For Christmas, Santa gave me a Palm TX to replace my five-year-old Sony Clie. It was more cost effective than a Microsoft Pocket PC device or an iPhone, and it’s backwards compatible with my tried-and-true software.

Unfortunately, the Palm Desktop software doesn’t work so well on Windows Vista. It appears to work, but fails in subtle and non-obvious ways.

• Each time I hotsync, it repeatedly backs up all programs and databases, which takes a long time. Solution: I gave user write access to the folder where it was trying create the backup.
• CSV import of multi-line Note fields is broken. I used this feature to import addresses from MIS2PALM. Solution: I upgraded to MIS2PALM version 4, and configured it to export in vCard format. Palm Desktop properly imports multi-line Note fields from vCard format.
• CSV import forgets field-association. It used to remember this. Again, I’ve switched to vCard format, so this doesn’t get in my way anymore.
• HotSync > FileLink doesn’t work.
• The Beta Palm Desktop that’s supposed to be compatible with windows Vista hung on startup.

I had gone through a tedious download, uninstall, install process to try the beta out. I had another tedious process to uninstall the broken beta, and then I installed the previous Windows XP version, which I downloaded from the website to save time (I didn’t have the Palm TX install CD with me at the time). This was a big mistake, I realized several days later, because the downloaded version was missing several features such as the Media, Note Pad and VersaMail plugins to the Palm Desktop. So, I had to go through another tedious uninstall, reinstall process. Amidst all of this, the Desktop conveniently forgot some of my customized preferences, which required yet more time.

What a rant… maybe my experience will help someone else figure out how to solve some of the issues I’ve faced.

I really do like my new TX. It’s faster than my previous Clie. It has built-in bluetooth, which allows me to share contacts with my wife’s cell phone, or with other people. The built-in WiFi allows me to read the mobile edition of the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune with the Blazer browser. It’s not good for much more than that. If it’s handheld web browsing that I had wanted, I would have asked Santa for an iPhone or a Nokia N800 internet tablet. For me, the address book, the calendar and the Plucker e-book reader are the most needed features.