What can be loaded on memory cards?

[Yunk]

I recently bought a m505. I love it. One question though, can programs be loaded to a memory card? I am thinking of buying a 64mb. Any thoughts would be helpful. Thanks!

Mark of Yunk

[pdasteve]

You can load games, your photo suite software and portions of your Doc's to Go software (which came with your m505) plus a lot of additional software you may want to try.

I currently use an m515, but owed an m505 prior (suffer from upgrade-itis!).

Depending upon what software you use, consider looking into "MegaLauncher". It is a file-launching program that will allow you to launch directly from the palm without accessing the "card" category. It cost about $20, but it is well worth it. You can demo it for 14 days at no cost. This software will end up saving you "taps" as you scroll through your menu's/categories accessing programs which are either on you palm's memory or the card's memory. Plus there are other cool features as well.

If you use the AvantGo software, consider looking into "Avantage" from ToySoft. The Avantage software allows you to store all of your AvantGo channels on your card, saving as much of your internal memory (8mg). I think it costs around $10.

A 64mg card should be fine. In my opinion don't get any less than the 64mg. I originally purchased a 32mg card (before the prices dropped) and filled it up. You can store "more programs" than you can use on a 64mg card, and with Avantage storing AvantGo on your card you should be able to keep about 4mg of free memory on your m505's internal memory.

I have approximately 20 games, 40 photos (photo suite which came with the m505), eProcrates (medical software, 1500k), Workview+, Sheetview+, plus other utilities on a 128 card. I have only used 40mg's of the card's memory.

Hope this help!

PDASteve

[philgrin]

i was very interested in the reply by pdasteve. it was partially helpful to me but raised another issue, at least in my mind. i own an m505 and the 16meg expansion card (i know, i know). among the applications i have on the card is HandDBase 3. when i try to activate it, i get the message essentially that i don't have enough space on my handheld to run the app, which is probably true, at 327k.

my question is does megalauncher or one of the others allow the capability of running an application on an expansion card, or am i in fact limited to the handheld itself? i hope i have articulated my quandary.

[DrMud]

Your subject is one that gets answered in many ways. Just who is correct seems to be up for grabs.

The following applies only to Palm OS4 (4.1). In principal all launchers that run and application located on the Memory Card do move the application into RAM on the handheld then move it back. As you pointed out there must be sufficient space in RAM on the handheld for the application to reside during the time it is open and in use.
All of that said the developer of PiDirect explains that his product takes a different approach. I have added a quote below.
DrMud


From Lea at PiDirect August 29,2002:
PiDirect is different from other launchers. Other launchers launch applications on card by first copying the WHOLE app to RAM, launch it, and then delete it when quit.

PiDirect will also copy data from card to RAM, but it will just copy the portion of data when needed. For example, if there is a 20M dictionary database, PiDirect will copy just a part of data from the database when searching for words starting by 'A', copy another portion of data to RAM when searching for 'B' etc.

So PiDirect is able to use a database which is greater than the RAM size of Palm device.

[johnny_quest]

This raises a question that is frustrating me. I use Silver Screen and many times when I launch an app from my card, it creates a duplicate in RAM, which I have to manually remove. I'm constantly looking in my 'unfiled' folder to see what app has been cloned! Any thoughts?

[DrMud]

Check the "preferences" or "options" on your launcher to see if there is a setting to "remove on closing."
That seems to be an undesirable feature. I would email the developer for confirmation that it is normal and or correctable.
I use MegaLauncher and it launches from the card without any distracting behavior.
DrMud

[Yunk]

I am trying to figure out if I can load quickoffice and avantgo right on to the card. I can get them there but can't configure a hot sync. Any and all help would be great!

Mark

[DrMud]

All apps that need to Sync to the PC or to the web must be in RAM at least during the HotSync. Clearly moving large apps like QuickOffice and Avantgo back and forth could be a real problem.
QuickOffice should be in RAM for other reasons as well. There is an application developed by Danny Wong at ToySoft.ca that will move Avantgo from the card to Ram and back whenever you start to HotSync. It is a super neat tool called Avantage.
DrMud

Avantage (http://www.toysoft.ca/Avantage.html)

[Yunk]

I also got an email from PDASteve that was equally helpful. These guys also make software that will let you run quickoffice off the card. It is also $10. I bought both of them tonight. 5.4 left in ram!

Mark

[DrMud]

Thanks for the update on running QuickOffice from the card. I'll check that out.
DrMud