If you have already installed a previous version of Link Synchronizer on your handheld, and already have a previous version of Link Synchronizer installed on your desktop(s) - all you're trying to do is upgrade to version 1.2.1 - please follow the upgrade instructions. The instructions below only apply to fresh installations.

If you do not have Link Synchronizer (any version) installed on your handheld, and you do not have Link Synchronizer (any version) installed on your desktop - in other words, this is a new application to you, you've never installed or used it before - please follow the instructions below.

Overview:

Please see the requirements and restrictions before installing, and make sure your environment meets these requirements. If your environment does not meet these requirements and you decide to install Link Synchronizer anyway, please let me know how it goes - I can't guarantee that I'll be able to make the application work in your environment, but at least I can post more information here to let others know what does or does not work.

Note that Link Synchronizer has two distinct components: an application that runs on your handheld, and a conduit which runs on your desktop. The handheld application allows you to view and edit the favorites on the handheld (though the handheld application is not the focus of Link Synchronizer, and therefore this piece is not as polished as I'd like). The desktop conduit is what allows Link Synchronizer to look at your desktop favorites during HotSync and synchronize them with what is on the handheld.

The desktop conduit is not required, although without it you simply have a handheld application which will only store favorites that you write in the handheld - without the conduit, your desktop favorites will not be synchronized.

The handheld application, however, is required even if you have no intention of viewing or editing favorites using the handheld. Without the handheld application, the conduit will not function.

Preliminary installation steps:

First, I strongly recommend making a backup of your favorites directory and your handheld's desktop support directory (i.e. c:\Palm, or c:\Program Files\Sony Handheld - wherever you initially installed your handheld's desktop applications, and where your handheld data is backed up when you hotsync).

Next, unzip LinkSync.zip to somewhere on your desktop's hard drive. You can use multiple different applications to unzip the file. Two examples are WinZip and Info-Zip.

Do not unzip these files to a temporary directory. Wherever you choose to put these files, that's where they (well, a few of them anyway) must stay for as long as you want to continue using Link Synchronizer. Also, do not unzip the file into your Palm software directory (e.g. c:\Palm, or c:\Sony Handheld - in other words, whatever directory you used when you installed your original handheld desktop software) - pick a different directory for the Link Synchronizer files.

Installation on the handheld:

Nothing special here: use the Install Tool that came with your handheld, and tell it to install LinkSync.prc (from the directory you unzipped to). The next time you hotsync, the handheld application will be installed on your handheld.

After the next hotsync - once the application is actually installed on your handheld - you can delete LinkSync.prc from your hard drive if you want.

Installation on the desktop:

Eventually, I do intend to build a simpler, GUI installer, but for now... Open a Command Prompt, and change directories to the directory into which you unzipped LinkSync.zip. From the command prompt, execute LinkSyncConduitInstaller.exe. Note that it is very important that you execute this utility from the directory in which LinkSyncConduit.dll resides, otherwise the conduit will not function.

If all goes well, you should see output something like this:

Installing Link Synchronizer conduit...
Using conduit path c:\LinkSync\LinkSyncConduit.dll...
Restarting HotSync...
HotSync successfully restarted.
Link Synchronizer conduit installation successfully completed!

Usage/Limitations:

There's really not much to say here. If Link Synchronizer does what it's supposed to, you don't need to think about it. However, a few notes for those who are curious and/or paranoid:

• Link Synchronizer will store a file on your hard drive, in simple text format, which lists all of your browser favorites. This file is necessary in order to reliably be able to keep multiple desktops in sync. The file is stored in your handheld's directory on your desktop (e.g. c:\Palm\<username>\LinkSync\LinkSyncLastDesktopState.txt).
Do not modify this file.
• The conduit will automatically sync with the desktop favorites of whatever user is logged in at the time the HotSync is initiated. (Only a potential issue if you have more than one login on your desktop.)
• When the conduit must write out a new favorite to the desktop (because you entered a new favorite on the handheld, changed the name of a favorite, picked up a new favorite from a different desktop, or performed a "handheld overwrites desktop" sync), one piece of information is currently lost. Specifically, Internet Explorer stores a "last accessed" timestamp with each favorite on the desktop. This is what it uses to shrink the list of favorites to usually only show those accessed recently (if you have that feature enabled). This timestamp is not tracked by Link Synchronizer. Therefore, if you have this feature enabled on your desktop browser, new favorites added by Link Synchronizer will not show up in the "recently accessed" list. You will need to expand the list to show all favorites in order to see these new entries.
• Subfolders are supported (as of version 1.2) - however, they may be difficult to deal with on the handheld application. On the handheld, items within subfolders are displayed as subfolder\subfolder\...\name. Because the screen that lists all the favorites is relatively narrow, this can make items within subfolders almost impossible to read on that screen. I am hoping to fix this in a future version, but for now... well, if you're using Link Synchronizer primarily for the handheld application, I'd recommend using a different utility.
• If the Link Synchronizer conduit needs to create subfolders on your desktop in order to mirror the structure from another desktop machine, this will be noted in the HotSync log.

Uninstallation from the handheld:

Please see your PalmOS-based handheld's instructions on how to remove applications from the handheld. This article from Palm's web site may be helpful.

Uninstallation from the desktop

Open a Command Prompt, and change directories to the directory into which you originally unzipped LinkSync.zip. From the command prompt, execute the following command:

LinkSyncConduitInstaller /uninstall

If all goes well, you should see output something like this:

Uninstalling Link Synchronizer conduit...
Restarting HotSync...
HotSync successfully restarted.
Link Synchronizer conduit uninstallation successfully completed!

If you have any further questions, please contact me at linksync@pobox.com.