Beaming from a PocketPC to a Palm

[tony-m]

Hello,
I am new to pocket pcs. I used to own a palm and beaming & receiving appointments to my wife who also has a palm was a snap. However I can't seem to get this to work consistently with my pocketpc. For instance when the palm was beaming me an appointment infrared receive just said that it had established a connection but nothing happened beyond that. I am using the new Dell Axim5. Has anyone else got this to work successfully?

Thanks.
Tony

[spursdude]

I can't really help you with this problem, sorry - however, I can tell you that it definitely works on my Maestro.

One thought, though - you shouldn't have to open the Infrared Receive program to receive appointments, contacts, etc. Go to Start>Settings>Connections tab>Beam, and make sure that "Receive all incoming beams and select discoverable mode" is checked. Then, just line up IR ports (without even opening up Infrared Receive), and from your Palm just select beam, and it should be sent over.

Your PPC should have a little pop-up window asking if you would like to receive the appointment (hit yes or ok, obviously).

Hopefully this solves the problem.

[smokinvegas]

http://www.conduits.com/products/peacemaker/

Above is the link to the software that will allow your pocket pc to communicate with your palm device. I hope that this will help and you will enjoy your new pocket pc.

[that_kid]

With Pocket pc 2002 you don't need peacemaker. It still has a place if you want to choose which fields from your ppc gets beamed to the palm.

[tony-m]

Thanks everyone.

I have confirmed the receive checkbox is enabled in the settings.

Here is a better description of what happens: I select an appointment and click beam. Next a window comes up that says the name of my appoinment along with a couple of messages that say: "To Beam, select a device". Underneath this is a message that says Infrared <tab> Align ports ... searching

Next I attempt to align the ports of the palm and the PPC. After trying for about 1 - 2 minutes or at the moment not at all it Will find the device and then I wait a bit and I get a message that says to Tap To send which I do and then it it works.

This is <obvioiusly> an excruciatingly long process and I don't even want to try it more than a few centimeters a part at the moment. Is this typical? I know with my palm I could complete this common task much further than at arms length apart and it would still find it pretty much right away. I realize that the PPC is doing some internal conversion possibly during the brief second lapse after it found the device but having to fudge around for a minute or two wondering whether it will beam to me seems like something is wrong with the unit. If this is not typical and other PPC users have successfully beamed to palms and have not had this experience I would be glad to here from you. If not I will be calling tech support but I would hate to have to ship this unit back. So far other than having to press a tad tougher to recognize my grafitti consistently I prefer the PPC over the palm but that is another issue.

Tony

[ux4484]

I had exactly this problem, and it is a bit tedious. The problem is the IR beam from the Dell is VERY narrow and uber-directional. EdH pointed out that 8 inches is the magic distance number, but I've found that you also need to overshoot the alignment by about and inch LEFT of the Axim's IR LED (on the left side of the CF slot it's rectangular). I am now able to consistanly beam to/from my Axim and Visor. If you're used to sending contacts from across the table, it is disappointing

[axe]

I have also had problems sending appointments from my PPC 2002 upgraded IPAQ 3630 to a Palm machine. Contacts are no problem though.

Notes cannot send properly either, though I found using Pocket Word and saving the file as TXT then beaming it to a palm, it would recognize it as a Note. Incoming Palm notes are seen as a TXT file as well.
Will Peacemaker Pro help with the appointment limitations?

[tony-m]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply about where the IR slot was on the left and the fact that it is so narrow on the Dell. Now that I know where it is I found I have at least been conscious of where it is I had to line up. With the Palm I never had to think about that! Unfortunatley even with this knowledge, however it does not work as well for me as you seem to able to do with your visor. In fact it hardly works at all still, to the point where it is impractical to use. I have only really been testing appointments.

Why did Dell make such a small IR Port? Is this just a problem from PPC to Palm (i.e. Is the Dell PPC able to beam to other PPC devices more easily including other Dell PPC's that have a narrow IR port?). Anyways I sure hope it was not to cut corners because beaming is a very important function of a PPC.

Would still like to hear of more experiences prior to calling tech support though. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far.

Tony

[pkbdeb]

With Pocket pc 2002 you don't need peacemaker. It still has a place if you want to choose which fields from your ppc gets beamed to the palm.

How does this work? Are you saying that you do not need any extra software to beam from Pocket PC 2002 to a Palm OS device? :o

[spursdude]

How does this work? Are you saying that you do not need any extra software to beam from Pocket PC 2002 to a Palm OS device? :o

That's right. Say you wanted to beam a Contact... you would just tap-and-hold a contact, and select Beam Contact. It will work with other PPCs and even a Palm OS device. The same goes for appointments, maybe even tasks. I'm pretty sure it won't work with files, though, because the Palm OS doesn't really have a file system...