Only want2use iCal+Address book with iSynch and Memos+Tasks with Palm T/X

Question

I was using Tungsten T2 and isync happily. I was using isync to use the address book and iCal and when I synched it also synched the palm info in the Calendar and address book in my Palm desktop. The memos and tasks in Palm desktop also worked properly.
I upgraded my palm to T/X and have had many problems with deletion of categories on the handheld, duplication of task and diary entries, address entries with weird symbols added that need to be deleted, desktop memos and tasks not updating. iCal seemed to work OK but the palm desktop calendar did not display any future entries. Is this normal.
I removed isync and after resorting everything on the device - enabled all conduits for palm and resynced. So now everything seems to work properly.
My main questions are: what did I do wrong for this to happen which led to me spending hours sorting everything out on the palm device manually?
And: Is there a way to keep everything synching on the palm device AND iCal and address book for palm?
And: If not: Is there a way to use iCal and address book for mac AND keep you tasks and memos synching on the palm desktop? As I prefer the palm software for tasks as I have several categories for my tasks and do not allocate tasks on given days.
Thanks for reading and I hope to hear some quality advice from you soon. Matt

Answer 1

Starting with your last question about first synchronizing with the Palm Desktop calendar and then later with the Mark/Space Events conduit, the answer is no. Your first synchronization with any of the three Mark/Space conduits—whether one, a pair or the more conventional all three—requires that you overwrite the handheld with that data type using that Mark/Space conduit.
You should read this article about the limitations between the display and transfer of calendar events between Palm devices and iCal:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93172
Understanding those limitations, you should selectively 'fix' the events in iCal so that they are represented properly in iCal. You will have to live with the limitations of such event display on your Palm. If you 'fix' them on your Palm, you will only create additional issues when they are synchronized with iCal using either iSync or the Missing Sync.
Old repeating events can be 'rescheduled' in iCal by selecting the event and changing the end date, or they can be deleted, though that will result in their deletion from your Palm device. That's one reason that it is important to take that last 'snapshot' with the Palm Desktop, so that you can refer to historic data if you need to.
It's also important to think about why you would want to carry possibly hundreds of aged events around in the Palm of your hand. Realistically, why would you want handheld access to data older than say, one year? After installing the Missing Sync, you can double-click on the Mark/Space Events conduit and optionally limit the transfer of events from iCal to your handheld. You simply select the drop-down menu labeled Ignore desktop events older than: and choose from an interval of 1, 2, 4 or 8 weeks, 6 months or 1 year, instead of the default Sync All option.
That technique is another method to deal with historic data, because the 'misrepresented' events older than will not be transfered from iCal to your handheld even during that initial synchronization where your handheld data is overwritten, if you select one of those delimiters.
Mark/Space recognizes groups and categories in iCal and the Address Book when using a Palm OS 5 or later device which supports them. iSync ignores them, because groups and categories are not mapped in the iSync Palm Conduit.