Palm Treo 680 - HotSync Issue

I owned a Palm Treo 650 for about 3 years until it went belly up right before I left the house for a Super Bowl Party. Before I went to the party, I ran to the Cingular (now AT&T Mobility) store and purchased a shiny new Treo 680. We successfully transferred all of my contacts (over 600 of them), calender entries, memos, and third party software (except I could never get my Ace's Texas Hold'em to work on my new smartphone).

I went out of town in June for 3 weeks and when I returned home and tried to HotSync, I noticed that the smartphone would hangup when it got to the Calendar conduit. It would cycle for 4-5 minutes and then the Treo 680 would reboot; I would also have to reboot my computer because the Palm Desktop would also be locked. Through trial and error, I learned how to bypass (skip) the Calendar conduit to complete the HotSync function, but I did not have a backup of my Calendar entries since early June 2007.

For weeks... no, months, my new Palm Treo 680 would not HotSync the Calendar conduit with the Palm Desktop. I posted a plea for help on the Palm Help Forum where I received numerous suggestions, but no solution to my problem.

I finally broke down and called Palm Support. It took about 2 hours, but the Customer Service Rep and I finally fixed the problem. There was/were bad record(s) in my Calendar and the only way to fix it was to restore my system from an old backup. These are the steps that I followed to fix the issue:

• Rename Program Files/palmOne to Program Files/palmOne_OLD
• Go into system and REMOVE the Palm Desktop from your PC
• COLD RESET the Treo 680 so that it deletes all data (remove battery and hold RED Off button while it boots back up and select YES to delete all records)
• Use the Palm CD that came with the Treo to re-install the Palm Desktop
• Go to Palm Desktop and add a new Profile Name
• Copy files from Program Files/palmOne_OLD to the new Program Files/palmOne
• Contacts (address\address.bak)
• Calendar (datebook\datebook.bak)
• Memos (memopad\memopad.bak)
• Tasks (todo\todo.bak)
• Applications from the OldApps directory (yeah, I didn't know it existed either, but it contains all of the 3rd party stuff that you've added over the years)
• Luckily, I save the pictures to my SD card when I take my pictures
• HotSync your blank Treo with your updated Palm Desktop (your Treo will not have any of the settings/preferences you had before: color schemes, songs for individuals, etc.)

All in all, I probably salvaged 95% of my data (save the Calendar posts that have been added since my HotSync went belly up in mid-June).

The only thing I would do different, is turn off my Calendar conduit and HotSync one time before going through the above procedure. And this underscores the need to do frequent backups of your data.

Home Network Solution - Powerline Ethernet Adapter

Here's the problem: the mothership (main home computer and wireless router) is in my basement office. The wife has a shiny new office on the main level and another PC that is connected via wireless modem to the mothership. Unfortunately, due to the sensitive nature of her job, her work laptop doesn't work with a wireless modem! What to do?

Allow the wife to sit on the floor in my basement office when she wants to access her e-mail at work.

Move the DSL modem to the wife's office and work via a wireless modem in my basement office.

Tell her go into the office everyday, so she doesn't have worry about trying to connect from home.

Drill some holes in the side of the house and run a Ethernet cable upstairs along the outside of the house.

NO! NO! NO! And NO!

The answer: Purchase a Powerline Ethernet Adapter which creates an Ethernet network out of your homes electrical system. Plug one adapter into an electrical outlet near the router attached to my basement office computer. Attach the router to the first adapter. Plug the second adapter into an electrical outlet in my wife's office. Attach an Ethernet cable to that adapter and her computer... and like magic, her work laptop is attached to the Internet via the router in the basement. The connection speed is that same as if she was connected to the router in my office.

I went with a Netgear HDX101 200Mbps Powerline HD Ethernet Adapter because my wireless router is also a Netgear model. It cost around $160.00 and installation took the time to plug the two adapters into the electrical outlets on the wall!