Connecting your Palm to your Cellphone

In this final part of this series, let's take a look at how your Palm can interact with your mobile phone and do things that you might have never thought possible. We'll see how to connect to the Net from your Palm through the mobile, do some phonebook management, end messages and generally have some fun with the phone. 

Some of the features mentioned here may or may not be applicable to your phone model. Although many modern phones would be capable of some of the functions, we did the ones mentioned here with a Palm IIIe and a Nokia 7110 cellphone. The Nokia 7110 also has an InfraRed (IR) port that allows direct connectivity with the Palm. If your phone doesn't have an IR port, you may need to buy an inexpensive data cable to hook up your Palm and mobile. The procedure doesn't change much in this case. If your cellphone doesn't have data features, none of the features explained here will work with it. 

If your Palm is running an OS that's less than version 3.3, you either need to upgrade the PalmOS to 3.5 or install the Enhanced InfraRed upgrade. This is specifically required if you're using any of the less recent Palm III series models. This upgrade is freely available at the Palm Support website at

www.palm.com/support/downloads/irenhanc.html. 



So, get your cellphones ready by activating your IR port or connecting your data cable and let's get on with it.

Phonebook management

As you may know, all cellphones have two types of phonebook memories: one in the SIM card and the other in the phone itself. However, entering numbers from your contact list or from a business card can be quite a pain given the text-entry method found on phones. However, if you have a Palm, phonebook management becomes extremely simple. All you need to do is select a person in the Palm's Address Book (or any third-party replacement application you have) and 'beam' it to the mobile. Your mobile receives the address as a business card, which you can then save to your active phone memory.

You can do the reverse too. Choose 'Send card as IR' if your phone supports it and point it to the Palm. The Palm can then accept the card that it receives. This makes managing multiple phone books simpler and more efficient.

Sending short messages

The Short Message Service (SMS) on cellphones allows you to send and receive messages up to 160 characters in length to anyone else with a cellphone. Although this is cost-effective and useful, writing messages (even with the new Predictive Text Input feature that some modern phones have) can be quite cumbersome. 

Instead, what you can do is to compose or reply to SMS messages from your Palm. For this, you need an SMS-capable Palm application like FunSMS, UniSMS or Monkey Messenger (available from Primate

Systems-www.primatesys.com). We'll use the Monkey Messenger here. Using this tool is very simple and if you've used a desktop mail client, you'll be instantly comfortable with this. 

To set up the application, you must first enter your cellular service provider's SMS Center Number in it. This can be usually found on your phone's Message options menu. Enter this number in the Preferences section of Monkey Messenger. You must also specify whether you're using infrared or a data cable for sending a message through the mobile.

Next, set up a list of 'Friends' to whom you'd like to send messages. All you need to do is enter their name and their cellphone number. To send a message, tap a friend's name, enter a message (a small counter at the bottom shows you the number of characters in the message) and press 'Send' to send it immediately or 'Outbox' to place it in the outbox to be sent later. Remember to point the IR ports of your mobile and Palm at each other. 

You can also choose to receive SMS messages you've got on your mobile into the Palm. You can then reply to them just like replying to e-mail messages.