PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide, Second Edition

Syncing with Your Favorite Windows Programs

So far in this chapter, you’ve read about using the HotSync software provided with your PalmPilot. In the next chapter, you’ll read more about how the HotSync process loads your life’s data into Palm Desktop.

But for thousands of Palm users, Palm Desktop is a poor substitute for the more fully featured calendar, address book, to do, and memo pad programs they’ve been using for years: Outlook, ACT, Now Up-to-Date, Agenda, Sidekick, and so on. (These programs are generically known as PIMs—personal information managers.) Does getting a PalmPilot have to mean abandoning these popular information managers and switching to the more rudimentary Palm Desktop?

Not at all. Fortunately, there’s scarcely a PIM program in existence that can’t sync with a PalmPilot directly, bypassing Palm Desktop entirely. To perform this kind of HotSync, you need a specialized piece of software called conduit software; such conduits are available for every popular PIM. Play your cards right, install the right conduit program, and you should be able to keep using the calendar or address-book software you’ve always used.

(This section covers conduits for major Windows PIM programs, but those aren’t the only programs for which conduits are available. See Chapter 12 if you’re interested in connection to database, spreadsheet, or financial desktop software; Chapter 13 for connections with desktop email programs; and Chapter 9 for coverage of Macintosh-software conduits.) ...