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Wireless Loading


Fri Jul 25, 2003 - 4:35 PM EDT - By Michael Ducker

Download Everything!

Programs free and pay

The most obvious mobile download site is for programs. Currently Handango is the only company offering mobile downloads. However, they do not list free programs in this mobile website, and currently mobile downloads to Palm OS are disabled. I do not think that a store will survive unless they have the full selection of Palm OS products, free and pay. There are countless useful freeware palm apps.

An ideal mobile download site would be easily browsed and searchable. It would carry a full selection of free and pay applications. All downloads would be the Treo 600 specific versions; ideally you would only have to download the prc and necessary pdbs. The rest of the package could be emailed to you zipped up and complete with documentation and prcs for other devices. Immediately after you download the readme for the app should be displayed. Software developers that have a market for the Treo 600 should probably consider making a mobile version of their documentation, and link to it from the readme. In fact, with the Treo's native parsing of URLs, all applications should have mobile documentation available, linked from within the program. This method in my opinion is the best way to present mobile downloads to a user while providing both documentation and backup copies. I would be very pleased to see Handango or Palmgear to adopt this kind of solution.

Mobile Restore

In the same way that one might redownload a piece of software after a crash, having all your personal data available wirelessly also has a future. A Mobile backup/restore website would at the minimum automatically sync your backup folder on your computer, to a backup folder on the web. This backup folder on the web is than password protected, and accessible from Blazer. If you ever need your address book database for some reason, it is just a quick download to have. Simply this backup will make it easier for a user to restore parts of their device while away from the desktop.

But that is just the basics. A nicely designed site would offer the raw data for advanced users, but also parse it. What I mean is, is that a good site would know what most of the common files in a palm backup directory are, and convert them to plain English. So this time if you want your address book, you would just have to click Restore my address book and you would than be downloading the pdb. Another feature might be mobile hot syncing to this server or mobile backup of files (not as likely due to the slow speeds). Last of all, a good site would be able to turn your data (since they already have it) into web accessible and editable (with password) calendars, address books, and more. Apple iSync and their .mac service already do this, but not directly from the device.

To be fair, local backups can best be done on the go using the Treo 600's built in SD card slot and free backup software such as BlueNomad's BackupVFS. Making it mobile however lets the Treo 600 be in sync with the desktop comptuer while on the go, and not just a storage card.

Mobile Document Storage/Retrieval

How many times have you wanted a document that was stored on your computer while you were away? Wouldnt it be great if one could access the My Documents folder from the Treo and read the files in it? Of all the download possibilities posed, this is the only one that has been implemented well. Mobilefile by CES, Inc takes your My Documents folder and makes it accessible from the Treo. Using CES Incs Quickoffice you can natively read Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. As the Treo becomes more and more of a mobile office I feel this app will become more important. Mobilefile goes a bit farther and allows any palm database or program to be stored on your desktops hard drive and used. Mobilefile is a glimpse into what can happen in the future, and I strongly believe in what it does.

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