Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Austin, Texas, USA
Posts: 195

Yesterday, my Visor was sitting on a low shelf about three feet high. I picked it up, but at that moment, for a split second, I suddenly reverted to pre-adolescence, and was stricken with clumsiness. It was just for a split second, but that's all that was needed. The Visor slipped out of my hand and landed on the tile floor with a sickening smack. It was in my Handspring Wilderness Nubuck case at the time, and it landed flat on its back - it didn't land on a corner and tumble around. In a flash, my mind recalled all of the stories I'd read here about people dropping their Visors two nanometers and the screen cracking. So I picked up my Visor, and franticly opened the case. To my great joy, I found that my precious Visor was sound and whole. As an afterthought, I considered the possibility that maybe the Visor wouldn't work when I tried to turn it on, but realized that this was a silly paranoid thought and that perhaps I was becoming too materialistic. So just to prove my silliness, I hit the power button. Nothing. I hit the power button again. Still nothing. My heart began to pound, my breathing became labored. I tried the application buttons since they're power buttons, too. Still nothing. "It's okay," I said to myself. "The batteries have just become dislodged. That's all. It'll be alright. Please, God, let it be alright." I took it out of the case, took the batteries out, and replaced them. Still nothing. I now begain to envision all of the free things I might receive from Handspring if I told them about this and complained loudly enough. I thought about having to wait several days to get a new one. I thought about all of the data I had probably lost. But there was still this nagging glimmer of hope that if I fidgeted with it enough, it would work. I then used the screwdriver from my newly procured Handspring stylus to open up the case. I learned a lot about the structure of my Visor. There's hardware attached both to the front and the back of the case. The little circuitboard behind the batteries simply unplugs. There's a ribbon cable conencting the front half to the back half. There's a small lever that you can lift up to release the ribbon cable. I did so, and looked around at the tiny parts and connections. Not seeing anything that looked like it wasn't supposed to be that way, I reconnected the ribbon cable, and reassembled my Visor. Just for grins, I hit the power button. What was this? It couldn't be! I rubbed my eyes and shook my head and looked again. It was still there. The words said "Welcome. The following screens will walk you through Setup, which takes just a few minutes." And there was an animated Visor there too. I couldn't believe it. It worked! I was elated. But the sweetness of the moment was tainted by bitterness when I realized that I had most likely lost all of my data. I went through setup, searched for my apps, and alas, they were gone. I knew that a Hotsync would fix some of the problem, so I did so. You may imagine my joy when, upon retrieving my Visor from the hotsync cradle and turning it on, I discovered that many of my old apps had been restored! Even HanDBase! I just knew that I had lost all those recipes and gift lists and CD lists. I don't have Backup Buddy - so it's all gone. But it wasn't! I couldn't believe it. My Visor is now nearly restored to the state it was before the fateful accident.

But I must admit that I'm a little surprised that a fall of three feet was enough to do this, especially since it was in a case. I've heard of laptops falling out of moving cars and surviving. I hope that Handspring will improve the quality of the construction on future iterations of the Visor.

Registered: Nov 1999
Location:
Posts: 145

Whew!

In the future, a good freeware to use is BackupAll. Which lets you force the backup of all Palm databases since it toggles "backup bit" and/or changes the last hotsync date on them. It's small and easy to use.

And a nice price. Haven't figured the difference between this prog and BackupBuddy, except I believe BB costs $$$ and BackupAll takes up about 9k.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Austin, Texas, USA
Posts: 195

Wow - thanks for the recommendation. I was hoping there was some sort of freeware backup app out there. I'll give it a try.

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Posts: 36

goyena,

I'm trying backupall...i've tried 'force', 'all', and 'changed', but it never seems to back up all of the files. would it be backing them up to c:\program files\palm\user\backup??? i hope i'm doing something wrong because i could use a nice free backup prog.

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 11

Nice story! I was annoyed cause I just wanted to hear what happened, you had me on the edge of my seat! What would happen next!!! LOL.

Anyway, I took apart my GVD just for kicks...well..and to put a screen protector (custom made) on the screen. You mentioned front and back parts of the visor, you can actually seperate the screen from the front of the casing. I had to do it to apply the screen.

-Vapor

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: Hoboken, NJ, 07030
Posts: 105

Yes, it backs it up to your backup directory when you hotsync. If you ever need to hard reset, Hot Sync(with overwrite set) will reinstall all of the applications that had their backup bit set and been backup in a hot sync. I'm not sure whether you need to force the backup to get the apps to backup but I think not.

Registered: Nov 1999
Location:
Posts: 145

I used "All" and in the Backup file I found everything that was on the Palm...hacks, etc. However some system stuff: modem, owner, shortCuts, are not copied, I don't believe. Perhaps this is the diff. w/BBuddy. I didn't use "Force".

BTW, I've tried BackupBitster, but it doesn't seem to get everything, like hacks.

A GREAT app, and well made(might be dangerous for the non-experienced users, since you can start deleting apps forgetting corresponding DBs) is DB Explorer. It's faster than the built-in Memory app, and ***also lets you set/check the backup bit***.

And while we're on the topic, don't forget dbScan, which cleans out the extra ShortCuts caused by a OS3.x bug (among other functions). Strange that we have a version of DateBk3, but that dbScan wasn't included. Too recent?

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: California
Posts: 108

System settings (prefs, etc) are automatically backed up using the system conduit in the hotsync manager. So don't worry if you don't see them.