During the last disaster, I lost the root partition, while the good news is the irresponsible mkstage4.sh backup the /etc that saves a huge amount of time for me to emerge world.

This post would summarize the efforts for my record and for your convenience. This HOWTO is originally posted in the official forum three years ago, and I once tried to update it in my previous post as well. Since then, some devices get supported, some software packages are obsolete, Life runs fast. Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody loves YouTube, the hub of short video clips uploaded by the users. It makes more sense to watch YouTube clips than King Kong in the Metro. To watch one small clip, you need to:

1. Install VideoDownloader Firefox Extension
2. Download the video clips to the harddisk
3. Manually convert the .flv to .avi using ffmpeg like this ffmpeg -i foo.flv foo.avi
4. Copy to the Treo 650’s extension card

That is quite tedious. I need a tool to automate the above procedures, here come the tubefetch.txt:

This script would download the flv files and convert them to avi file automatically, then copy the files to Treo 650 using CardReader, CardExport.

A better solution may go further:

• Develop a Firefox addon: one-click would download/convert the file to the specified path
• Develop a KPilot conduit, download the AVI files to Treo 650’s extension card when HotSync

Well, if I persist the enthusiasm for 3 months, I might roll up the sleeves and go through all the way to do so.

Update The DownloadHelper plugin is exactly what I am looking for. The author does not address the CJK file name issue, here is the modified version to bypass that problem.

The KPilot 3.5.5 once worked fine for my Tungsten T, and it still served for the Treo application installation and backup. Unfortunately, the KPilot could not synchronize the TODO or calendar, the kpilotDaemonn just crashed without a trace, in fact that is my fault, the konqi is not installed in my system.

KPilot developers have released 3.5.6, and claimed that it has solved lots of long-lasting bug, including my patch as well. However, the KPilot 3.5.6 depends on >=pilot-link-12.0, while pilot-link is buggy for the python and java binding, which is reverse-dependency of JPilot. Anyway, all of them are masked.

Tim told us “Make it work”, let’s roll the sleeves.

In Gentoo’s bugzilla, #89823 is attached an unofficial ebuild for pilot-link, just copy it to pilot-link-0.12.2. Since we don’t really need the python or java binding, just disable the use flag in package.use and leave the patch where is.

Next, build kpilot-3.5.6, it would not compile for GCC 4.1.1. Em, interesting. The bug is straight-forward anyway, the compiler is just picky in doing const cast. With this patch, it works.

UPDATE Just contacted with kpilot developer, pilot-link has changed the interface in the version bump, so kpilot 3.5.6 is supposed to work fine with pilot-link-0.12.[01], this patch is for pilot-link-0.12.2 only.

Let’s put the pieces together:
pilot-link-0.12.2 ebulild, kpilot-3.5.6 ebuild, kpilot-3.5.6-const.patch

Now, KPilot 3.5.6 works fine, but put duplicated appointment when HotSync with Treo 650. That is quite annoying, I would like to use Undup as the work around, then dig into the code later.

After 2 weeks eBay hunting, I won a unlocked Treo 650 GSM smartphone eventually, I no longer need to carry my shabby Tungsten T and Nokia phone, one is better than two.

This gadget is powered by PalmOS v5.4, Treo Software 1.7b, Firmware 1.51. Palm Inc has recently released one ROM update for the unlocked phone, SW 1.20 for bug fix. I decided to keep up with the service pack. The stability of Treo 650 has always been an issue in the sphere.

I chose the ROM from Hi PDA forum, the localization and candies for the newbies have been ripped off to optimize the DB Cache. Download, unpack, copy to the SD Card, hard-reset the device, plugin the card, pray, pray…, after several reboot, the device is updated and the phone is still usable, unlocked.

Palm is an open platform for handheld computing, especailly PIM. However, the Palm Inc. / Access do not provide any official support for Linux. Thanks to the open source community to bridge the gap between Linux desktop and Palm handheld.

Synchronization

Palm supports various synchronization accesses, serial, USB, IrDA, Bluetooth, Modem, Lan, Wireless. We would address three most commonly used ways.

USB Synchronization
This is the most common and reliable way to synchronize the device with the desktop.
1. Besides the standard USB support, build USB Serial(usbserial) and USB Handspring driver(visor) drivers into modules.

2. Update the udev rule in /etc/udev/rules.d/10-palm.rules:

If you use Sony’s CLIE or Handspring’s Visor, you may take a look at cat /proc/bus/usb/devices to figure out how to identify the device. After you push the button of HotSync cradle, or click the BIG button in HotSync application, the device appears as /dev/pilot in Linux desktop.

IrDA Synchronization
Here is a detailed HOWTO about IrDA Synchronization.

Bluetooth Synchronization
Check this HOWTO.

Integration with KDE

TBD

Developement

TBD

Existed problems

• KPilot does not convert the string from UTF-8 to zh_CN.gbk back and forth in synchronization (FIXED)
• Mail plugin works only for legacy Palm mail