Computing on the Road 4: Backup
This entry has been edited 29/09. The Palm manual is a mere 2MB (and 200 pges) long and I’m studying it today :}
Christmas arrived early 😉
The chaps at Ebay are speedy, most of the time. Except for the guy whose laptop I bought—he seems to have gone into hibernation. I know, he’s a small-scale private seller with a dayjob and little time, but I’m paranoid because it’s the most expensive thing I have ever ordered online and my experience with Amacon.co.uk still gives me the jitters. However, Ebay sellers take their feedback-ratings rather more seriously. But I digress. The postman rang the bell this morning with no fewer than 3 envelpes for me: 32MB SD card, all the way from Hongkong: check. Kingston Travellite USB card reader (backwards compatible with USB 1.1): check. Proporta Probackup 64MB MultiMedia Card: check.
Ah, Probackup…
This review is basically a long-winded description of how easy it is to run this program/device: stick the card into the slot (select your language) and click on ‘backup’ or ‘restore’ (if you have lost your data). That’s all.
Sounds too good to be true? —It is. How could it be otherwise?
My card threw up a dialogue box: ‘could not open backup directory’ but nowhere was there any mention of what that directory was or how I could open it myself. Nowhere on the internet was there any advise or information about what that meant. And Proporta have moved on and no longer maintain the http://www.proporta.com/support website.
Although the card is recognized by the Palm, there are some scratches on the contacts. It may be that the software is compromised. It may be that I have to do something to the Palm to make it read the card properly. I don’t know, and the Palm manual is 58 MB thick, which is why I haven’t downloaded it onto this computer. The m125 might be incompatible with Probackup, but I doubt that. I hear whisperings that the 32MB card, rather than the 64 MB card, should be used for the older Palms, because the 64MB card was initially targeted at PocketPC users, but there is nothing on the Proporta website to suggest this. This device is still available to order new, so I may have to do that.
And the other stuff? It turns out that I can’t save to my 32MB card either, the ‘SD Card’ option does not pop up in the category menu when accessed from Wordsmith. It is therefore likely that the Palm is going wrong. Well, what did I expect from the thing? Now I can wait until late tonight when John comes home with his laptop with all the software and manuals on it. Grrr. But at least there may be resolution the. Maybe.
PS Note: The older Palms (inc. m125) do not intrinsically recognize SD cards of 128MB or greater! A patch to enable them to do so is installed via the desktop software, but if you wipe the memory on the road, this patch is wiped along with it so you obviously need a backup card of <128 MB!
According to this website, there are also problems with cards >32MB: although reading from the card is fine, copying to it isn’t. If the patch is installed correctly, I should still be OK for backup from it, unless the card is faulty. BTW note that there are ongoing problems with SanDisk cards of >128 MB.
Tags: computers and gadgets, Tag Index
Denni