Fail: Synching Palm with iSync and Entourage
Tonight, I spent several hours tonight attempting to synchronize my Palm Pilot Tungsten E2 with Entourage (Microsoft's Mac version of Outlook), in such a way that would allow me to preserve the categories so I could implement GTD. Unfortunately, I wasted several hours in the attempt and never succeeded 100%.
First of all, much of the information on this on the web is no longer correct. Microsoft no longer distributes a palm conduit that allows you to synchronize your Palm directly with Entourage. Instead, you must synchronize your palm with iSync.
So the process is pretty simple:
- Install the palm desktop software and synchronize with your palm. This will validate that your HotSync utility is working.
- Next, run the iSync application and select "Enable Palm OS Synching" The Apple iSync package contains a Palm conduit. Got back the Palm HotSync and change the conduit settings to synch with iSync. Synch and you should see your calendar and tasks populate iCal.
- Finally, set Entourage to synchronize with iCal, etc.,
You are now done, except for one major problem: all of the appointments and tasks on your Palm are dumped into a single category ("Home"). Likewise, if you execute iCal, you will see that it has a new Entourage category. If you make a change in Entourage, it will show up in iCal under the Entourage calendar. Changes made to any other categories will not get synchronized with Entourage or the Palm.
In my opinion, that is simply retarded. Of course, Apple blames Microsoft for not having a conduit of their own for Entourage, completely oblivious to the fact that all Palm data gets funneled into a single calendar category in iCal.
While their may be a workaround that involves plunking $40 down to purchase a third-party condiut, I'm not investing any more time in trying to get this to work. It's back to Palm Desktop until I can get Outlook running under VMware Fusion to synchronize with the Palm.
Labels: Mac OS X, Time Management
