[MikePalmPrePlus]

Ok, I have been using Palm PDA ever since the Palm III. I loved the devices. But I admit, I should not have ventured into webOS. Why? Well, webOS literally DESTROYED 10+ years of data.

First, with webOS, I could not sync with Palm Desktop. Second, webOS only allowed for one time one-way data transfer from Palm OS to webOS. Third, catergories was lost during the transfer. My beloved Palm OS Memos/Notes was transfered into webOS stupid "Post-it" concept.

It was a total disaster, to say the least. But I made it work. I eventually migrated my Palm OS Memos to Evernote. I conceded to having 10+ years of calendar entries and contact info in webOS without catergories. Basically, I remained loyal to Palm. I was "promised" better devices and improvements to webOS.

Then HP purchased Palm and, of course, it was down hill from there.

So, here I am with 12+ years of calendar data (Palm Profile) that I really want to keep, but have no why of getting it out of the Palm Profile.

I am willing to pay someone $100 if they can create a solution to transfer calendar and contact data from the Palm Profile such that the data can be imported/used by iOS (iPhone).

I should have stayed with my Palm Centro, with the awesome Otterbox Defender case, and unlimited everything on Sprint. Having my PIM info is much more important to me than all the other apps.

Michael

[scjjtt]

Michael, I share your woes as many of us who started with Palm almost 15 years ago with our first Palm III. My transition was a little smoother though than what you are finding it to be.

First, just for clarification, I purchased Pimlical so that my Centro could sync to Google calendar. This was important to me, because I didn't want to have to enter all the activities that my secretary was entering - I could just have them synced in. As a result of that - my calendar was put into Google and then when I got my Touchpad - all my appointments showed up in WebOS.

Pimlical is a powerful software that can do a lot. It will also bring in all your memos, tasks and contacts too. If your information is still in your Palm Desktop - it will read that info from there and bring it into Pimlical. I would suggest looking into that.

I've put my contacts into Google a couple of ways. Once through using Pimlical and the last time using Palm Desktop and saving the different categories as csv files and importing those in. If you need more help and details on that - I and others, I'm sure, will be glad to help.

For memos I used NoteEverything. It is a Android app. NoteEverything brings all the memos with categories perfectly into Android.

My phone is Android (sad) but I have transformed it to being as close to my old Centro. I have done that by using Graffiti Pro (there is a free version - but I don't like ads and like to support the developers - $5 or whatever it is - is sure cheaper than our old Palm OS apps). Graffiti Pro enables us to use Graffiti 1 as an input method on our Android phones. I used another Graffiti app on my Centro too - because I like writing on my screen with handwriting recognition.

The other app that I purchased, which was very expense was Styletap. It is $50 but it causes the Android phone to emulate a Treo using Palm OS. With Styletap you can bring on any Palm OS app to your phone and use it - EXCEPT - any apps that require syncing back and forth. I basically use it only for my Bible programs from Laridian which in the Palm OS format are more powerful that Web OS, Android.

Anyway, save your money, get Pimlical, and people here and on other forums can help you. I have found many friends on Brighthand. Most of those members were former expert Palm OS users - who have helped me in the transition of Palm OS to Android and Web OS.

Good luck - feel free to send me any personal messages - my name on Brighthand is the same as here.

-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

[scjjtt]

More info from here on WebOSNation: http://www.webosnation.com/pimlical-...r-sync-windows

-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

[scjjtt]

Michael, here is another link discussing Pimlical on Brighthand: http://forum.brighthand.com/android-...available.html

-- Sent from my TouchPad using Communities

[MikePalmPrePlus]

scjjtt, thanks for the info. Unfortuately, I no longer data in Palm Desktop. Not sure what happened, but I opened Palm Desktop and no data. Plus, it would have been outdated by over two years.

Believe it or not, I think I may do the un-thinkable. Simply to maintain access to my Caledar data, my may "upgrade" my Pre Plus to a Pre 2. Yeah, kinda going backwards, but I am just not ready to let go of my calendar data.

Plus, a new Pre 2 is only about $70.

The only reasons I am considering a Pre 2 is my phone jack is going bad and I have a screen crack.

But, I gotta believe someone can "crack" the Palm Profile and get us our data.

Mike

[Remy X]

Hmm, this sounds interesting... and $100 is a nice reward, though i'm not really after it...

So, do you guys think the Palm Profile has Calendar data in categories and webOS strips them out because it has no support for that? Or the newer Palm Profile itself does not support categories? My guess is that categories are long gone, since the data gets sync'd automatically and most likely overwritten several times a month.

I don't have an older Palm device, i have never used the built-in Calendar and my contacts list only has two entries (the other stuff i pull up from Recent Calls or from e-mails), but yeah, this is something i care enough about, because it just seems like such a basic feature, something that Palm should have taken care of years ago, so i'll try to figure something out, even though i don't entirely know what i'm going

Anyhow, it is possible to retrieve all the Palm Profile data, because a freshly-Doctored device always asks about restoring contacts data, etc. And, the phone itself holds most of this stuff in its database. So this should be easy, however the iPhone part would be much more difficult for me, since i only have a 2nd gen iPod touch here and have no way to test any iPhone-specific code.

But.. If we can find an app that can back-up and restore user data on the iPhone and output a basic plain-text backup file, it would be possible to convert a webOS data dump into something compatible with that app.


[Edit] - to be specific, the catch-all file on the Pre Plus is at /var/luna/data/dbdata/PalmDatabase.db3, it should be no trouble to pull the calendar data from that, but loading the data onto the iPhone will take some work if there isn't a ready app to do the job...

[MikePalmPrePlus]

Remy, thanks for the info. I like the way you think. Just need a motivated developer to make this happen. Hell, if we can put a man on the moon, we should be able to get webOS info into iOS.. However, I think there is just not enough interest to do the work. Maybe a few years ago, yes. But now; most webOS users have moved on.

I think the catagories are still there, just not used.. I felt Palm, before being purchased by HP, was well on its way of improving webOS, to include bringing back some of those Palm OS features, such as catorgies.

Anyway, I think I may just get the Pre 2. However, sooner or later, I will be forced to switch phones. Palm (HP) will not maintain the Palm Profiles forever. Which leads to another interesting questions: What happens when HP discontinue support for our Palm Profiles? Seems to me they would have to provide options for users to "port" their Palm Profile data.

What do you all think? How much longer will HP support our Palm Profiles?

Michael

[eblade]

It would seem that you should be able to dump it into a Google Calendar, although I'm not really sure how that would work.

[gizmo21]

Not behind the bounty but have a solution for all your contacts:

Export all your contacts | webOS Nation
If you have URLs and Spouse/kids in your contacts use this before:
Enhanced Contacts VCard Export patch fixes webOS contact export | webOS Nation

For Calendar there is no such thing working. I know metaviews Agendaz-app had such an Export Calendar data but for me at least it's not working anymore:
AgendaZ | webOS Nation
http://forums.webosnation.com/webos-...ml#post3357642

Looking for a god solution that is working for many mobile OSes and desktop PIM apps, try to get on any system that sysncs via EAS (Exchange Active Sync) - could be MS Excahnge itself (hosted server soltution) to opens source variants like Tine 2.0 or Zarafa:


I've gone the same way from Palm Desktop syncing with ECHO to now Zarafa:
http://forums.webosnation.com/webos-...-eas-sync.html

But finally i feel i can use my data with whaterever the future brings....

[Remy X]

Remy, thanks for the info. I like the way you think. Just need a motivated developer to make this happen. Hell, if we can put a man on the moon, we should be able to get webOS info into iOS.. However, I think there is just not enough interest to do the work. Maybe a few years ago, yes. But now; most webOS users have moved on.

I think the catagories are still there, just not used.. I felt Palm, before being purchased by HP, was well on its way of improving webOS, to include bringing back some of those Palm OS features, such as catorgies.

Anyway, I think I may just get the Pre 2. However, sooner or later, I will be forced to switch phones. Palm (HP) will not maintain the Palm Profiles forever. Which leads to another interesting questions: What happens when HP discontinue support for our Palm Profiles? Seems to me they would have to provide options for users to "port" their Palm Profile data.

What do you all think? How much longer will HP support our Palm Profiles?

Michael

I still think that Palm Profiles are an important part of webOS, so if another outside company licenses webOS or HP decides to sell another webOS tablet (Meg Whitman said so, but we don't really know), Palm Profiles get to stay a few more years....

I am interested in writing an app (and/or a patch) that will allow one to pull data directly from the Palm Profile and also re-upload it. While this wasn't meant for migrating users like you but as a way to sync Memos and contacts between a Touchpad and a phone, i can branch this into an all-purpose off-cloud backup option. From there, from a standardized Palm format, i can build a utility that takes other exported contacts data from webmail, social networks, exported phone data from other phone platforms, and translate it into another format. I think GMMan here has been looking into the code that powers Palm Profile sync and there's a thread also about trying to migrate from the HP servers to a local machine. We are all not far from the solution.

So if you'd like to have that available to you when you later decide to move to iOS, please configure your forum options to where you will receive an email notification about new PMs. This way, even if you will no longer frequent the forums, i can let you know if we will have full access to the Palm Profile....

[OldSkoolVWLover]

It would seem that you should be able to dump it into a Google Calendar, although I'm not really sure how that would work.

I'm thinking the same thing... Too tired to even wrap my brain around an easy way to do that though.


@OP I would suggest starting to use google calendar as your default now. If for no other reason than new items on your calendar will start going into the google calendar, instead of your palm profile. Since webOS allows the addition of multiple calendars seamlessly it won't have any real impact on your day to day.

[GMMan]

I know you can move calendar events from on device to Google via the GUI. Maybe there's an easy way to automate moving everything?

Update: in app/edit/EditView.jsjsjs:$1164$ $is$ $the$ $line$ $to$ $move$ $an$ $event$. $Maybe$ $a$ $hack$ $button$ $could$ $be$ $put$ $in$ $to$ $enumerate$ $all$ $events$ $and$ $run$ $this$ $line$ $for$ $each$ $event$.

[OldSkoolVWLover]

I know you can move calendar events from on device to Google via the GUI. Maybe there's an easy way to automate moving everything?

Update: in app/edit/EditView.jsjsjs:$1164$ $is$ $the$ $line$ $to$ $move$ $an$ $event$. $Maybe$ $a$ $hack$ $button$ $could$ $be$ $put$ $in$ $to$ $enumerate$ $all$ $events$ $and$ $run$ $this$ $line$ $for$ $each$ $event$.

I wish there was a way to CSV dump....

The one problem I am thinking of though is that webOS doesn't sync all events backwards and forwards infinitely so no matter what someone comes up with I don't think it will get everything out of the palm profile automagically. At least from all reports it doesn't constantly maintain all cloud calendar entries.

[gizmo21]

I know you can move calendar events from on device to Google via the GUI. Maybe there's an easy way to automate moving everything?

Update: in app/edit/EditView.jsjsjs:$1164$ $is$ $the$ $line$ $to$ $move$ $an$ $event$. $Maybe$ $a$ $hack$ $button$ $could$ $be$ $put$ $in$ $to$ $enumerate$ $all$ $events$ $and$ $run$ $this$ $line$ $for$ $each$ $event$.

I was asking for a batch convert in my Zarafa thread, well this could be a solution if anyone is into hacking this in a calendar patch.

[MikePalmPrePlus]

To all, thanks for the replies and information. All very good. I remain hopeful that one day someone will figure out how to export Palm Profile data, in particular, the Calendar data.

The one comment about start using Google calendar make sense, but I have never been able to successfully sync with Google calendar. Pretty well-known fact the difficulty syncing to Google calendar with a Palm Pre Plus.

So, yesterday, I purchased a new Palm Pre 2 16gb for Verizon, on Amazon. Figure, I just keep using webOS until someone "cracks the code."

Any suggestions or helpful hints switching from a Palm Pre Plus to a Palm Pre 2? I have read success stories and have read not-so successful stories.

Michael

[OldSkoolVWLover]

To all, thanks for the replies and information. All very good. I remain hopeful that one day someone will figure out how to export Palm Profile data, in particular, the Calendar data.

The one comment about start using Google calendar make sense, but I have never been able to successfully sync with Google calendar. Pretty well-known fact the difficulty syncing to Google calendar with a Palm Pre Plus.

So, yesterday, I purchased a new Palm Pre 2 16gb for Verizon, on Amazon. Figure, I just keep using webOS until someone "cracks the code."

Any suggestions or helpful hints switching from a Palm Pre Plus to a Palm Pre 2? I have read success stories and have read not-so successful stories.

Michael

Not saying I haven't heard of the google sync issues, but the Palm Pre is what got me so heavily into google services use. Both the wife and I sync multiple calendars between multiple devices, when I was carrying both the Veer and Pre3, I had calendars syncing between google cloud, Veer, Pre3, and TouchPad.

As far as transitioning devices, backup saved package list in Preware, backup app data with Save/Restore, backup EVERYTHING on your USB drive. Log out of profile on Pre Plus, the fire up Pre 2. The log out of profile isn't really necessary, but I have had a couple devices hang on the remote force wipe and have to be doctored. I might have been able to terminal in and fix, but doctor worked.

I have done this from Pre to Veer to Pre2 to Pre3, the wife from Pre to Veer to Pre2.

I would say dump your contacts to CSV since they are in your Palm Profile, I did this for both of our original Pres to make sure anything that wasn't properly into google could get imported into our good profiles as well.

[Preemptive]

Hi,

I can't check any of this as my Pre2 just bricked itself, however...

I migrated from PalmOs to webOS. I used to use a spreadsheet to format data to .vcs files and import them to Palm desktop. - Then sync to the handheld.

To avoid wasting time channel surfing, I currently plan ahead with an online tv guide which allows me to download a .vcs file for each show.

I use a command line interface command to concatenate these files, then do a simple search replace with regular expressions to tidy the data. 5-10mins. To clarify, I now have a single file with all the events in it. I save it as an .ics file.

Google calendar will import .ics files. These are basically vcal (.vcs) files version 2. So I change the file header - e.g.

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:PalmDesktop Generated

I don't bother with repeats or reminders - I just set these in google or on the phone.

I have a specific google sub-calendar for this so I can switch it off and avoid TV cluttering my 'real' life! ;-)

Now, I'm confident I can move google calendar events from one sub calendar to another using the top right drop down list on the webOS calendar. The question is can you do this to move your webOS events to google and then export as .CSV or some other format that's useful? I think webOS calendar events are just what you enter on the phone. I think there are moving restrictions, but I can't remember if it's in, out or both. My webOS calendar is my old PalmOS data as imported by the Butler program. I don't know where this service has gone - I suppose HP doesn't have many people moving over these days.

Or (if palm desktop is wiped) if there is still juice in the Palm handheld and data that you could sync back to the destop (set conduits to handheld overwrites desktop), then possibly export as .vcs, convert to .ics. I suspect this might only work as a per event thing. You can only back up the whole calendar in some non-text-based database archive format - so extracting many events individually would be a lot of manual labour...

So, I think your best bet is to sit down with either your PalmOS or webOS device, some good music and your preferred beverage. Either export Palm to .vcs or webOS to google. Now you have your data - whether it's in a useful form, I don't know, but it's moveable.

Your ideal solution of course is some kind of 'reverse butler', but if no such thing exists and no one wants your bounty, perhaps the above will help. If it's even possible, I could maybe dig out some old materials that might be useful. I expect there are online tools to convert formats that will hopefully support stuff like repeats, reminders etc.

[Preemptive]

Oh, memo wise, I use a free app called Classic memos or something similar. I think i could export memos from palm desktop and import the file to Classic memos, but I can definitely export memos from it to .CSV then you use the USB mode to pull the file off the device.

Again, if your data only exists on the 'post it's you may have to copy and paste each one to Classic note before you can export in a useful way - so the pain depends on the number of memos. I know nothing of evernote, but I guess they would make migration relatively easy.

Oh, here it is:
ClassicNote | webOS Nation

Seems to support categories, so though you may have to remake and apply the categories you've lost from your data this could be a stepping stone to getting them of device in a complete and flexible manner.

[Grabber5.0]

There are two critical things you need to do before activating your Pre2:
1) Put the phone in airplane mode and DO NOT turn the radios back on until you are satisfied that your data is safely backed up or converted.
2) Do not sign out of your palm profile on your Pre Plus. As long as all radios are off, it won't get wiped. Once you sign out, it's wiped and if it doesn't transfer to the new phone it is flat gone.

Any data you need to transfer off the phone after that can be done via USB drive mode or webOS quickinstall.

[OldSkoolVWLover]

There are two critical things you need to do before activating your Pre2:
1) Put the phone in airplane mode and DO NOT turn the radios back on until you are satisfied that your data is safely backed up or converted.
2) Do not sign out of your palm profile on your Pre Plus. As long as all radios are off, it won't get wiped. Once you sign out, it's wiped and if it doesn't transfer to the new phone it is flat gone.

Any data you need to transfer off the phone after that can be done via USB drive mode or webOS quickinstall.

Meh....


Just kidding, good advice for someone that doesn't have sufficient cloud backup. This is how I did my first webOS upgrade (forgot until you mentioned it), I already had everything in the cloud though other than the contacts dumped to CSV.