Now, if you recall those old Visors, they had something called Springboard modules. These were plug-in cartridges slightly bigger than a Compact Flash card, specifically designed for extending the Visor functionality. One such Springboard module was a backup module, which wrote the contents of your Visor to the flash memory of the module. So, next up, I plugged that flash module into the Visor and backed up from the Visor to the module.

At this point, I had three copies of my data: one in the Visor itself, one on the flash module, and one in the install directory of the Palm Desktop. I removed the Visor from the cradle for the final time, and moved it away from my computer work area. If everything went to crap, I'd restore from the Visor or the backup module.

You should follow a similar set of steps. When you're done, put your old handheld in a nice, safe place. Disconnect the cradle from your computer and put it away as well.

Stage 2: Backing up the Palm Desktop
Next up, I backed up the Palm Desktop. This is where the bulk of your conversion work will go on, so you want to do this part pretty carefully. The very first step (and this is something I tend to do a lot) is create a ZIP file backup of your Palm directory.

Your Palm directory is usually located in C:\Program Files\Palm, although it's also been located in the C:\ root directory, and Handspring even decided to call it Handspring rather than Palm. In nearly all cases, it'll be in one of the following items:

• C:\Palm
• C:\Program Files\Palm
• C:\Program Files\Handspring
• and, possibly C:\PILOT if you've got an ancient device

And, as you no doubt figured out by now, these instructions are for Windows users only.

Once you've located your Palm directory, you'll want to make a ZIP copy of it. I like using WinZIP because, as shown in Figure A, I can just right click on the directory and choose the Add to Palm.zip submenu, and I've got my backup.

FIGURE A


Use WinZIP to make a full backup of your Palm directory. Roll over picture for a larger image.

The Palm.zip file was created at the bottom of my C:\Program Files directory, so I just moved it onto my Windows desktop for the duration of this project. I'll eventually burn it onto a CD for safekeeping.

After backing up the full Palm directory, you're going to want to grab a copy of your "user folder" and copy it to your desktop. This is a key step. Take a careful look at Figure B, below, and notice the highlighted folder "GewirtD".

FIGURE B


Back up your user folderby copying your "user folder" to the desktop. Roll over picture for a larger image.

Obviously, your user folder will have a different name than mine. My name is David Gewirtz, so my user folder takes seven letters from my last name "Gewirtz" and one letter from my first name "David" and smashes them together into a folder name "GewirtD". You'll want to look for a folder within your Palm folder that looks like your name. When you locate your user folder, drag a copy of it onto your desktop. Remember, this is the critical step, so be sure you have a copy on your desktop before you move on.