.KEYWORD memorycard
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT SURVEY
.TITLE Expansion card data and application management
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Since the release of the Palm m500 series, equipped with it’s own expansion slot, a number of applications have been created to manage applications and data on the expansion cards. Contributing Editor Chris Phillips provides a brief survey of what’s available to help you take better advantage of this valuable expansion technology.
.AUTHOR Chris Phillips
One of the first things I purchased for my Palm m505 was a 16MB MMC/SD (MultiMediaCard/Secure Digital) memory card. In order to free up memory, I copied several of the larger applications to the memory card. Since the built-in application manager doesn’t allow you to move (rather than copy) applications, I had to manually delete them from RAM once I had copied them to the card. Next, I launched one of the applications from the card. When I exited the application, I was very surprised to find that the application was still in RAM on my Palm m505. Now I had two copies of the same application, one on my Palm m505 and one on the memory card. This is not my idea of saving memory.
As it turns out, others encountered the same situation and have sought to correct it by developing programs that manage both applications and data on the expansion cards. Let’s look at a few of those applications.
.H1 WorkBench v.1.2
One of the first applications I ran across was WorkBench. WorkBench sells for $10 and can be found at http://www.toysoft-dev.com.
When you install and enable WorkBench, you choose one of the silkscreen icons as a shortcut (e.g., the Application icon). Then you can launch WorkBench at anytime by holding your stylus on this icon for more than one second. When you release your stylus, a menu will pop up, as shown in Figure A.
.FIG A The main WorkBench menu will pop up when you follow these directions.
With WorkBench, you can choose to work with files stored either in RAM or on an expansion card. WorkBench has a nice set of utilities that allow you to launch, copy, move, beam, or delete files from either RAM or the card. When you copy or move an application, you’re given the option to move just the application, just the data, or both. The first thing you will probably want to do is move some of the applications from RAM to the card so you can free up some memory on your Palm handheld. To do this, tap on RAM device. You will see a list of all applications stored in RAM, as shown in Figure B.
.FIG B You’ll be able to view a list of all files stored in RAM.
Please note that applications like Memo Pad and Address Book are built into the Palm handheld’s ROM (read-only memory). These are not applications that should be moved to an expansion card.
To work with an application, tap on its name. A menu will pop up giving you the option to launch the application, copy it to the card, move it to the card, beam the application, or delete the application. You can see this in Figure C. If you change your mind and don’t want to do anything, tap on close.
.FIG C You can launch, copy, move, beam, or delete an application.
Once you have moved a couple of applications to the memory card, you can then use WorkBench to launch them. To do this, restart WorkBench and choose the expansion card instead of RAM. This will bring up a list of all applications stored on the card. Tap on the name of an application and then tap launch. This will copy the application to RAM and start the application. Once you’re done with the application, it will automatically be removed from RAM by WorkBench.
.H1 PowerRUN
Another similar utility is PowerRUN. PowerRUN sells for $15 and can be downloaded at http://simple-palm.com.
This friendly site is presented in Japanese, with some rough English translations. The program and the site were both created by Yamada Tatsushi, who quite joyfully has given himself the nom de plume of "Hacker Dude-san".
PowerRUN offers many of the same features as WorkBench, including the ability to run, move, or delete applications. The big difference is that when you use PowerRUN to move an application from RAM to the expansion card, PowerRUN creates a shortcut icon in your application launcher. The shortcut icon looks almost identical to the original icon, except it has a small arrow in the lower left-hand corner, similar to a shortcut icon in Microsoft Windows.
.FIG D PowerRUN creates shortcuts that point to applications on the card.
When you want to run an application from the expansion card, you don’t have to access PowerRUN. Instead you just tap on the shortcut icon and PowerRUN loads the program into RAM. When you’re done using the application, PowerRUN also removes it from RAM automatically, leaving your RAM free for other things. The really cool part about this is that you can use your favorite launcher to organize the shortcuts to the applications on your expansion card just like you organize the applications stored in RAM.
This application is still in beta, so use it at your own risk.
.H1 McFile
McFile is a file management utility. Palm didn’t include a utility that will allow you to manage all the files on your expansion cards, so McFile was developed for that reason. McFile will allow you to see all of the directories and files on your expansion cards. You can then manipulate them in any way you wish, such as copying or moving files between your Palm OS handheld and your expansion card.
.FIG E McFile is a file manager for your Palm handheld.
As far as I can tell, McFile is freeware. The only site I could find it on was in another language at http://muchy.com/review/mcfile.html. Again, use this at your own risk.
.H1 Summary
These are all newly released programs that were written to take advantage of new technology, so they might not always work perfectly. In addition, they don’t all operate the same way. WorkBench stores files in the Launcher directory where the built-in applications program looks for them. But PowerRUN creates it’s own subdirectory, so if you use PowerRUN to move a file from RAM to your memory card, WorkBench won’t be able to find it.
There is no question that the memory expansion cards are a very cool feature of the newer Palm OS handhelds. The utilities in this article go a long way toward increasing the level of functionality you can expect from these cards.
Editor’s note: We just received another file management utility called FilePoint from Bachman Software. It appears to do some of what these other products are capable of. Stay tuned to future issues for a full review. — DG
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.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on WorkBench sells for $10 and can be found at http://www.toysoft-dev.com.
For more information on PowerRun, visit http://simple-palm.com.
For more information on McFile, visit http://muchy.com/review/mcfile.html.
For more information on FilePoint, visit http://www.bachmansoftware.com.
For more information about Palm computers, visit http://www.palm.com.
.H1 Bulk reprints
Bulk reprints of this article (in quantities of 100 or more) are available for a fee from Reprint Services, a ZATZ business partner. Contact them at reprints@zatz.com or by calling 1-800-217-7874.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Contributing Editor Chris Phillips is a Senior Project Manager for UMB Bank and a member of the Kansas City Palm Users Group (at http://www.interpug.com/kcpug). Comments can be sent to chrisof4@hotmail.com.
.DISCUSS http://powerboards.zatz.com/cgi-bin/webx?50@@.ee6f82a
