upgrade issues
Last month, I was on the plane to Halifax when I opened my ancient Palm Pilot (m500, I think) to check that I had Dan's phone number with me (because he'd invited us to dinner on our last night of the trip), and lo, my ancient Palm Pilot was, effectively, dead. So I got Dan's number from the phone book while we were in the airport, and I figured I'd get a new PDA when we got back home.
On August 6, early in the morning, I ordered a Palm TX from Amazon. Yes, it's overkill for my purposes, but if I'm going to upgrade only ever six or seven years, I might as well aim high. And Amazon said they'd ship it on the thirteenth. I have no idea why they needed a full week to ship it (and the two books I ordered). (The old Palm was still vaguely functional as long as I charged it whenever I was within range of an electrical outlet and could cope with the lack of contrast in the screen.) Anyhow, the TX and the two books arrived Thursday morning. I read the basic instructions, started the three-hour charging process, loaded the software onto my computer (Mac G4 running OS 10.2.8), and went to work.
When I got home, I tried to sync the TX: no go. I plugged and replugged the USB cable into various ports, but I never got beyond error 16385, and Google wasn't very helpful. I tried the chat page for Google support, but they didn't know enough about Macs to help, and told me to use the phone line. I spent a long time (about 45 minutes, I think) on the phone with their support person going through a lot of the same stuff I'd already tried and some other stuff (removing the backup folder). She put me on hold for a couple of extended periods to get more information, but finally said she'd have to research it and would call me back Friday.
Meanwhile, I was impatient. So Friday morning I copied my Palm data onto the iBook that M uses, because that's running 10.4, and the sync worked immediately. I sighed deeply and thought it might be time to upgrade. (I've been postponing the upgrade because there are things I like better about 10.2-- or so I thought.) So I cloned the partition usually use for my boot disk and started to run the install-- which failed. Fortunately, the clone partition (which I'd actually tested) worked fine, so I wasn't entirely incapacitated. But I couldn't spend time bringing it back because I had to get to the office-- and home again to take the call from Palm support. (And yes, I tried syncing again running from the cloned partition; no go.)
Home again: Support calls me. We create and delete files and users and change the conduit settings for another 45 minutes or so-- to no avail. She says she'll escalate to the next level of support. I thank her and start to figure out how to organize my desk, which is a shambles from the various upgrade projects I've been trying for the last two days. In the process, I decide to change the port where the Palm sync cable is connected. And lo, the sync works. (Now, it's not that we didn't try changing ports. I tried myself before I called her, and it was one of the first things she told me to try. But we hadn't changed the files around yet at that point.
So now all I have to do is to finish the OS upgrade, right? Right. That can wait until Saturday.
So Saturday I verify the disk (which, according to the built-in utility is fine), and then I go to do the upgrade. And I can't find the disk. (My desk, you'll recall, is a shambles. So I do some minor de-shamblizing of my desk without turning up the disk, and I sigh deeply and decide to live my life a little.
Sunday morning I wake up early (well, I always wake up early) and go over to the computer. And there, right where I left it so I'd be able to find it easily in the messiness of my desk, is the install disk, sitting in solitary splendor on top of the printer. Sigh. I take a deep breath and run the install. Which runs smoothly and completes. Restarting is a little slow, but not especially problematic. And then I have to run all the updates to bring it to 10.4.10, and that works smoothly, and syncing the palm works, and there's no trouble with the network, and I am a very happy camper.
And, so far at least, I'm much happier running 10.4.10 than I was running 10.2.8. Oh well. But I'd much rather have spent the weekend at motsscon.
On August 6, early in the morning, I ordered a Palm TX from Amazon. Yes, it's overkill for my purposes, but if I'm going to upgrade only ever six or seven years, I might as well aim high. And Amazon said they'd ship it on the thirteenth. I have no idea why they needed a full week to ship it (and the two books I ordered). (The old Palm was still vaguely functional as long as I charged it whenever I was within range of an electrical outlet and could cope with the lack of contrast in the screen.) Anyhow, the TX and the two books arrived Thursday morning. I read the basic instructions, started the three-hour charging process, loaded the software onto my computer (Mac G4 running OS 10.2.8), and went to work.
When I got home, I tried to sync the TX: no go. I plugged and replugged the USB cable into various ports, but I never got beyond error 16385, and Google wasn't very helpful. I tried the chat page for Google support, but they didn't know enough about Macs to help, and told me to use the phone line. I spent a long time (about 45 minutes, I think) on the phone with their support person going through a lot of the same stuff I'd already tried and some other stuff (removing the backup folder). She put me on hold for a couple of extended periods to get more information, but finally said she'd have to research it and would call me back Friday.
Meanwhile, I was impatient. So Friday morning I copied my Palm data onto the iBook that M uses, because that's running 10.4, and the sync worked immediately. I sighed deeply and thought it might be time to upgrade. (I've been postponing the upgrade because there are things I like better about 10.2-- or so I thought.) So I cloned the partition usually use for my boot disk and started to run the install-- which failed. Fortunately, the clone partition (which I'd actually tested) worked fine, so I wasn't entirely incapacitated. But I couldn't spend time bringing it back because I had to get to the office-- and home again to take the call from Palm support. (And yes, I tried syncing again running from the cloned partition; no go.)
Home again: Support calls me. We create and delete files and users and change the conduit settings for another 45 minutes or so-- to no avail. She says she'll escalate to the next level of support. I thank her and start to figure out how to organize my desk, which is a shambles from the various upgrade projects I've been trying for the last two days. In the process, I decide to change the port where the Palm sync cable is connected. And lo, the sync works. (Now, it's not that we didn't try changing ports. I tried myself before I called her, and it was one of the first things she told me to try. But we hadn't changed the files around yet at that point.
So now all I have to do is to finish the OS upgrade, right? Right. That can wait until Saturday.
So Saturday I verify the disk (which, according to the built-in utility is fine), and then I go to do the upgrade. And I can't find the disk. (My desk, you'll recall, is a shambles. So I do some minor de-shamblizing of my desk without turning up the disk, and I sigh deeply and decide to live my life a little.
Sunday morning I wake up early (well, I always wake up early) and go over to the computer. And there, right where I left it so I'd be able to find it easily in the messiness of my desk, is the install disk, sitting in solitary splendor on top of the printer. Sigh. I take a deep breath and run the install. Which runs smoothly and completes. Restarting is a little slow, but not especially problematic. And then I have to run all the updates to bring it to 10.4.10, and that works smoothly, and syncing the palm works, and there's no trouble with the network, and I am a very happy camper.
And, so far at least, I'm much happier running 10.4.10 than I was running 10.2.8. Oh well. But I'd much rather have spent the weekend at motsscon.