pigaro

After a couple of very frustrating weekends, I have finally gotten PocketMac, Virtual PC, and ActiveSync to work. (Maybe not together, but they do seem to work :-).

PocketMac (v3.43) seems to do most of what I need on a daily basis. I am able to synchronize my PPC contacts with Address Book and my calendar with iCal. I like the calendar synchronization. PocketMac created a new calendar, called "PocketMac" but it seemed to be empty. It did copy all three of the calendars I had onto the Pocket PC. When I tried creating an appointment on the Pocket PC I found out what the new calendar is for. It had the new appointment and I found I could easily move it to the appropriate iCal calendar. Synchronizing the mail with Entourage is not working yet (although I haven't spent any effort to find out why), and I web synchronization with Safari is not quite what I am hoping for (at least not yet). So far I have been able to use PocketMac with both my work laptop (PowerBook G4/1.33 GHz/aluminum) and my home desktop (iMac G4/800 MHz flat panel). One of the features of PocketMac that has not proven that useful is the software install. No, I haven't tried e-mailing to ask for .cab files instead of .exe installers, but since I have Virtual PC v6.1.1 with a Windows XP Home system I thought I would give the .exe installers a try.

I have Virtual PC running (actually more like crawling) on my desktop computer. I attempted to install Microsoft ActiveSync from the disc that came with my Dell Axim X30, and everything seemed to be going OK until I got to the 92% point. Patience is not something that I seem to be overly well gifted with. After waiting for seemingly endless minutes, I usually attempted to kill the installer, sometimes with unpredictable results. One day I started the install, left the house for church, came back and found it had gotten past the 92% point. Some more waiting and it was complete and ready to set up a partnership with my X30. I plugged the docking station into the USB port on the back of the computer (after unplugging my UFO hub), turned the X30 off, and plugged it into the docking station. The X30 came to life, but not much else happened. After waiting (remember, patience is not one of my manifold virtues), I tried the Next button and it brought up an amusing graphic of a computer attempting to connect to a tiny laptop like thing, made some noises, and then indicated that it couldn't find anything. ActiveSync indicated that the USB interface was "available," but I am not sure what that really means. Wasted most of a weekend on this. I got a tip that you had to have Virtual PC as the active application before plugging in the Pocket PC, but never got it to work.

I decided to go to the Microsoft Mactopia site (http://www.microsoft.com/mac/) and see if there was anything in the Virtual PC newsgroup. I found two general items of interest. One described a set of necessary conditions to make ActiveSync work with Virtual PC, the other gave an indication of a wrinkle if you have PocketMac installed.

A gentleman by the name of Bruce Miller had posted several messages indicating that it was indeed possible to get Virtual PC and ActiveSync to recognize a Pocket PC. He describes a series of steps to make it work (for a link to his web page, check out the message thread pointed to by this link http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...e8b5a2bd2140d9 )

His recommendation is not to plug the Pocket PC into the Macintosh before running Virtual PC and letting it get to a relatively quiescent state. This can take several minutes, but if you have Virtual PC in windowed mode (rather than full screen mode), you can use the hard disk activity indicator as a guide. If things are OK, then when you plug your Pocket PC into the dock the USB indicator should show some activity. I have found that it is best if you do not plug your Pocket PC into the Macintosh at any time between boot and running Virtual PC, but this may be due to having PocketMac installed. The other significant recommendation is to close ActiveSync and unplug your USB cable before shutting down Virtual PC, and then let it become quiescent before actually shutting down or saving state. [Once you get this to work, you might want to shut down and then have Virtual PC save the hard drive changes.] He also recommends that you plug the Pocket PC USB cable directly into a Macintosh USB port rather than into a hub. I have found it works fine with my UFO USB/Firewire Hub (but note that this is a powered hub).

Once I got ActiveSync to make a connection, I was able to install software on my X30 using the .exe installers I had downloaded. This has made my Pocket PC much more usable.

If you have PocketMac installed, then things could be a bit more complicated. PocketMac installs a kernel extension that is probably used to detect a Pocket PC plugged into a USB port. This extension can (does?) interfere with the ability of Virtual PC to capture the Pocket PC USB port. One of the recommendations from a gentleman named Justin is to unload the kernel extension before running Virtual PC. The full message can be seen in the message at this link http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...1db4aaa312c085

You may not need to unload the kernel extension if you have not plugged your Pocket PC into your Macintosh before running Virtual PC. One way to find out is to go to the Apple menu and select "About This Mac". This brings up the About This Mac window. Click on the "More Info..." button and it will open System Profiler (or you could directly open System Profiler from the Utilities directory). If the "Software" disclosure triangle is not open, then open it and click on "Extensions". Scroll down the list until you find PocketMacUSB. This will tell you if it is loaded or not.

To unload the kernel extension, you have to enter a Unix command using the Terminal program, and it needs to run a root. If you are an administrator on your Macintosh, then you can just use the command "sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/PocketMacUSB.kext" to attempt to unload the extension. If you are not using an administrator account, you will need to have an administrator add you to the sudoers file. I would recommend that anyone interested in this do a "man sudoers" in Terminal to get more information. It also is essential to know how to use the vi editor. Probably an easier way might be to restart, unless you are comfortable with Unix.

I hope this rather long posting is of help to someone. You can indeed make Virtual PC work with ActiveSync (or is it the other way around?). PocketMac can work, at least partially. Pocket PCs can coexist with Macs.