20071223
Safely upgrading PalmOS for the Treo
Palm recently had an update available for the Treo 680 that nearly scared me to death last night when the USB port on the older computer I use to sync with my PDA. Supposedly this update should improve battery life. (Tip: Hop onto eBay and look for a battery with double or more charge storage. The inital battery stores at least 1200 mAh (milliAmpere-hours). For all you physics majors out there, that is about 4320 coulombs (1 coulomb = 1 Ampere-second). The electronics industry likes to use mAh.) While it might be true, it actually adds alot of crap software to your PDA.Flashing your PDA is RISKY, as previously entries will show.
But the people who wrote the instructions for the update wrote four different versions of the instructions.
So here is what you should do.
1. Sync your PDA. Back up everything first. Back up any third party programs to your SD card.
2. Find a spare SD card. You don't need a large SD card. A 256MB will do, though you'll only need about 20 MB. Do NOT use the same SD card that you store your stuff on. It needs to be blank. You can find a 256MB card down at Target for like $10.
3. Go to the Palm website where the update is. Read everything.
4. Use the IT instructions. When you get to this page, use the instructions for IT and Enterprise.
5. Download the update file, extract files to spare SD card. This step is listed in the IT instructions, but it is important to list here considering the following step.
6. Reboot the PDA. With NO SD card in the PDA at all (you can still leave your SIM card in the PDA), take the battery out and put it back in. (That is if you have a Treo 680).
7. Plug-in AC Adapter. You are going to need it plugged in for this operation.
8. Put in the SD card with the update program on it. It should start automatically, but if it doesn't go back to step 6 and perform a hard reset.
9. Follow the rest of the instructions on the website.
10. When the entire update process is complete, remove the other SD card with the update on it. Put it some place where you can use it again when the next update comes out.
11. Put the SD card you use for your stuff back in, but don't put the programs that need to be on your PDA back on the PDA. They may be reloaded after the next step.
10. Resync your PDA with your computer. After you since, reinstall any outstanding programs that may not have been put back after syncing.
What I can't believe is that this update DID NOT come with a Java VM.
I plan to have more stuff to talk about after the Holidays. Fall has been sort of a dry spell here at this website, and after reading some of my old archives, I realized that many of the things that I talked about doing an am able to do now and am ready to explain here in the new year. I would like to get some wiki entries wrtten up for Eclipse, Android, Treo, and syncing on Linux within the next month or so. These are promises I would like to keep as they are what people really want. Not some discount for some sudoku game. (I never liked sudoku. Crosswords are better.)
So until next time, Merry Christmas!
Labels: handhelds, palm, phone, scary
posted by Bushido Hacks 12/23/2007 03:52:00 PM
