From Palm to iCalendar : Part II October 13, 2006
Posted by mark in : Calendar, General, Personal , trackbackIn Part I, I created a .csv file and imported it into Mozilla Lightning. The result was an unusable a mess! I recognised events, but they were duplicated many times, and showed up in dates when they shouldn’t. I couldn’t see a pattern, let alone explain it.
If the .csv file exported from Outlook has errors, I could try Outlook2vCal or Outport instead – but am reluctant, given their age. However, I didn’t see errors, with it open in Microsoft Excel, other things may be the cause.
The .csv file that I exported from Lightning (as a check) was different from the one imported into it, which isn’t a good sign. Although I’m a very happy user of Mozilla Thunderbird and Firefox, Lightning is only at version 0.3 (as is the stand-alone Mozilla Sunbird, that it is based upon), so maybe bugs within it caused the problem and I should look for another app until it improves.
30 Boxes : I’ve had an account for a while, but not really used it. Can’t log in at the moment because of a database error.
AirSet : Just found this. It offers a downloadable desktop application that will synchronise with Outlook, Pocket PC Devices, Palm Desktop, or Palm Devices …and data can be exported, as iCal. Will probably try this.
Backpack Calendar (37Signals) : I have a paid Backpack plan, a free Basecamp plan, read the Signal vs. Noise blog, may learn Ruby on Rails, and am still avidly waiting for Sunrise! So, I’m very impressed with this company, but the calendar won’t import a file unless it’s already iCalendar (and with a url).
Trumba : Think I had a free account a year or two ago, which has lapsed. No reason to choose this above others.
Google Calendar : I’ve had Gmail as a reserve email account for a while, but haven’t used the calendar. Lots of widgets get built, and there’s active coverage on Lifehacker. I’m a little concerned about my data being crawled, even anonymously, but will probably use this.
More comment when I find a solution.
Comments»
[...] However, there’s no happy ending (yet). More in Part II …shorter and maybe more interesting! [...]
I’m interested how this goes.
I have a Treo600 (which I like as a phone/organiser). I have just got a Nokia E71 and need to get the data from Treo/Palm Desktop -> Nokia/PCsuite.
Unfortunately I am currently also Windows-hobbled as a primary machine for these things, which can be more restrictive in many cases (particularly with respect to freely available functional-but-not-so-pretty software).
Nokia PC suite will only “import” from other nokia phones, and so it looks like using Outlook as a conduit is the only option (I’m hoping outlook express may be “the only option” – I don’t want to have to pay Microsoft lots of money for 10minutes use of a horrible application).
When time permits I will be taking a look to see if any Linux (or perhaps Apple-Mac) based apps will actually do what I want.
The reason for choosing the Nokia E71 was because it’s symbian-based and so should be able to multitask (better than the PalmOS-based Treo which can’t, unfortunately), and it has a useable keyboard for things like ssh, etc. I also have friends that have and like the E71. My other choice would have been Nokia 9300i.
I’ll also be on the lookout for a decent encrypting program on the nokia (like “strip” on PalmOS – free AES encryption password app that I heartily recommend!)
[...] In Part I, I moved my data from Palm Desktop to a .csv file, via Microsoft Outlook. In Part II, I found that it was a mess when imported into Mozilla Lightning, and looked at other options to get my data into iCalendar form. Now I’ve tried AirSet and Google Calendar… [...]