Believe it or not, I like to use outdated technology. Why? Because it’s good enough for what I do. My cellphone is a free Nokia giveaway that I’ve had for three years. I’ve been using Outlook Express for years rather than converting to Outlook. But enough is no longer enough, and I’m converting. This week I’m converting to Outlook, and next week I might even get a new phone.
But the task at hand today is that having upgraded to Outlook I’d like to move all the data from my datebook / calendar and contacts in Palm to Outlook, but guess what? Palm only exports .dba files for the datebook, and if you want to get your contacts over then it’s no piece of cake either. You would think Outlook would have an easy way to import data from your Palm but if it exists I haven’t found it. Enter PocketCopy, the easy way to export from Palm to Outlook.
I don’t like buying stuff, especially when I feel the software should easily facilitate what I want to do. But in this case, I decided that the time it would take me to get this done manually was worth more than the $25 cost of PocketCopy, so after minimal time trying to figure out how to do it for free I gave in. You see, I’ve tried this type of thing before and have spent 3-4 hours and then bought the software anyway, so this time I figured I’d save the time up front and spend the money.
And guess what, it’s easy. You install the software, it adds a button to your Palm Desktop software, you click the button, check a few boxes, it runs, and you’re done. Why Microsoft doesn’t just bundle that type of software with Outlook I don’t know, but Chapura Software has filled the void with something that gets the job done as easily as is possible.
No, I’m not being paid to write this, I had to buy the software myself. But I am pretty happy with the software and I would recommend just buying it rather than trying to figure out a cheap way to get the job done.
