8.4 Calendars from Palm Desktop 4

Palm Desktop is the free calendar/address book/to-do program that comes with every Palm organizer. But you don't have to buy a Palm to get it; you can download it from http://www.palm.com/software for free. It's available in separate versions for Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, and Windows.

8.4.1 Mac OS 9, Mac OS X

If you want to copy your entire Date Book to the iPod as quickly and thoroughly as possible, proceed like this:

1. Make sure your iPod is connected to the Mac as a hard drive.

   See Section 9-4 for instructions.

2. In Palm Desktop, choose File Export.

   The Export dialog box appears.

3. Set up the pop-up menus as shown in Figure 8-5 .

   Figure 8-5. The Palm Desktop Export dialog box lets you move your life quickly onto the iPod all at once. From the Module pop-up menu, choose Date Book. Then, from the Format pop-up menu, choose vCal. The name of the file you're exporting doesn't much matter.

   
   

   The name of the file you're exporting doesn't really matter.

4. Navigate to the iPod's Calendars folder, and then click Export.

   The deed is done. Disconnect the iPod as described on Section 11.5.

NOTE

Although you probably won't use this technique as often, you can also drag individual events out of your Palm Desktop calendar display ”clear out of the window ”and into the iPod's Calendars folder. Dragging the events creates separate files with the .vcs file extension, which is the mark of a vCal document. It's a quick and dirty way to schedule your day.

8.4.2 Windows

Palm Desktop for Windows can't export your whole calendar file at once, or even multiple appointments at once. Incredibly, you have to export one event at a time, which is tremendously annoying, not to mention lame (see Figure 8-6).

Figure 8-6. To copy events out of the Palm Desktop Date Book in indows, select the items you want to move and choose File Export vCal. Give your event file a name in the resulting dialog box, and then click Export. Save the file into the iPods Calendars folder ”or drag it there from wherever you saved the file.

Fortunately, shareware can do the job for you. Download Palm2iPod (from, for example, http://www.missingmanuals.com). Once you install this plug-in for the Palm software, you see two iPod-shaped icons at the top of your Palm Desktop screen. Consult Figure 8-7 for the simple instructions.

Figure 8-7. To set up Palm2iPod, click the second iPod icon as shown here, which opens the iPod Export Preferences dialog box. Choose your iPod's drive letter, and click OK. When you're ready to export, click the first iPod icon. All of your Palm contacts and calendars are sent to the iPod in one thunderous mouse click.