Internet Access with your Palm

The Palm is a very versatile instrument that you can use for functions like

keeping appointments and contact lists, reading e-books, playing games, and

scheduling. However, most Palm users also lug their notebooks around for tasks

like checking e-mail, Web browsing, and the slightly more technical users, for

tasks that require telnet or FTP access.

The Palm is fully capable of doing these tasks too. It comes with a lot of

networking features built-in. There are also many programs on the Web that’ll

allow you to do any of the above tasks.

Setting up the Palm to access the Internet is not too tough. Palm VII has

wireless Internet connectivity, but this is virtually useless in India. If you

have a Palm modem, you can dial out from the Palm to the Internet using the

modem applet.

However, this article talks about a different kind of Internet access–one

that requires some interaction with a desktop computer. This will be the most

common type of access available for Palm users in India. The Internet access. we’re

going to talk about is real time access. (For how to get offline access to

Internet material, see ‘Palm it on Me, Please’, page 58, PC Quest October

2000).

There are two parts to setting up Internet access on the Palm–one requires

configuring the desktop, and the other involves configuring the Palm itself.

Here, we’ll see the procedure for setting up Internet access on the Palm for

both Linux and Windows 2000 on the desktop, and take a look at some Palm

programs for accessing Internet services like e-mail and the Web. So let’s get

started.

The desktop end

Using Linux



Getting the desktop end ready for Palm Internet access is a short and simple
process if you use Linux. If your Linux box can connect to the Net and your Palm

can connect to the Linux box, you’re almost set. First, you need to install a

PPP server to allow the Palm to login, and then set up an IPCHAINS route that

allows the IP address assigned to your Palm to access the Internet (see the

section below on how to assign an IP address to the Palm).

To install the PPP server, run the command

/usr/sbin/pppd /dev/pilot 115200 192.168.0.1:192.168.0.101

proxyarp passive silent persist local noauth.

And to set up the IPCHAINS route, set

/sbin/ipchains -A forward -j MASQ -s 192.168.0.101 -d

0.0.0.0/0

in a startup script. In the above commands, 115200 is the

port speed, 192.168.0.1 is the desktop’s IP and 192.168.0.101 is the Palm’s

IP. You can modify these as required for your system.

Using Windows 2000



The procedure required for a Windows 2000 box is, surprisingly, more

involved. Here are the steps required to get your Palm talking to Windows 2000

through IP.

First, go to the Modems tab in the Modem Control Panel

Applet, select Add, tick the ‘Don’t detect my modem’ option, and then

select ‘Communication cable between two computers’. You’ll then be asked

to select the COM port to use. Select the one in which your Hotsync cradle is

attached, or the IR Port you use for Hotsync.

Next, open up the Networking and Dial-up Connections folder.

This is where your dial-up and networking connections are stored. You need to

create a new one for the Palm here. Run the Make New Connections Wizard. Choose

‘Accept incoming Connections’ and continue. In the next screen, select ‘Communication

Cable between two computers’ if it exists. Click Properties on this page and

increase the port speed to 115200. In the next screen, select ‘Do not allow

virtual private connections’. Next, choose the users who are allowed to use

this connection. In the final screen, deselect all protocols except TCP/IP.

Click Properties on this screen to access properties for the TCP/IP service.

Tick on ‘Allow access to LAN’ and ‘Allow calling computer to specify its

own IP address’. Also enter a range of free IP addresses that can be used if

required by the Palm. Make sure they match your computer’s IP subnet. Save the

settings and open the properties of the profile you just created. Go to the

Users tab and turn the ‘Always allow directly connected devices such as

palmtop computers to connect without providing a password’ option to on.

The next thing to do is to let the Windows 2000 box route IP

packets onto an external interface. This is to allow the Palm to access the

Internet. On Windows 2000 Server, simply enable RRAS (Routing and Remote Access

Service). On Windows 2000 Professional, it’s slightly more difficult.

The documented way to enable routing on Windows 2000

Professional is to change the registry key: HKEY_ LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current

ControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\ IPEnableRouter from 0 to 1. However, even

after repeated attempts at getting this to work, I was unable to do so. A better

solution is to simply install a transparent proxy server for Windows like

WinGate or WinProxy.

Once these steps are completed, you need to set up the TCP/IP

connection on your Palm.

Configuring the Windows 2000 desktop

The Palm setup

The

Palm side of the setup is fairly simple. Although the steps here are detailed

for a Palm III series model, it’s not very different in any of the other

series.

First go to the System>Network applet on the Palm. Create

a new profile, say ‘Win 2K Logon’. Enter the username in the field provided.

This username is the one that you use to login to Windows. You can leave the

password blank if you wish as Windows doesn’t ask for it, thanks to the option

we turned on earlier in the properties of the user profile. The next thing you

need to do is set a phone number.

‘What

phone number? This was meant to connect a Palm to the Net without a modem,’

you might wonder. Well, the Palm still requires you to set a phone number. An

undocumented trick to make the Palm connect to the desktop computer as a modem

is to enter the phone number as ‘00’.

Next, you need to set up the IP connection properties. Tap

the Details button and enter the following: set the Connection Type to PPP, Idle

Timeout to 1 minute, turn the ‘Query DNS’ option on and enter an IP address

in the range you gave on the Windows machine.

Now

click the Script button on this screen. You must select the command from the

drop-down and enter the parameter to the command in the field next to it. To

connect to a Windows machine, you need four commands with the following

parameters:

Send: CLIENT, Send: CLIENT, Wait For: CLIENTSERVER, End.

To connect to a Linux box, the only command you need is End.

After this, come back to the main Network preferences screen

and press the Connect button. After a short series of messages on establishing

the connection, the button should turn into Disconnect. Your Palm is now on your

TCP/IP network like any other machine.

You can ping the Palm’s IP address from your machine to

check the connection. If you got any errors while connecting, go back and check

the values and scripts once again.

Connecting to the Net

Now

that you’ve connected your Palm to the IP network, getting to the Net is a

simple matter. If you’ve followed the instructions for setting up the desktop

to forward your requests to the Net, you shouldn’t have any problems.

There are a lot of useful applications available that you can

use. A good one is PaPi-Mail, available as both a POP and IMAP e-mail client. I

use the IMAP version. This lets you sync your mail directly from the mail

server, select the messages you want to view, and then read, compose, and

organize mail offline on the Palm. PaPi-Mail is a comprehensive IMAP client that

has all the features found in its bigger desktop cousins.

Apart

from a mail client, you’d also like to have a Web browser. Although there are

a lot of good HTML and WML browsers available for the Palm, I personally prefer

one called PalmScape. This has the ability to view HTML tables and frames as

well, which puts it slightly ahead of the competition.

The

next couple of applications are not that useful, but come in handy in some

circumstances. A real gem to show off to other geeks is a telnet/SSH client,

called Top Gun SSH, for the Palm. This lets you telnet or SSH to any machine on

the network to which you have access. You get the standard shell prompt on which

you can use Graffiti to input commands and execute them. This software could be

of use when you’re, say, stuck at an international airport, and really need to

login to do some maintenance work. Simply point the Palm at any of the IR ports

(found at most international airports these days) and telnet in.

Other

cool tools that you can install on the Palm include a simple Web server that

lets you manage your Palm’s databases from your desktop with a Web browser,

and a Palm VNC client that lets you manage Windows from the Palm screen.

As you can see, the Palm can be an invaluable tool, whether

at home, office or on the move. You can use its TCP/IP ability to perform many

of the tasks that you usually carry a notebook for. So load up your Palm and

make the best use of it. Next month, we’ll take a look at how the Palm can

talk to your mobile phone and what you can do with it.

Vinod Unny is a

technology consultant with iSquare Technologies