VisorCentral.com - networking quandry

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Posted by dick-richardson on 03-27-2002 11:59 PM:

networking quandry

I want internet/email access on my handera. I want file sharing. I want to hotsync remotely. I want to shunt files over 8mb's (from the internet or my home pc) on to a computer my handera is (somehow) connected to. How? I'm assuming VNC is going to be involved?

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Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by Toby on 03-28-2002 03:04 AM:

Re: networking quandry

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
I want internet/email access on my handera. I want file sharing. I want to hotsync remotely. I want to shunt files over 8mb's (from the internet or my home pc) on to a computer my handera is (somehow) connected to. How? I'm assuming VNC is going to be involved?

I don't think your request is very clear. On the one hand, you sound like you want http/pop/ftp access on your Handera (with the desktop acting as a proxy?). On the other hand, what's VNC have to do with it? ISTR the built-in mail client for the Handera supporting direct POP.

Posted by dick-richardson on 03-28-2002 05:44 AM:

Re: Re: networking quandry

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
I don't think your request is very clear. On the one hand, you sound like you want http/pop/ftp access on your Handera (with the desktop acting as a proxy?)

Exactly

quote:
On the other hand, what's VNC have to do with it?

To explain a little more clearly, when I'm at a customer's house, I want to be able to access files (drivers, etc.) on the internet or my home PC and transfer them through my pda onto the customers computer. Even if they're over 8MB's. I'm thinking PalmVNC to access my desktop, and an ethernet cradle(?) to connect to the customers computer.

And I'd like to modem hotsync if possible.

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by sowens on 03-28-2002 01:19 PM:

Re: Re: Re: networking quandry

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson

To explain a little more clearly, when I'm at a customer's house, I want to be able to access files (drivers, etc.) on the internet or my home PC and transfer them through my pda onto the customers computer. Even if they're over 8MB's. I'm thinking PalmVNC to access my desktop, and an ethernet cradle(?) to connect to the customers computer.

And I'd like to modem hotsync if possible.

So when you're at the customer site, you want to be able to access the internet via the 330, and then transfer the files to the customer's machine via ethernet. I think I understand that part, but the question is (in the words imortalized by a friend and mentor): what problem are you trying to solve? Is it the fact that the customer has no network access whatsoever?

There's a piece to this puzzle that's missing, and I think we're going to need it before we can give any intelligent options.

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Posted by septimus on 03-28-2002 02:25 PM:

Wouldn't it be easier to just use VNC to tell your computer to just email/ftp/whatever the files directly to your customer?

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Posted by dick-richardson on 03-28-2002 03:09 PM:

Re: Re: Re: Re: networking quandry

quote:
Originally posted by sowens
There's a piece to this puzzle that's missing, and I think we're going to need it before we can give any intelligent options.

The customer may not have internet access (gasp!), may be having networking troubles, may have just reinstalled windows and not have their NIC drivers, etc. To give an example of a problem I ran into, I went to an old lady's house. Her printer wasn't working. She didn't have internet. I had to go there, find out that she had somehow uninstalled her printer drivers, drive back to work, download the drivers from HP (which was over 17MB's I believe), burn it to cd, drive back to her house, install the drivers, and (because I'm a nice guy) eat the cost of running back and forth because if i'd have had a laptop, it would've been unnecessary.

Basically, I am going to start needing to carry a laptop on site to access files on the internet when theirs is down or non-existent. I don't want to. I want to carry my multi-function screwdriver, my self-made shareware cd, and my pda. I think I can get something rigged where I can see my computer (and access its files) and use its internet and email connection (I believe doing so also removes my ability to hotsync as different software, i.e. palm desktop, needs to be running - but that is not imperative), but I also want to download files from my handera and save them on the customer's computer.

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by sowens on 03-28-2002 05:38 PM:

Ok, I've got the picture now.

This one might be tough. On the one hand, what I know if the 330 and it's abilities seems to make it an ideal candidate for this. The availability of CF modems & both wired and wireless ethernet for the 330 should make it easy. On the other hand, Palms really weren't designed to act as a file server, and most of the apps out there aren't tuned for the Handera in terms of using the CF & SD card slots, so you're probably stuck with whatever real memory you have. Another thing is downloading a 17Mb file over a phone line at the customer's site is going to be tediously slow, so you'll most likely end up carrying lots of SD cards filled with stuff, which when combined with the CF modems and ethernet cards isn't going to be cheap.

A quick check on versiontracker.com turned up Lftp, an FTP client for the Palm platform. While the description only talks about uploading/downloading Palm files, I don't see why this wouldn't work on other files as well. It's at least a start in the direction you want to go. You might also want to check into finding a used Toshiba Libretto subnotebook. They're bigger than a Palm, but much smaller than your typical notebook. You can usually find those for around $500 today.

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Posted by dick-richardson on 03-28-2002 08:42 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by sowens
Ok, I've got the picture now.

Kinda. I was thinking of having the CF modem connected to my computer and the serial port connected to the customer's computer at the same time. I want to avoid temporarily saving the file on my pda. I realize there is going to be a size limit where it would be quicker to burn a cd than wait for a 56K connection, but if I'm 60 miles out, that's going to be a rather high limit.

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by Techie2000 on 03-28-2002 08:57 PM:

You need to either connect a cell phone or 802.11b card or something...

Posted by sowens on 03-28-2002 09:22 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson

Kinda. I was thinking of having the CF modem connected to my computer and the serial port connected to the customer's computer at the same time. I want to avoid temporarily saving the file on my pda. I realize there is going to be a size limit where it would be quicker to burn a cd than wait for a 56K connection, but if I'm 60 miles out, that's going to be a rather high limit.

Ok, a remote terminal/proxy/ftp server/ftp client sort of thing. Sounds interesting with lots of possibilities, but I believe that will require custom software, as most of the Palm-based VNC's I've read about will only handle the connection to you're home machine, and I don't know if you can "hotsync" files that are not resident in the Palm's memory.

Being as lazy & cheap as I am

, you could by a lot of CD-R's for the cost of a CF modem. Then you could use some Palm-based CD database to keep track of which disk had what. Maybe you could even use the Palm to maintain the system configurations of your customers so that, when you load up to go to a particular site, you could just grab what you may need before leaving the house?

Your idea definitely has tech sex appeal to it, and it sounds like a fun project, but just how much of your time do you want to apply to it? In other words: how much is the time you'd spend putting this together worth? Is there something else you'd rather spend that time doing?

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Posted by Jupe on 03-28-2002 09:32 PM:

I hear ya Sowens. But you just aren't always gonna be able to anticipate what you'll need.

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Posted by dick-richardson on 03-31-2002 03:50 AM:

As I think about it, it may be easier to download to the SD card. What PalmOS browser can do so? Is there an SD/3.5 floppy adapter so I can read the contents of the SD/MMC card from the a: drive (there should be if there isn't)?

__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Posted by sowens on 03-31-2002 02:10 PM:

A quick check on pcmall.com turned up a MemoryStick and a SmartMedia floppy adapter, but nothing for SD/MMC. I seem to remember a CF floppy adapter being available, but now I can't find any references to it.

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