Data Synchronisation

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or many users, one of the most important aspects of using any PDA is the ability to maintain the same records on their portable device as one would find on their desktop (either at home or at work, or perhaps both). This usually applies to appointments and meetings, contacts, tasks and notes, but may also apply to “productivity” documents (word processor and spreadsheet files), amongst other types of information.

Whilst there are some quite important differences between how the default Microsoft and Palm synchronisation applications work (discussed in greater detail here), in essence both sets of software are designed to allow data to be shared between the computers. Put simply, when I update a telephone number on one of my computers - either desktop, or any of the Palms - it is updated on all of my other machines as and when I synchronise the data. With a number of handheld devices and at least two desktop computers in use, this saves me quite a bit of time and, providing the data is put in correctly, there is no chance for any errors to creep in.

Other Benefits

There are other benefits of data synchronisation. The most basic of these is that it provides you with a backup of the data on your PDA. All computers can suffer from a disastrous hardware or software failure, and when this happens, it is especially important to have a recent backup of your data. If you synchronise your PID (personal information database, i.e. your appointments, contacts, tasks, so on and so forth) with a desktop, you won’t lose your information.

Another benefit is being notified of something with no chance of you forgetting it. This can be between husband and wife (rather than the wife asking the husband to collect her dry cleaning, she puts an entry into his desktop computer, which is synchronised across to the PDA), or between colleagues in an office. An example is a personal assistant updating a diary via the desktop, whereas the person requiring assistance simply synchronises his or her PDA on a regular basis.

Synchronisation Methods

There are six common ways to synchronise your PDA – using a serial cradle, using a USB cradle, using infrared, using Bluetooth, using a WiFi network and using the Internet or a modem.