__/ [ Jamie Hart ] on Wednesday 03 January 2007 15:03 \__
> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>>
>> Lockin is another matter. I am still annoyed with Palm's proprietary
>> formats which had me depend on them since 2002.
>
> Which proprietary Palm formats are those? the only Palm format I know
> of is PalmDoc the Palm database format, commonly with a .pdb extension
> (though .PRC files are PalmDoc internally) and that cannot be called
> proprietary be any stretch of the imagination.
>
> The specification for PalmDoc is available all over the internet and
> there is no licensing restrictions on using it.
>
> Please, don't confuse "unknown to you" with proprietary.
Yes, you are right on this one. At the time (when I worried about lockin), I
only complained about/moped over the form of the files, but I found HTML
convertors and some extensive documentation of the binary bits in the PDB
files. I just wish it was something like XML, but I'm aware of the cost of
parsing that on a mobile device.
>> Only recently I managed to export
>> everything to KOrganizer. From there, I could export as i/vCal and put it
>> on a Web-based PHP Calendar. At least I now know that I could live without
>> Palm's proprietary blobs which interpret the data. Roy Ingles also gave me
>> a pointer to a pilot-link tool which converts things to plain text...
>>
> There are a plethora of software out there that can convert to and from
> palm doc format.
>
> I'm writing a program at the moment for my new GP2X that will include
> reading and writing PDB files. I've had my address book on my Sony Clie
> for years and want a similar program on the GP2X. Currently there's
> nothing available, so I'm writing one.
Sounds excellent. If this ever leads to good PIM on the GP2X, I'd probably
switch. I was hoping for something as such for the Nokia 770, but every time
I research this I find nothing. The last time I checked there was a buggy
GTK application being developed and used by a few.
> I had the option of converting my existing addresses to either text or
> vCal formats, but in the end decided to keep them in the palmdoc PDB
> file. It also means that I can reuse parts of this program in my second
> project, an e-book reader for the GP2x that will handle PDB files.
I am relieved to hear that these PDB's are not as evil as I thought... in the
sense that there are enough tools out there which handle them.
>> Well, archives are another matter. They are probably useless, but in many
>> case they remain barely accessible. In the case of Palm, it's a mismash of
>> binary and ASCII.
>
> No, no, no. It is not a mismash, it is a compressed format designed to
> run on a machine with very few resources. it does an admirable job in
> very few CPU cycles.
It does scale well, I'll admit. Loading a day on the diary takes less than
half a second, even with a ~300KB PDB (IIRC).
>> Not a nice way to have your diary saved...
>
> But hardly a problem for anyone with a little google-fu.
>
> Both the Windows based Palm Desktop software supplied by Palm and the
> Linux based KPilot software allow you to view the contents of these
> files and to export them to plain ascii files if you so wish.
Yes, that's true. Bear in mind, however, that it's not trivial taking data
from Palm Desktop or KPilot over to another device. I don't think it's a
simple case of dump (export), then load (import). I'm not sure there are
standard formats either. Someone told me that vCal iCal are not standard (is
it just Apple?)...
--
~~ Kind greetings and happy holidays!
Roy S. Schestowitz | Gas, brake, honk! Honk, honk, punch! Gas, gas!
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU is Not UNIX | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
roy pts/4 Tue Jan 2 15:08 - 15:09 (00:00)
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