Syncing Treo 680 (DateBk6) with Mac OS X 10.4.9?

Question

I have just switched from a PC to a Mac yesterday. My most important question is how do I sync my Treo 680 (with DateBk6) to my new Mac. I have a lot of apps on my Treo (including Avantgo), so iSync is ruled out. After reading other forums and doing a search on this forum (and reading the 8/15/06 ginasmith thread) plus reading about Missing Sync, these appear to be my best options:
1. Continue to use Palm HotSync manager to sync to Palm Desktop (PD) on my Mac.
2. Use Missing Sync to sync to my PD on my Mac.
3. Use Missing Sync to sync to the Mac PIMs (iCal, Address Book, Notes and Missin Sync's memo app) on my Mac.
I need advice on which works best. Here's some more background:
1. I do not share my calendar with anyone.
2. I have 2300 contacts, 6300 calendar entries stretching back to 1970, 300 tasks and 51 memos in my Palm Desktop.
3. I use Gmail and look at my mail as a tab on Firefox.
4. I also use SplashPhoto (but am not wedded to it) and DocsToGo. These two apps as well as all the Palm PIMs mentioned above appear nicely together on one side panel on my Palm Desktop.
5. The DateBk6 on my Treo is my favorite app of all those on my Treo AND PC. Mylife is organized and structured using DateBk6.
The most important consideration to me in making this decision is stability and reliability of the sync. As I understand it, the primary reason to use method 3 above is the integration with the Mac programs, especially mail.
I can see that this is a positive. Also, on other forums, I've learned that Missing Sync is stable and reliable and offers greater flexibility than PD in syncing with different conduit sets, etc. I have been using a PC tool (Ultasoft NotSync) which also allows different conduit sets for syncing.
I have noticed what appear on first blush to be calendar limitations of iCal compared to PD. It does not offer a year view and has no "go to" thereby requiring me when looking at 1990 or 2010, for example, to move backward or forward by month. In addition the foldout ToDo section looks skimpy and only offers three priorities. On the other hand, it's color coding of events is far superior to PD. I assume that iCal and address book can handle the 15 categories that I would use for both as well as ToDos.
I understand that Missing Sync provides the memo desktop app since Mac doesn't have one (assuming the Stickies doesn't sync and doesn't appear to me to be a good choice even if it did).
I'm perfectly willing to try method 3 to see if I like it and, if not, switch back to the Palm Desktop, which I realize isolates my personal information from the other Mac apps, thereby limiting some of Mac's powerful tools. One person that I respect on the DateBk6 forum has stated that she occasionally tries the Mac PIMs but feels that they come up short versus PD and always ends up switching back to PD.
I'd be very grateful for any counsel or comments from anyone who has used both the Mac PIMs and Palm Desktop.
MacBook Pro   Mac OS X (10.4.9)   Treo 680 (DateBk6)

Answer 1

The are several advantage to using iCal, the Address Book and Mail.
One is their ability to share contact, event and task data. There are simple examples of this with the integration of Mail and the Address Book, and with the auto-generated iCal Birthdays calendar, entries in which are created whenever you add birthday data to a contact card.
A less discussed but very important reason to use them is that developers of applications with extended contact, event or tasks management capabilities focus on information integration with one or more of these Apple applications, either through the synchronization framework, or directly. Take a look at iGDT, for example: it is a far more sophisticated task management application than iCal is, but synchronizes with it so that task data is available in iCal, or can be viewed without launching iCal using the simple MenuCalendar Clock (iCal Edition) utility, activated in your menu bar.
The Palm Desktop can do none of this, because it is neither synchronization services-aware, nor extensible through additional third-party software.
The transition from Palm Desktop to the Apple applications can be challenging, but once performed, works very well, particularly if you consider third-party add-ons like iGDT for task management. The secret to such a transition is to proceed slowly and deliberately, and insure that your data is backed up. You can move your data in several ways: one approach is to move contacts, events and tasks using the Missing Sync for Palm OS without initially overwriting your Palm device, then immediately doing the following:
• make any contact corrections, group assignments or other changes in the Address Book
• make any event and task changes in iCal
• set the Mark/Space Contacts, Events and Tasks conduits to overwrite the contents of you Palm device during the next synchronization, but only that one time [the default behavior when you overwrite your device]
In this manner, you will replace all of the data on your Palm device with the corrected data which originated on it and was moved immediately prior to this procedure to the Address Book and iCal.
I have never set down the 'recipe' for doing this, primarily because there are so many variables involved. But, I have guided others through the steps applicable to their particular configuration, and I can certainly help you do that.
Before jumping to that step, however, I would encourage you to look around at your 'extended' options:
• Crm4Mac for single-view information management
• Journier for journaling
• simpleDays for journaling, using a day runner and so on
• Studiometry for comprehensive business information management
• EasyTask Manager to implement a GDT approach
• iGDT to implement a GDT approach
• Process: an outline-driven, near free-form project management tool
• HighPriority: an extension of iCal used to manage tasks alone
• Dossier for organizing notes and tasks
• BaseCamp: a web-driven, multiuser project management application
• iTaskX for project management
• Merlin2 for project management
• the app4mac xTime series of project, staff and inventory management applications
The list just goes on and on…