very long time and then fail.
I have heard some people talk about OpenOffice having a palm sync capabillity, which would make sense seeing how OpenOffice is basically StarOffice v 7. But I am not familiar with OpenOffice.