HotSync

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

HotSync is the name of the program that synchronizes certain data between a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) with the Palm operating system and a PC . Classically, appointments, tasks, notes and contacts on the PDA are synchronized with software on the PC or Mac . Most of the time this software is "Palm Desktop", an organizer software for the above areas; With newer handhelds, Palm Desktop (and of course the PDA as well) can handle voice recordings, photos, videos, music and much more. Palm Desktop and HotSync are included with every handheld with Palm OS and are freely available. However, the data can also be compared with Microsoft Outlook and Lotus Organizer . In addition to the organizer data, most of the programs on the handheld and their data are copied to a backup directory on the computer so that in the event of data loss on the PDA, data can be restored using the PC before the last HotSync process. Which programs and data are saved in this way on the PC depends on the so-called "backup bit ". This procedure is also common on the PC. A certain file attribute is set automatically when the file is changed. The backup program checks this and only backs up files with this bit set (for DOS / Windows-based PCs, archive bit). The backup software then removes this bit.

During the HotSync process, all available conduits are executed one after the other. Conduits are small programs that make up the HotSync program. There is a separate conduit for every task in HotSync (synchronizing calendar data, synchronizing notes, installing additional software, etc.). So everyone has a HotSync process that is individually tailored to their needs. Depending on the setting of the corresponding conduit, the data on the handheld will be overwritten with those on the PC or vice versa. As a rule, however, the data are compared with one another in such a way that the current data on the other device is replaced.

Additional software for Palm OS, which also installs part of it on the desktop PC, usually includes a conduit. For example, there are software solutions for texts, tables, presentations or databases that can be integrated into the HotSync process in this way. An example of this is Dataviz's Documents To Go . It is included with many PDAs.

Web links