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Handhelds Hardware

Cell Phone Syncing w/ Your PC or PDA? 108

Posted by Cliff from the you'd-hate-to-have-to-reenter-all-those-numbers dept.
IPSection asks: "I have been looking for a way to sync my PDA or Outlook to my cell phone (a Panasonic EBTX210). The serial data cable didn't come with any software (of course) and the only commercial solution I see is software called FoneSynch from Paragon Software (Windows only). Is there any free/shareware software for Windows/Linux that allows this functionality? Come on all you cell phone users - don't tell me you type in all of those numbers manually?" We've handled this question in a couple of earlier articles before, however there doesn't seem to be an all-in-one utility that once can use to extract your messages/address-book from your phone (or to allow you to set your phone from your PIM, for example). Many utilities focus on a specific line of phones (like Gnokii, which only works on Nokia phones) and others only work if your phone supports GSM or CPDP. If no all-in-one solution exists, what utilities have you found useful in keeping it all together?
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Cell Phone Syncing w/ Your PC or PDA? More

Cell Phone Syncing w/ Your PC or PDA?

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  • Syncing Software (Score:2, Informative)

    by TrollMan 5000 ( 454685 )
    I have a Motorola Timeport, and it came with TrueSync syncing software on CD-ROM. Needless to say, I loaded it immediately.

    I wonder if other phones come with similar software in the box?
    • I use readysyncgo [readysyncgo.com]. it syncs palm and outlook (which syncs with my CE device), has some kind of cell phone support (maybe wap or something, I don't have a cell phone), and for linux use it has online pim/calendar/contact etc viewing/editing. it's a free service, it's handy.

    • I have a Motorola Timeport, and it came with TrueSync syncing software on CD-ROM. Needless to say, I loaded it immediately

      Me too. Unbelievably, this software is windoze only! I have a Mac. Hello, *Motorola*, you supply processors for which computer now?!?!?

      Fortunately Virtual PC works, though, so I can use my precious Mac.

    • The Nokia 7160 does. It's Windows-only, though.

  • Easy! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Matts ( 1628 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2001 @09:48AM (#2255385) Homepage
    Both have infra red. Just enable infra red reception on your phone (mine is at "Menu/Infra Red") send out your address book from your Palm pilot, and point the two at each other.

    Seriously this works. It uses vCard IIRC so the format is compatible between the two, and it just works. At least it did between my Nokia 8210 and my Palm V.

    Oh, you don't have infra red??? Sorry, maybe someone else will answer :-)

    • I do the same with my Nokia 8210 and Psion Revo Plus. The Revo also synchroinises with Outlook on my desktop so I guess there is scope there for synching all 3, but I haven't tried it.

      The Revo also worked with an Ericsson T10 with an IR adapter.

      john

    • Not easy. They both don't have infrared. The Panasonic EBTX210 does not have infrared.
    • Quick search on google (for IRDA serial port)comes up with: Decros IRDA [decros.com] Seems like fundamentally, that should get you there.

  • Nomad (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05, 2001 @09:48AM (#2255386)
    For Nokia phones (certain popular models only) there is a great free add-in for Outlook 2000 (or XP) that seamlessly synch's your contacts and calendar entries.

    It's at http://www.snowvalley.com/nomad/ [snowvalley.com].

  • Confused (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 )
    I have been looking for a way to sync my PDA or Outlook to my cell phone...for Windows/Linux

    If you are syncing up to outlook, your talking about a windows-only need.
    Your PDA might be another thing, but if its outlook you are worried about, then you aren't asking the right question...
    • gasp...could it be that...gasp again...some people have to use windows at work or in one place, and get to use a different os in...gasp...another place?

  • windows millenium (Score:2, Informative)

    by mecran01 ( 41962 )
    I've noticed that windows millenium (gag) comes with some sort of phonesync software.

  • Nokia 8290.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Nexx ( 75873 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2001 @09:49AM (#2255390)
    My Nokia 8290 can get information off of my Palm III through its IR port. There're a few problems, though. First, only the last name seems to get transferred. Second, it only grabs the first phone number of the address record. Finally, you have to transfer them one at a time (as far as I can tell). It got to be a problem enough that I don't quite use it that often anymore.

  • If you have infrared.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by jchristopher ( 198929 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2001 @09:50AM (#2255395)
    If you have an infrared enabled PDA, you can often sync it with your phone using the infrared port.

    Quite a few of the GSM phones have built in or add on infrared ports, and there are lots of Palm / PocketPC tools to talk to them using this interface.

    Try running a search for "phone" on Palmgear.com [palmgear.com]. You can sync the phone numbers, and also compose ringtones and SMS messages on your PDA then upload them to the phone.

    • the EB-TX210 [panasonic.ca] looks like a pretty cool phone. but does it have infared, couldn't see it.
    • My gadget-happy collegue was ecstatic when he waved his Nokia Communicator near to a laptop running Windows 2000.
      The laptop reported that it had found a Luxury Mobile Phone.
    • I recently bought myself the Motorola Timeport 250 (Euro model), 3 band phone, only to find that the I-R capability was lousy. Not only is there no way to use the I-R port to beam numbers off, I have never been able to get it to successfully sync with my Handspring Visor or portable computer. A friend of mine has a Nokia phone and this will quite happily transfer phone numbers both ways between it and my Handspring Visor ( didn't try with my portable ). Given this I feel that Motorola still needs to work on its I-R capability.

      Given this I am not going to dump my phone, because it still serves its purpose and I can put up with copying numbers by hand, at least for the moment. BTW the European GSM phones tend to look better than those that we get over in N. America and they also tend to be smaller.

      • I recently bought myself the Motorola Timeport 250 (Euro model), 3 band phone, only to find that the I-R capability was lousy. Not only is there no way to use the I-R port to beam numbers off, I have never been able to get it to successfully sync with my Handspring Visor or portable computer.

        Well I've got the same phone and I disagree, you can quite easily beam the numbers off using the simple command line tools distributed with GSMlib, see http://www.pxh.de/fs/gsmlib/ [www.pxh.de]. From there its a simple shell script away from my PalmIII using pilot-link, see http://www.gnu-designs.com/pilot-link/ [gnu-designs.com]. Going in the reverse direction is just as easy.

        I've not had any trouble at all using the IR on the phone to talk to either my laptop, Plam or FIR module on my desktop.

        Al.

  • A great solution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kurowski ( 11243 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2001 @09:52AM (#2255406) Homepage
    I've found this awesome way of keeping my cell phone and PDA in sync:
    (the poster mentioned something called Outlook, too: what's that?)

    Buy your phone. When you call someone, look up their number in your PDA, then save it after dialing them. When someone calls you, save their number from the caller ID record. When someone changes their number, just change it on both the phone and PDA.

    I've had both a Palm and a cell phone for about five years, and the above method has worked incredibly well for me, even with many of my friends moving around all the time due to graduating from college, getting laid off, and so on. The point is, 10, 20, even 30 digits of fairly static information just isn't that hard to keep in sync manually.

    I've yet to find a good software solution that saves me more time than it wastes through lost data.

  • TrueSync software allows you to sync your cellphone with a PDA or a Yahoo calendar/address book account.

    TrueSync is a windows program, but you can obviously read yahoo on your Unix box.

    • You can sync other devices with this, too. You can sync many different phones, PDA's, PIMs (Outlook and some others), and Yahoo and / or Excite. It's been a while since I've used it, but they may have added more.

  • Ive been using my nokia 8290 and my visor deluxe to connect to the net for the last few months. I dont need to use a serial cable because the visor and the phone connect via infared. So i can /. on the go or do whatever..

    Here is debian.org on my visor [unixfoo.ath.cx]. Im using palmscape for browsing.

    if you have a 8290 and a visor deluxe, somebody wrote a guide [umbc.edu] on howto get them to work together.
    • Just curious about that Debian scrrenshot: on my palm VIIx, the infrared port is on the top of the palm, not the side...

      Is the infrared port on the side of the visor?

      If there is one fact that seems to be clear in this discussion, Nokia phones rock.
    • Ive been using my nokia 8290 and my visor deluxe to connect to the net for the last few months. I dont need to use a serial cable because the visor and the phone connect via infared. So i can /. on the go or do whatever..
      [...]
      if you have a 8290 and a visor deluxe, somebody wrote a guide [umbc.edu] on howto get them to work together.

      And while you're at it, turn your palm into a mobile POP-talking email client totally indepent of your desktop. Get "Top Gun Postman" by Ian Goldberg, which is a small freeware system utility enabling you to query your POP mail server while using the internal palm mail application for browsing. My palmIII couldn't do that out of the box (at least I didn't figure out how :) ).

      Because your internal gsm modem won't make more than 9600 (unless you got GPRS) it would be useful to use a separate email. I filter the inbox on my "main" account and forward all mails from a specified sender (VIP, boss...) to that "cellphone" mail account (after truncating it of possible attachments). Adds some pretty nifty features to this palmIII-nokia8210 combo.

    • There are alot of PalmOS applications that you will find on the net that will turn your palm/visor into a little workstation.

      lftp [palmgear.com]- Ftp client for the palm.
      Torpedo [palmgear.com] - html editor (use lftp to upload these pages)
      mMail [palmgear.com] - the best pop3 email client for the palm
      ptelnet [palmgear.com] - telnet client
      PalmIRC [palmgear.com] - Palm irc client
      TopGun ssh [offshore.com.ai] - ssh client
      Palm httpd [umich.edu] - httpd for palm

      There is a large number of palm apps at http://palmgear.com if you are in search of some.

      Visorcentral.com has alot of good info regarding handspring visors.

  • SynchML phones (Score:3, Informative)

    by shri ( 17709 ) <shriramc@gREDHATmail.com minus distro> on Wednesday September 05, 2001 @09:53AM (#2255415) Homepage
    Keep your eyes open for SyncML [syncml.org] phones like the Ericsson T39 [ericsson.com]. Looks like a pretty cool standard and fairly open...
  • that's one of the things i really like: i synchronize PC address book and palm address book using KPilot, and then palm and my siemens S25 using DI27 and IR port... same database everywhere, and windows nowhere :))

  • After looking for ages for a shareware solution, i discovered that nokia released their own software (Nokia Mobile Internet kit) that i got online in OZ from dick smith for around A$60 - thats $30 for u americans - it is just software that you install via hotsync to your palm & it lets me mail, sms & surf the web from my palmIII via an infrared connection with a (Nokia of course) 6210 or 7110 (not sure what other models are supported - prolly 8810 is) - it is a lot better than trying to surf on a mobile phone screen via WAP and it does work on some non-infrared phones by buying a cable.
    I got this a while ago when it was first released here so ive forgotten the exact details but all you need to know is up on the nokia web site www.nokia.com [nokia.com]

    Hope this helps - btw: it is a pain trying to type out mail on the palm, and it can make for a costly mobile phone bill as this connection is only 9600 bps & it can take a while if some1 has sent u mail with a large attachment
    • The 6210 will give you 14.4 if you're on a service provider which supports dual line data (like Orange in the UK). It's still pretty crappy but it'll do until Nokia gets GPRS working. (Don't go for a Motorola Ti260, trust me)
  • you look for the pdas and the phones documentations, then you buy the right combination.

    I enjoyed some time Revo + S25 (siemens).
    The S25 is one of the 4 model specially validated to work with the revo (with a motorola and 2 nokia).

    Perhaps it's too much an european solution for you, but it had good Outlook sync for the Revo, and IR sync of phone number with phone.

    Now, I broke the screen of the revo, reverted to palm, and want to change my phone (the battery begin to be old, and the phone stay on only 3 days;).

    Further more, I don't know if choosinbg some psion pda is a good bet on the future.

    It depends of your usage, and of your previsible usage, but I consider a phone is kept max 2 years, and a pda max 3 years. So, choose today some PDA you want to still have when you change phone, and then, choose a compatible phone.

  • Note: KDE has support for some PIM/cellphones (Score:3, Informative)

    by hardaker ( 32597 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2001 @10:01AM (#2255459) Homepage
    KDE has a kdepim-cellphone set of tools. I, unfortuantely, don't have a cellphone smart enough to use it so I didn't install it. Here's the rpm package info though:

    rpm -qip kdepim-cellphone-2.2-1.i386.rpm
    [Stuff deleted to get around the slashdot lameness filter] BR>
    Packager : Red Hat, Inc.

    URL : http://www.kde.org

    Summary : KDE support for synchronizing data with cellphones.

    Description :

    KDE support for synchronizing data with cellphones.
  • Get the TrueSync Installer here [starfish.com]. I'm using it to sync a Handspring, Yahoo!, the Palm Desktop, Lotus Notes and Outlook 2000 all at once, and there are modules for about a dozen or more phones you can install.
  • I use a Kyocera Smartphone [kyocera-wireless.com] combination cell phone and palm pilot, and love it. I only carry one device instead of two, and can use all of the Palm tools (e.g. jpilot [jpilot.org] and the like) to edit the data for both the phone and the palm.
    • I also have the Kyocera 6035. It's fantastic (could be slightly smaller). Good screen; voice memo; web browser / internet enabled. And all the other goodies that palm software can provide.

  • Use kermit (Score:4, Redundant)

    by JeffL ( 5070 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2001 @10:06AM (#2255484) Homepage

    I was looking around for something to allow me to manage the phone book in my Ericsson R280L. I tried Kandy [kde.org], part of KDE, but it didn't work well enough to do what I wanted. I finally just converted my address book from my palm into text, copied the numbers I wanted into emacs and created a list that looks like:

    at+cpbw=11,"18002224357",,"AAANational"

    at+cpbw=12,"18882583741",,"AmericanExpress"

    I connected to the phone with kermit and made sure it was ready to talk, and then ran something like

    foreach i (`cat phonenumberlist`)

    echo $i > /dev/ttyS0
    sleep 1
    end
    The sleep 1 is important, because the phone couldn't take entries any faster. A friends Motorolla could connect over IR, but it needed sleep 5 after each entry.

    Managing my phone list with emacs, sed, awk, and sort turned out to be much simpler than doing it with some click happy windows program I tried. I think it was TrueSync, or something that I got from Yahoo to synch my palm with Yahoo calendar. It claimed to be able to sync to my phone, but it only had two modes of operation, do nothing, and erase all numbers in the phone.

    • Cool! How did you figure out the syntax? I want to do something similar.

      • I used this manual [ericsson.se] for an Ericsson R320AT GSM phone. My phone certainly isn't a GSM phone, but the address book commands seem to work.

        The commands also worked on my friend's Motorolla, which is a GSM phone. On that one, we needed to send an AT+CPBS="ME" to tell the phone to use the numbers stored in the phone, as opposed to those stored in the sim card.

        BTW, I had to run unix2dos on the phonebooklist file in my previous message, because the phone expects lines to be terminated with a CRLF, instead of the Unix LF only.

      • Re:Use kermit (Score:3, Informative)

        by dannywyatt ( 175432 )
        If you have an Ericsson phone, we publish AT command references for many of them at:

        http://www.ericsson.com/mobilityworld/ [ericsson.com] in the "Open Zone" area.

        (Full disclosure: I'm Lead Technologist for Ericsson Mobility World USA.)
      • For my samsung phone, I wrote a perl script that tried about 500,000 ATXXXXX commands and kept track of which ones didn't return "ERROR" :)

        I used "strings" on some windows binaries to find good starting places of AT strings to try on the phone. (i.e. ATPAAA throught ATPZZZ, etc.).
    • They used to say all editors evolve until they can send e-mail. Now you tell us that EMACS can make phone calls. This leads us to ponder future developments.

      Well, I've seen The Matrix, and I reckon there's no way vi can put us all in pods with wires in the back of our heads, so I'm sticking with that for the moment.
  • You can download some quite excellent free (as in beer) software from Yahoo made by Starfish (remember Borland???). It's called TrueSync.

    http://www.starfish.com/private/yahoo/yahoo_ov.htm l [starfish.com]

    I use it to synchronize: Outlook (yeah, yeah, yeah, it's for work), Pilot, Yahoo Calendar, Yahoo address book and StarTAC phone. It's Win32 but has lots and lots of available modules.

  • I sync my Siemens M35i phonebook with the phonebook in my Handspring Visor. I use GSMtool [gsmtool.com]. Works great. With it you can send SMS from your PDA as well.

    I do not use Infrared since those phones are more expensive. Besides, I don't like them that much because you have to put both devices at a certain distance. The Visor has its IR LED on the left side so that makes it more difficult to point to a phone which typically has its LED at the top.

    So I bought a serial (or rather TTL level) cable from Ubishop [ubishop.de]. With it I can hookup the Visor to the Siemens and leave the Siemens in my coat's pocket.

    Last week I did a Modem Sync to my home PC using the cellphone's modem. I intend to buy a CompactFlash card for backups. It needs a driver (not present in the Visor's ROM) so after a crash I just have to Modem Sync the driver program (20 KB) and then restore the backup from flash.

  • TrueSync software works with many [starfish.com] different devices and programs:

    • Outlook (and 5 other desktop organinizers)
    • Motorola, Ericsson, and Nokia phones
    • Palm OS PDAs, Wince devices, SyncML-enabled devices, and several others
    • Yahoo's PIM website, Excite@Home's PIM website (however long that's gonna stick around), etc...
  • My Ericsson T39 [ericsson.com] sends and recieves names with nary a problem from Palms (and Handsprings, Clies, etc) over IrDA.

    The key improvement they made over previous phones seems to be implementing vCard [imc.org] standard for contacts - every name on my phone can have up to four numbers assigned, as well as an email address and postal address.

    vCard (and the successor iCard) allows some intelligence when sending data between different systems - rather than relying on hard-coded rules such as "take the first number only," it can extract all X numbers when the receiving system supports them, or only the most important number. For example, you may decide that the home phone number is the "primary" way to reach a contact, and set that as the one which should be transferred to a system which only supports one number.

    FWIW, the T39 also comes with a really slick calendar. The calendar uses the vCal standard, so depending on how obscure the transport protocol is, it should be pretty easy for someone to grab the data from the phone via serial/IR/BlueTooth and sync it with a Linux app which supports vCard/vCal.

  • There are too many different companies selling different cell phones for different countries to have a general solution.

    First point:
    Synchronisation should always work with Infrared (for your convenience) so the cell phone should have Infrared.
    Of the big cell phone companies that I know, Nokia and Siemens include Infrared with most of their new models. And the top models also come with a cd-rom to manage your cell phone phonebook from your pc and synchronize it with Outlook, Lotus Notes,etc...
    Unfortunately, the software is (afaik for Siemens and Nokia) only for Windows. There also exists tons of shareware and freeware for Windows and cell phones (again regarding to Siemens and Nokia).
    Synchronizing with your palm should not be a problem, either, if you have Infrared (on the phone). There is some good palm software to manage that.

    My suggestion: Buy a new phone ;-)
  • Just wait a month and get samsung's [samsungusa.com] I300 palm phone, then you won't need to sync your phone & pda because they'll be the same, and since it's palm, it will sync with linux. Kyocera [kyocera.com] also has a palm phone which is dual mode (the samsung is PCS only).

  • Out of luck at the moment (Score:4, Informative)

    by barnaclebarnes ( 85340 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2001 @10:16AM (#2255517) Homepage
    The reason why there is no size fits all solution is that all phones support different standards. You have to find the best fit for your particular phone (if one even exists). The situation will get better in the next year or 2 when all phones will start supporting syncML which is a standard for syncing data (Calender (vCal) and address book (vCard) info only at the moment).

    So you first need to look for a product that will either sync Outlook -> Phone or Palm -> Phone and another product that supports Palm -> Outlook. So lets look at these one by one...

    Outlook -> Phone: I think there are a couple of options here. All products at the moment sync via a serail cradle or IR port. Look on the web for your phone and sync software, i'm sure you find something.

    Palm -> Phone: Again a couple of options but it depends on your phone, note my experience with this software has been a little flaky. Make sure you have a backup of your palm first as you could end up with a bunch of dups. I tend not to use this software but just beam contacts to my phone aas I need them (I have a Nokia 7110 which supports multiple phone numbers per entry). The problem is getting those drunken 'girl at bar' numbers back to my PDA, I end up just trping them in the next morning if can remeber her name... ;)

    Palm -> Outlook: Well all PDA's seem to sync with outlook out of the box but if you want some decent software the go with some like Intellisync (plug, plug...) It offers better conflict resolution, filtering and more advanced features.

    Those are your options right now. In the next year or 2 you will have true multi point sync up to a central web store where you can keep all devices in sync, filtered, conflicts resolved and applications on whatever device you happen to be carrying....but thats still a couple of years off before it gets really useful.

    /b
  • My silly little perl script, "SAMBRU [dyndns.org]" (SAMsung Backup and Restore Utility) can pull data out of a samsung 6100/8500 Sprint PCS phone, and save it in vcard format, which can then be read into gnome-card, which can then be exported to your Pilot... I always wanted to write a palm app to do it directly, never got around to it.

  • VisorPhone (Score:2, Informative)

    by dchamp ( 89216 )
    Handspring [handspring.com] is clearing out their VisorPhones... you can buy one (with a service plan) for $49. Or you get one FREE if you buy a new Visor.


    If you've never seen one, it's a Springboard module that plugs into the back of a Handspring Visor (Palm Pilot clone), turning it into a GSM cell phone.


    I got one last week. It's pretty nifty to be able to dial any phone # out of my visor address book. I haven't tried the wireless browser yet... but you can surf the web, even run a SSH on it from anywhere you can get your PCS signal.


    -dc

  • It's the best thing I've seen so far in this category...it's a monthly pay service, but is far better put together than most products of its type. It supports phones, PDAs, PCs, and even provides you a web desktop to all that information.

    FusionOne [fusionone.com]
  • I've used Phonefile [pipistrel.com] and it works really well. You take the SIM card out of your phone, put it in a floppy disk type thing and bung it into your disk drive.

    Works a treat on Windoze. Not sure about Linux support though.

    Oh, and it's not free but it means you won't have to worry if you change your phone / PDA / underpants
  • Along the same lines, has anybody ever seen software that will sync a cellphone to a Mac? It will definitely influence my next cellphone purchase.

    - j
  • If you're interesting in looking at some java source that hooks outlook to a Nokia phone, check out this month's issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal (http://www.ddj.com). Starting on page 73 of the Sept 2001 issue, the article lays out the entire design of the system. Depends on some outlook components though...so windows only. Here's the source: http://www.ddj.com/ftp/2001/2001_09/mphones.txt

    It's a nice read, even if it's not THAT helpful.
  • Why not combine your cell phone and PDA in one convenient package? I got tired of toting around all the bits and pieces for both and got a Visorphone. It integrates it all painlessly.

    Even that will be trailing edge tech by Xmas. Look for all the major players to come out with some spiffy, new combination PDA/phones with a good form factor.

  • I have been using FusionOne's PhoneSync to sync all my contacts into my Palm and my Nokia 6185.. their software seems to work with a heck of a lot of phones out there, unfortunately they stopped offering their service to joe consumer and are now doing wholesale to wireless carriers...
  • Check out TrueSync Plus.



    I use Excite as my portal, and when you click on the "My Reminders" title, it will take you to an online calendar/contacts list. Search around, and there's a link to TrueSync there.



    TrueSync will also synch with my Outlook, my Palm, my iPaq and my Motorola Timeport cell phone. Now, I update one, and everything's immediately updated (also great for synching my work and home calendars with my iPaq).

  • All your good old GSM cell phones speaks a rather hefty AT command set. The modem manual for the R320 (early wap phone) at Ericsson's developer area is over 300 pages long. You can basically explore the phone's entire funtionality through the command set.

    Connect to your phone through a terminal emulator using either the IR COM port or a serial cable and COM1. Do the AT dance.

    BTW:
    You can shorten your connect time for a PPP based GSM data channel from 30 to 15 seconds by using an ISDN modem. This will not improve your bandwidth, only shorten the link setup time.
    Do
    AT+CBST=71,0,1
    before you dial your ISDN modem.
    Some networks can only hook up to an ISDN modem that is set to the older V1.10 standard. Check your local manual.
    The time from ATDxxx to CONNECT is usually 4 seconds. The rest of the connect time is PPP negotiation stuff.

    For what it's worth.
  • Now, in fact I don't really sync them as I only keep a few numbers on my phone, and mostly use the psion to dial a land line.

    But, there is great software called PhoneManPro [sgsoftware.com] that you can use to manipulate the phone from the Psion. Not only can you edit the phone book, (or import from CSV etc) but it also lets you send SMS messages, edit the ringtones, etc. all of which is about 2000% easier with a Psion 5 keyboard!

  • Linux and gsmlib (Score:3, Informative)

    by PatJensen ( 170806 ) on Wednesday September 05, 2001 @12:09PM (#2256032) Homepage
    Under Linux, you can use the gsmlib package. It includes synchronization, messaging, communication and debugging tools and is quite mature. It has support for almost every GSM phone that has serial or infrared capabilities.

    From freshmeat:
    GSMLIB is a library to access GSM mobile phones through GSM modems. Features include: modification of phonebooks stored in the mobile phone or on the SIM card, reading and writing of SMS messages stored in the mobile phone, sending and reception of SMS messages.

    Get it at http://freshmeat.net/projects/gsmlib/ [freshmeat.net].

    -Pat



  • My siemens S40 can sync to either a PDA or MS Outlook (for addresses, business cards/etc) via IR or serial.

    The software to accomplish this is included with the phone.

  • um, dunno if it has a version on *nix, but it syncs my Motorola Startac with my Sony Clie and my Outlook/Exchange. Also can sync a variety of other devices as well... runs through serial, IR, or USB.
  • Nextels are about the easiest I have run into. CSV format. Outlook and most other contact books I have run across allow exporting to CSV format. Then you just upload it to the special spot on the website and WHOLLA! In your phones contacts. Requires web access service on the phone though.
  • They've got an awesome service (Win only, unfortuately) that allows you to sync just about anything (bookmarks, files, contacts, datebook) between any number of devices (including phones, PDA's, PIM Software, and their Web Desktop product).

    Check them out @ fusionone.com
  • Designtechnica.com will be doing a review of the new Motorola Timeport 270 cell phone. This phone can be used as a PDA and uses Bluetooth technology to sync your computer with the phone. Make sure to look for it on www.designtechnica.com. As Far as I know, this is the only phone to use bluetooth technology in the U.S. so far.
  • Cellular Digital Packet Data = CDPD...
  • I have all 3. With the Timeport came with software called 'truesync' which actually allows me to sync all three. The timeport and clie connect up through usb (actually, timeport is serial w/ serial-to-usb converter). I then just hit the sync button and it all syncs up. Pretty nifty.

    This is a feature I've always wanted... it's pure convenience. Sadly, though, it doesn't work under anything not windows... especially since the Clie doesn't have linux usb support quite yet. In any case, though, this is the best solution to the business traveler who needs to have numbers handy no matter what device (s)he has in front of him/her.

  • online sync'er (Score:2, Informative)

    by RoufTop ( 94425 )
    I don't know how long they're going to remain in business, but check out Fusion One [fusionone.com]. They have an online program meant to keep different mobile devices synchronized.

    Good luck!
  • Over the next few months new cel phones should all be syncML enabled. This will mean one will be able to write a component for outlook or evo, to sync contacts/todo/calendar on a master db on the Internet, like fusionone or Yahoo, and sync the cel phone with it. http://www.syncml.org

  • Smart Messaging (Score:5, Informative)

    by lizrd ( 69275 ) <adam.bump@us> on Wednesday September 05, 2001 @04:10PM (#2257381) Homepage
    If your phone supports smart messaging (Most newer ones do) you may be able to make some use of that. Smart Messaging was developed by Nokia, but it's being used by other phone makers as well. Guessing from the fact that you have a Panasonic EBTX210 phone you probably have service from some flavor of AT&T so you should be able to order text messaging service which you will need to take advantage of this.

    The exact formats of different messages can be found in the document stdma_sm.pdf which you can download from the nokia smart messaging page [nokia.com]. To actually download anything you need to give them an e-mail address and click on a disclaimer, so I can't link directly to the file. There are also a lot of other very good documents on that page.

    For the purpose of providing some sort of answer to your question, the thing that you are most likely to want to do is send names and numbers from your PC to your phone. The format used is basically equivalent to vCard with ASCII armor and some extra headers. Your business card messages will start with the header segment
    //SCKLwwww23F4xxyyzz
    where //SCKL signals the beginning of Smart Messaging data, wwww signals the origination port (doesn't matter what you use as long as it's a 4 digit hex number and it's the same for all parts of your message), 23F4 is the port on which the vCard receiver listens, xx is a reference number which must be common to all parts of your message, yy is the total number of parts in the message and zz is the sequence number.

    As an example we'll say that you want to send to your phone a number for somone named AAA whose number is 1234567890. The vCard will look like this:
    BEGIN:VCARD
    N:AAA
    TEL:1234567890
    END:VCARD
    This has to be converted to ASCIIhex to be sent to the phone, to the vCard data turns into:
    424547494E3A56434152440D0A4E3A4141410D0A54454C3A31 3233343536373839300D0A454E443A56434152440D0A
    Now we can split this into two separate SMS messages so that it can be sent to the phone. They're going to look like this:
    //SCKL23F423F4990201 424547494E3A56434152440D0A4E3A4141410D0A54454C3A31
    //SCKL23F423F4990202 3233343536373839300D0A454E443A56434152440D0A
    Given this information it should be pretty trivial to write an application which sends this data to your phone's e-mail address, but I have yet to see a decent one for either Windows or Linux. Maybe I'll write one later if I get to feeling bored.

    In other nifty fun with SMS you might want to look at the shell script [binhost.com] I wrote which sends the subject and from lines of incoming e-mail to your phone via a web to SMS gateway.

    I'm not sure how well I've answered the poster's question, but I hope that I've added a little bit of information that someone finds interesting.

  • You could always look into the solution I found - a Visorphone. Not right for everyone, especially people who do road trips or otherwise get out of range for the digital service the VP supports, but it sure beats doing any work getting phone numbers between your cell phone and your PDA.

  • You can find it at http://www.extendsys.com/ESI/default.htm It works with Palm, CE, and Epoc, and has conduits for Exchange and Notes. Cool thing is it's multiuser. You can run it on a central machine on a network. I have a Kyocera Smartphone. I can sync my stuff from the freeway. Dial into the network and off it goes. Very cool.
  • There is one product, called SoftGSM, suitable for managing of phone numbers,writing, receiving and archiving SMS. It also works as a software modem over GSM - only 9600 bps (or 14400) - according to capability of GSM network, which is not very much for serious browsing, but for checking e-mail while travelling it is enough.

    Check the list of supported phones on their page - www.softgsm.com

    But the software is only for Win or MacOS 9. No Linux at the moment.

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