Registered: Dec 1999
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Posts: 88

Is it possible (without too much effort) to have as many as 150 Visor users Hotsync their Visors from a single desktop computer using Outlook as the e-mail client and NT as the operating system? For example, could this be easily done in a computer lab on a college campus. Or could it be accomplished at strategically placed kiosks? At the same time, could an individual Visor user Hotsync his or her Visor on their personal computer. Vaguely I remember a thread here at VC that suggested this was possible using a 3rd party software package. Thanks for the help.

Registered: Jan 2000
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Posts: 434

We talked about this a while ago, and I was doing some testing then. While I can't avail myself of this option, PumaTech has a product , Intellisync Anywhere, that handles e-mail with Exchange or Domino (version specific to platform). I've not tested this solution, so I can offer no assurances that it actually works.

I've found that there are two problems with implementing your idea. The cradles don't hold up well to heavy use; and I'm sure you've noticed the problems that some users have had getting the serial cradle to work relaibly for one user! As bad as this may seem, the nastier problem is going to be configuring and maintaining all the PCs that will be used for syncing. I figured on a minimum of one PC per 6 users per site. The expense of configuring and maintaining the sync PCs is a budget killer, and this assumes that you will press select existing desktop PCs into dual use. If your users were using Win9x, you'd be better off giving them all cradles. There are also security issues. This is why I've been trying to get IR network hotsyncing to work - it removes the PC from the sync equation, and replaces it with networked IR ports (allowing a direct connection between the PDA and the sync server).

For my solution to work, you have to add another network server, in my case a WaveSync server. To this point, the Visor is losing out because:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>It does not suport IR network hot syncs (even with IR Link) - I'm still messing with this, but I'm increasingly pessimistic.
The Visor and the WaveSync client software don't work together. And WaveWare has not been overly eager to help . . .</UL>

It is worth pointing out that this combination does work with any Palm OS v3.3 device that I've tried.