Re: right PDA for BBDB user?

>>>>> "Ronan" == Ronan Waide <waider@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

    Ronan> On October 6, jidanni@xxxxxxxxxxx said:
    >> What would be the right handheld computer, PDA, Palm, etc. for a BBDB
    >> user who hopes to at least copy their BBDB database to a handheld?

    Ronan> jwz described in detail some time ago the problems with making BBDB
    Ronan> and the Palm addressbook fit into each other's space - mainly it 
boils
    Ronan> down to the BBDB having no restrictions per se. There are a few
    Ronan> BBDB-to-pilot bits and pieces out there, however, including a plugin
    Ronan> for PilotManager. I've no idea what else is available in terms of
    Ronan> syncing BBDB with PDAs, though.

I've read jwz's notes, but never actually understood them.  After all,
there are schemes for synchronizing Outlook with the Palm, and
Outlook, like the BBDB, has a more complex model than the Palm.  IIRC,
there's a way of specifying a lossy map Outlook -> Palm and another
map Palm -> Outlook.  Presumably the KDE folks have also got a map
like this for their kontact manager to the pilot.

I've been thinking myself about trying to figure out how to synch
kontact with BBDB, so that I could get my BBDB synched with the palm,
but use only elisp.  The prospect of writing Palm code leaves me
feeling queasy --- it seems like I'd have to invest an enormous amount
of effort into grokking the Palm DB format, etc.  If the kpilot folks
have done their job right, I'd be able to just take that whole Palm
link on faith, and I was hoping that the
k-orb-like-whatchamacallit-but-it-must-start-with-k interface glue
stuff that KDE provides would simplify the code.

IIRC, jwz was making some complaint to the effect that the Palm DB
records were marked only with the information that a record had
changed, but not information about HOW it had changed.[1]  Again, this
seems like a problem the Outlook and kontact conduit folks must have
fixed.

Anyway, you might as well buy a palm.  Buying a PalmPC will just
plunge you into the infinite badness of WinCE.  I made that mistake
once, and I won't go there again.

Cheers,
R




Footnotes: 

[1] I couldn't find this document using Google in the amount of time I
was willing to spend on this Sunday instead of winterizing my house
:-) Maybe someone else can provide a pointer, or I'll be less lazy
tomorrow.



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