In this month's edition of Letters to the Editor, we find a helpful tip for those of you suffering keyboard-related HotSync trouble, and Heather McDaniel receives yet another response to her popular article on daily habits.

Keyboard causes HotSync troubles
I just got a Palm m515 and was having trouble performing a HotSync using a Serial HotSync Cradle on my Windows 95 machine. I found Claire Pieterek's article on "How to diagnose HotSync difficulties" (at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200102/hotsync001.html), but all the suggestions were not helpful in this instance. I did eventually stumble across something on another site referencing the driver for a plug-in keypad for another type of PDA that led me to the source of my problem.

I installed a SnapNType Keypad from TT-Tec (at http://www.tt-tec.com/html/Products/T111.htm) which, of course, installed its own driver onto the Palm handheld for it to work. To make a long story short, the driver was still enabled when I was trying to perform a HotSync operation with the Serial HotSync Cradle and, therefore, was preventing me from doing the HotSync operation. What made this hard to figure out was that the HotSync operation works just fine with a USB HotSync Cradle, even when the driver is enabled. The driver for the SnapNType is supposed to automatically disable itself when you disconnect the keypad, but you have to tell it to do this or else it will stay enabled.

To do this, I tapped on the disable button for the driver when the keypad was not connected. Now, when I connect the keypad, the driver automatically enables itself, and when I disconnect the keypad, the driver disables itself and the HotSync works fine with the Serial HotSync cradle.

I thought I'd let you know about this since there are a number of keypads on the market for Palm OS handhelds and other readers may run into this problem. Again, the problem only interferes when performing a HotSync with the Serial port.

Thanks!
Mickey Grackin

Tending to your goals
I am writing in response to your article in PalmPower magazine regarding developing healthy daily habits at http://www.palmpower.com/issues/issue200206/habit001.html.

I have found that the one thing that was left out of the Palm OS (compared to a paper planning system, like Franklin Planners or Dayrunner, etc.) is a good way of tracking short and long term goals. It is in writing down these goals that we begin to develop good habits and break seemingly unreachable objectives into more manageable short term behaviors.

Although I have Documents To Go (at http://www.dataviz.com) on my Palm m500, I don't have the patience to create my own spreadsheets to track my goals. I have been using Goal Tender by Middle Cross Software (at http://www.middlecross.com). It allows me to break my goals down by category (personal, professional, fitness, spiritual etc.). You can set a target date for completion (which you don't have to set, as in the case of an ongoing goal), you can record the completion date, and you can also record the goal as short, medium, or long range goals. You enter a goal summary and can add details (steps you need to take to meet the larger goal).