Installation

If you intend to use both the Palm OS mobile edition and the Life Balance desktop edition, you should start by installing the desktop edition onto your computer’s hard disk. The first time you run the desktop edition, it will offer to install the the Palm conduit and the mobile edition. If you click OK, the conduit will be installed immediately and the mobile edition will be installed the next time you HotSync. Alternatively, you can download the mobile edition separately and install it manually using the HotSync Manager.

System Requirements

Palm

Life Balance mobile edition for Palm OS requires a handheld computer running Palm OS 3.0 or later, with approximately 480 KB or more of available RAM.

Life Balance fully supports Palm OS 5.0 and higher handhelds.

For installation, you also need a Windows or Macintosh computer running Palm Desktop software configured to HotSync with your handheld.

Installing Life Balance

If you have installed Life Balance desktop edition for Windows or Macintosh, then the desktop edition will offer to install the mobile edition for Palm the first time you launch the desktop edition. You can also perform this installation at any time by choosing “Install Palm Software...” from the HotSync menu.

If you are installing just the mobile edition for Palm, then simply double-clicking on the file Life Balance.prc should open the Palm install tool which will let you select which handheld should receive the software at the next HotSync.

If double-clicking on the PRC file doesn’t launch the install tool, then you can still install Life Balance manually.

From a Macintosh: Start up the HotSync Manager. Choose Install from the HotSync menu. Click on the Add to List button. This brings up an Open File dialog box, where you can choose the file Life Balance.prc. Perform a HotSync to install Life Balance to the Palm OS device.
From Windows: Copy the Life Balance application into the Add-on folder in the Palm Desktop directory. Double Click on the Palm Desktop icon, choose the Install button. Select the appropriate User. Click Add. Select Life Balance.prc from the list of applications in the Add-on Folder. Click Open. Perform a HotSync to install Life Balance to the Palm OS device.

Once installed, the Life Balance icon should appear in the Application Launcher on your Palm. Tap on this icon to start Life Balance. When you first start Life Balance, it will install a set of sample tasks in the Outline to get you started and to help you get acquainted with the mechanics of using the program. You can use or delete these Outline items at your convenience.

Flash Memory

If you are not planning to HotSync the mobile edition of Life Balance with the desktop edition, you may move the application to flash memory as long as its data files (Life Balance Outline 3, Life Balance Places 3, Life Balance Appointments 3, and Life Balance Sync 3) remain in internal memory.

If you will be using HotSync, then Life Balance must remain in internal memory.

Preparing for your first HotSync

If you plan on synchronizing the desktop edition of Life Balance with the Palm handheld edition, there are some additional steps you should take so that the first HotSync will go smoothly.

Install Life Balance onto your handheld and run it once to create the Life Balance databases on your handheld.
Run Life Balance on the desktop, and save your file with a distinctive name so that you have a desktop file to sync with.
With your desktop file open, choose the HotSync name of your Palm handheld from the HotSync menu in Life Balance. The default option of "Synchronize" will merge the data on the desktop and the handheld, but if you have already set up your outline you may prefer one of the "overwrite" options.

See Synchronizing the Mobile and Desktop Editions for more information about HotSync.

Upgrading Life Balance

Llamagraphics periodically offers updates to Life Balance through its website at www.llamagraphics.com. Before installing an update, please read the release notes on the web site carefully to determine whether the update is free or requires an upgrade fee.

There is a single version of Life Balance regardless of whether you are in the thirty-day trial period or have already purchased a license code. If you are a licensed customer installing a free update, you can simply install the new version and your license code will be preserved.

If you are replacing an older version of Life Balance with a newer version, Do not delete the old version from your Palm device or you will lose your data. Install the new version on top of the old version, and your data and license code will remain intact. Because the data format sometimes changes with new versions of Life Balance, be sure to backup your Palm data before upgrading as desribed in Backing up your data.

Upgrading your Palm device

We used to recommend that people upgrading to a new Palm handheld simply backup their old device and then restore the data to their new device. However, this causes some problems:

As Palm handhelds have diversified, it has become more common for preferences from one handheld to cause erratic behavior and crashes when restored to another handheld.
By default, the Palm Desktop restores every file that has ever been installed on your old handheld, even if you have deleted it.
The Palm Desktop does not always backup and restore large applications properly, which can lead to freezes and crashes when the restored application is launched.

For these reasons, we now recommend that you be more selective about which files get installed onto your new handheld, and that you reinstall the Life Balance application by downloading it from the Llamgraphics web site rather than restoring it from backups. If you are also using the desktop edition of Life Balance, then you should reinstall using the desktop installer to ensure that you have the same version of Life Balance installed everywhere.

Because Life Balance depends on the events in your Palm's Date Book for scheduling tasks, we recommend that you restore your Date Book data to the new handheld and check that it is correct before you install Life Balance or restore your Life Balance data.

To get started, you should check the manual that came with your new handheld for upgrade instructions. As of this writing, PalmOne also maintains an interactive upgrade guide at http://www.palmone.com/us/support/guides/upgrade/index.html. In the PalmOne guide, we recommend that you choose “Option 2: You want to transfer your current username and your PIM data to your new handheld and then re-install your third-party applications and other files in another step.”

Once you have transfered your PIM data to your new handheld, you can restore your Life Balance data and reinstall Life Balance as described in the next section.

Warning: Do not launch Life Balance on your new handheld until you have restored your Life Balance data, or you may get new sample data mixed in with your real data.

Backing up your data

The Palm Desktop's Backup conduit backs up your Life Balance data each time you HotSync. These files are:

Life Balance Outline 3.PDB
Life Balance Places 3.PDB
Life Balance Appointments 3.PDB
Life Balance Sync 3.PDB

(On Windows computers these files are named using underscores instead of the spaces.)

The location of these files depends on what operating system and version of the Palm Desktop software you are running:

Mac OS X: Home:Documents:Palm:Users:<Your HotSync Name>:Backups
Mac OS 9 with Palm Desktop 4.0 and later: Documents:Palm:Users:<Your HotSync Name>:Backups
Mac OS 9 with Palm Desktop 2.6.3 and earlier: Palm:Users:<Your HotSync Name>:Backups
Windows with Palm Desktop 4.0 and later: C:\Program Files\Palm\<Your Folder Name>\Backup
Windows with Palm Desktop 3.1.1 and earlier: C:\Palm\<Your Folder Name>\Backup

Note: On Windows, your folder name is a name constructed by the Palm Desktop software based on the HotSync name of your handheld.

If you ever need to restore your Life Balance data, you can install these files just as you would install any piece of Palm software. Be sure to always restore these files as a matched set. Restoring some of these files and not the others may cause errors in Life Balance.

One word of warning: If you ever suspect that the Life Balance data on your Palm device has been corrupted, copy these four files to a safe place on your desktop computer before you HotSync. You wouldn't want HotSync to replace your valid backup files with corrupted ones.

Licensing

The Life Balance software licensing agreement allows you to use each edition (Windows, Macintosh, and Palm) free for thirty days. After thirty days of use, major features of the software will be disabled. Purchasing a license code will allow you to continue using the software after the free trial period has ended.

Each computer and handheld running Life Balance software requires a separate license, but special pricing is available for customers who purchase multiple licenses at the same time. Multiple users may share a single license for the desktop edition on a single computer by creating a separate data file for each user. See the official licensing agreement on our web site for specific details. For current pricing information, visit the Llamagraphics web site at:

https://www.llamagraphics.com/store/bundles.php

Once you have purchased a license code, you need to enter it into the software. Retail desktop license codes start with the letters “LBDT”. Palm license codes start with the letters “LBPA” and are entered by choosing Register from the Options menu in the mobile edition of Life Balance.