Hotsyncing between the Life Balance Palm and Windows desktop applications is a little more complicated than hotsyncing other applications. This is because the desktop edition of Life Balance allows multiple files, with each file containing a complete set of Life Balance data: Outline, Places, To Do List, Balance, and Appointments Calendar. This is convenient if you and a spouse are using the same desktop application with different Life Balance files and need to sync to different Palm handhelds. The Palm OS version of Life Balance handles only one copy of Life Balance and only one set of data per device. Thus it is necessary to specify the correct file to synchronize in the desktop application and in the Palm Hotsync Manager.

If your Life Balance data is on your Palm, you want to quickly get it to the desktop, and you haven't entered any data in the desktop application yet, you can simply HotSync and your Palm Life Balance data will be stored in a default file on the desktop. If you then start Life Balance on the desktop, it will open with some sample data. By using the File->Open command, you can find and open the file created by the HotSync.

Finding the Default File

The default file is named "Life Balance Data.lbd" and is created in the "Life Balance" folder in the Palm desktop folder corresponding to your Palm user name. The name of the Palm folder will be between one and seven characters long and is constructed from your Palm user name, though it's not always obvious how. For example, if your Palm desktop folder is in the "C:\Program Files" folder and your Palm user name is "John Smith", then the default Life Balance file will be at "C:\Program Files\Palm\SmithJ\Life Balance\Life Balance Data.lbd".

Because it can be tricky finding the default file, we highly recommend creating a file on the desktop first and setting your Hotsync Manager to have Life Balance sync with that file. This is also required if you've already entered data on the Desktop and want to make sure that it syncs with the Palm data. To create an empty file without the sample data to sync with initially, you can use the File->New command and then the File->Save As command to save the file wherever you want.

Specifying the File to Sync With

Now you will need to tell Hotsync Manager to sync with this file. First you need to locate the Hotsync icon in the system tray which is in the corner of your task bar. The Hotsync icon consists of a red and a blue arrow in a circle (essentially a smaller version of the icon displayed during a sync.) If you don't see this icon, Hotsync may not be running so you may have to start it manually. >From your Start menu select Programs->Palm Desktop->Hotsync Manager.

Once you've located the Hotsync icon, click the icon; this will pop up a menu. Select Custom. This will display a dialog containing a drop down list of Palm users at the top followed by a list of the conduits that you have installed. First, make sure that the correct Palm user name is selected in the dropdown list. If you're unsure of your user name, you can see it on your Palm by opening the Hotsync application there and looking in the upper right corner.

Next, you need to find the Life Balance conduit in the list. Select it and then click the Change button on the right hand side. This will bring up another dialog with your current Life Balance settings. The first thing to note is the "Desktop document:" setting which will most likely read "(not specified)". You will want to click the "Choose document" button directly underneath which will bring up a file dialog. From this dialog you can find and select the correct desktop document to sync with. Once you click Open, the name of the file should be specified next to "Desktop document:". You then need to click OK on the Life Balance dialog and then Done on the Custom dialog. At this point you should be able to HotSync and the Palm and Life Balance desktop file you selected should be synchronized.

HotSync Actions

The Life Balance dialog also contains setting for the action to be taken during HotSync. The Help button on the dialog will give you additional information, but here is a summary of the available actions and our recommendations:

Synchronize
The usual setting is Synchronize. If there are new or newly modified items in either desktop or handheld, a copy will be sent to the other place.
Desktop Overwrites Handheld
If you have been working extensively on the desktop and altered many tasks which also appear on your handheld this may be your best choice.
Handheld Overwrites Desktop
If you have been working extensively on the handheld, this may be your choice.
Do Nothing
Do nothing will keep the handheld and desktop from exchanging Life Balance information. Your handheld Life Balance information will still be backed up.

Tips and Troubleshooting

If you are planning to use the Life Balance conduit to sync to Life Balance for Palm OS, do not put the Life Balance Palm application software on a memory card or in flash memory. Life Balance for Palm OS must be in internal storage if you intend to use the Life Balance Conduit.

Using the HotSync Log

After a HotSync you may get a dialog suggesting you look at the log. Alternatively, you might want to check the log if syncing doesn't seem to be working correctly. To view the log, click the HotSync icon in the system tray and then select View Log. This will display a dialog showing the log file. Like the Custom dialog, it has a dropdown list of usernames at the top; make sure yours is selected.

One thing to check for is the line "OK Life Balance"; this indicates that the Life Balance conduit was installed and ran successfully.

If You Use Outlook, Pocket Mirror or Intellisync

The behavior of the Microsoft Outlook conduit can sometimes cause problems with the Life Balance conduit installer. If you see messages in the HotSync log for each component of Outlook that syncs with your Palm to the effect that Outlook is not your default mail client or the default mail client is unable to perform your request, then you may have this problem. This is usually fixed by stopping and restarting your HotSync Manager. First, click on the HotSync icon in the system tray and select Exit from the menu. It may display a dialog asking if your sure you want to exit. Go ahead and say yes. Then select Programs->Palm Desktop->HotSync Manager from the start menu. If that doesn't clear up the problem, you may have to restart your PC. We are working on a improved version of the Life Balance installer that should avoid this problem.

Life Balance Data Repair

You may get messages in your HotSync log to the effect that the Life Balance conduit detected problems in your Palm data, followed by a list of problems, followed by the message "Your data has been repaired prior to synchronizing with the desktop." Be assured that your data is fine on the desktop. Usually this will also fix the problems on your Palm. However, the conduit doesn't always have sufficient information to completely repair everything. So if you continue to get these messages every time you HotSync, you may need to repair your data on the Palm.

What you need to do is invoke the repair mechanism on the Palm Life Balance using the "escape hatch". What you have to do is launch Life Balance with the down arrow key held down. You can do this either by holding down the arrow and tapping the LB icon from the launcher, or launch LB some other way (I have mine on the To Do button) and then quickly pressing the down arrow.
Either way, it will display a dialog box describing the checks it's performing. If it finds any errors, it will ask you if you want to correct them. You should generally say yes.

If everything seems to be working correctly and yet your data still doesn't seem to be syncing, then one other thing to try is to search for multiple .lbd (Life Balance Data) files on your system. It's possible that you are saving to a different file from the one you are syncing to. You can use the Search or Find (depending on the version of Windows you use) from the Start menu. You should search all your local hard drives for files names "*.lbd". If more than one file is found, you'll need to carefully determine which is the correct file to use and make sure both the desktop application and the HotSync manager are set to use the same one.