WOES: iSync, Palm Pilot, iCal, Missing Sync, Palm Desktop, Ericsson Phone

Question

Here's my situation, I've been a long time Palm user, and fairly recently (within a year) a new Mac user. I've always used the Palm Desktop on my PC in the past. I've had a Palm Vx for years, and fairly recently (within a year) I bought a Palm Zire 72 and a Sony Ericsson S170a cell phone. I also have an iPod Photo.
I really would like to sync up my address book, calendars, memos, maybe even photos, with all my devices. I tried using iSync, but nothing seam to work right, so I tried a million things, now everything is messed up.
For right now, I'm just trying to get my Palm Pilot, the Mac, and the Phone to have all the same calendar events (w the correect times, alarms, colors, and groups).
I'm really frustrated with trying to get the mac's iCal, the palm pilot, the phone to all have the same calendar info. I really like iCal, and the mac address book, and how well it works with the mail app. As well as subscribing to shared iCals. Especially the holiday ones! I use to have to enter all that info by hand, and have them "other" repeater. The Palm Desktop software's calendar and address book is pretty clunky compared to the Mac apps, or even the Palm Desktop for the PC. But everything is messed up now. I even tried the "missing sync" software and it messed it up even worse.
Several of my cal events are now GONE from iCal, my Palm Pilot, and my Phone! Many of them have duplicates, some have wrong times. Some have right groups, some don't. The ones that do have right groups, don't have any colors applied to them. If I create certain calendars on the mac and sync with the palm, the groups do not come over. If I create them on the Palm, the groups don't come over on the mac. Getting the colors/groups to match, and all 3 items to sync all at once is a nightmare as well. There were a million conflicts, and chose the correct ones, but some of them would NOT let me pick the one I wanted, it would just keep on saying "conflict".
What would AT LEAST get me back to the original info on the Palm and the Mac would be to restore from my Palm Desktop software, but I can't get to that because it looks like the missing sync software has messed the conduit/hot sync manager up. I can no longer get to my Palm Desktop condiut settings. I'd re-install the palm software to get it back, but I will probably loose all the data stored in Palm Desktop. This is the ONLY place that has the correct info right now. I'm varry warry about loosing that information. I use to have the PC copy, and the Palm Copy, and it was all right. The Palm Desktop has an import/export feature, but it doesn't seam to carry all the info (like notes attatched to cal events).
Also, has anyone tried to RESTORE a Palm Pilot not using the Palm Desktop software? When I had to reset my Palm, I tried using iSync or even missing sync to get all my apps, settings, calendars, address books, everything, but it never put the info back on the Palm. This info was always restored with Palm Desktop.
And let's just say I DO get back all my calendar items back into the Palm, and the Palm Desktop software up and running correctly. What is the proper way to do what I was trying to do in the begining? Which was "just have my Palm Pilot, the Mac, and the Phone to have all the same calendar events (w the right times, alarms, colors, and groups)." I don't seam to have too many problems with contacts. Except work/home fields seam to swap all the time.
What I'm running:
G4 PowerMac w/ Mac OS X Tiger (10.4.3)
Palm Pilot Zire 72s (Palm Software v5.2.8)
Missing Sync (v5.0.3)
Palm Desktop Mac (v4.2.1)
Sony Ericsson S170a Cell Phone
iPod Photo 60GB
G4 PowerMac   Mac OS X (10.4.3)   Palm Pilot Zire 72s (Palm Software v5.2.8), Missing Sync (v5.0.3), Palm Desktop Mac (v4.2.1), Sony

Answer 1

Where to start? Maybe with some background about the synchronization process.
What Apple hasn't explained outside of the developer community is that you are not actually synchronizing applications [like iCal or the Address Book] or servers [like .Mac] or devices [like your mobile handset or a Palm organizer] when you initiate a synchronization. What you are really doing is triggering an interaction with one or more of these and the SyncServices engine, which maintains what is termed the 'truth database'—or simply, the 'truth'—to which is pushed, or from which is pulled, the current state of data maintained in fields and records for one or more specific data types. Because of the way this process works, it is not necessary to have all synchronized devices available or attached when a synchronization event occurs.
You can synchronize your SONY Ericsson S710a, a process which exchanges the most current data maintained in the truth with it, and hours later, plug in your iPod, an action which will trigger iTunes to pull the latest data from the truth and write it to the iPod, updating your contact and calendaring records. The same is true for other applications, servers and devices.
While it all seems clumsy and confusing, it is actually a huge step forward in making synchronization nearly automatic, almost transparent, and virtually mistake proof. It's clear that there is some distance to go before those objectives are achieved, but SyncServices is actually a huge improvement over the prior synchronization technology in iSync 1.5 and earlier.
That said, there are bugs in SyncServices, and in the applications written by several developers to take advantage of it, along with issues in at least iCal, and probably the Address Book, that complicate what you are trying to achieve. It's possible to do, and once working, should work nearly flawlessly. But, it takes some planning to get there.
First, a word about backing up your data. It's a good idea to periodically back up contact and calendaring records using the facilities built into iCal and the Address Book which appear in the File menu of each application. These options make easily restorable local snapshots of your data. Should something go terribly wrong with a synchronization event, you can immediately restore your iCal or Address Book data from these files. In addition, it's a good idea to have a more comprehensive backup plan in place, using Backup and .Mac, Backup and rewritable media, and so on.
To synchronize photos, music and other media files, you'll need to use the Missing Sync for Palm OS. iSync just does not support anything beyond contact, calendaring and task data. To begin the process, you should simplify your device pool, initially concentrating only on getting a complete, accurate set of contact, event and task records pushed to the truth from the Address Book and iCal, and onto your Palm.
You will have to take an inventory of where the best records reside, and insure that you get them into iCal and the Address Book before attempting to synchronize your Palm, because to do it properly, initially, you will have to overwrite the data on your Palm, replacing it with records from iCal and the Address Book. If you're going to edit them by making additions, changes and deletions, perform all of those in iCal and the Address Book until you have synchronized your Palm device or devices with them. Backup before performing the initial synchronization, and be sure to overwrite each Palm device the first time.
If you want a historic snapshot of the data on either Palm device before doing this, first follow the instructions provided by Mark/Space to use the standard Palm conduits instead of Mark/Space Contacts, Events and Tasks, and be sure to set each Palm conduit to Palm overwrites handheld in order to transfer the data from your Palm Vx and Zire 72 to the Palm Desktop. Once there, those records can be exported as vCard and vCal files, and easily imported into the Address Book and iCal if you wish to do that. Edit them as you see fit, once they have been transfered. If you elect to do that, you must thereafter turn off these Palm conduits and reconfigure the Missing Sync to use the Mark/Space conduits, again choosing to have your computer replace the contents on each Palm device on the first synchronization.
Once you've achieved a 'balance' with the records in iCal, the Address Book and your handheld organizers, you can reset the records on your mobile handset. iSync alone performs this function, and later synchronization events with your SONY Ericsson S710a will always be manually triggered, and performed using iSync, not the Missing Sync. Reset once, and subsequently synchronize.
Anything else you want to add to the mix—.Mac Sync, for example—you can then add, initially performing a reset of your .Mac data, then subsequently synchronizing.
Synchronization of your iPod is handled by iTunes and only pulls data from the truth, so it need not be reset, as it cannot write changes to the truth which would adversely affect your other devices.