Teaching My Tether to Get Along With Classic

I posted this guide to Hotsyncing my Pre with my netbook using My Tether as a wifi hotspot in Precentral in this thread. I am archiving it here on my blog because I don't want to have to spend a lot of time searching for it on Precentral's vast forums.

Running My Tether and Can't Hotsync? Use My Tether to Hotsync!

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I'm not sure if this post will fall into the "Duh, we all knew that already" category or the "That's just crazy enough to work!" category but it's new to me and I haven't seen it on these forums.

I was thinking about doing a hard reset on my Classic PalmOS installation in hopes of getting it to perform better but wanted to do one final Hotsync in order to back it up. But I had been having a lot of trouble performing a Hotsync. Wifi? Failed. Bluetooth? Failed. Then I remembered reading in these forums that a lot of users of My Tether were having trouble hotsyncing.

So I had what seemed at the time to be a crazy idea. Since My Tether is doing a fairly good job of turning my Pre into a wifi Hotspot, why not tether my Pre to my netbook via wifi and do a wifi Hotsync that way? Since I was having no success in Hotsynching while connected to my home wifi network, this felt like a rather unlikely solution but I tried it anyway. And it worked.

So to summarize:

The Problem: Cannot Hotsync Classic via wifi or Bluetooth.

The Cause: Users of My Tether often suffer this problem and it is widely believed that My Tether is the culprit.

The Solution:

1. Launch both My Tether and Classic.
2. Turn on wifi tethering in My Tether.
3. Connect to your Pre as you would connect to any other wifi hotspot.
4. Take note of the IP address which your Pre assigns to your computer.
   • In Windows 7,
     1. Click on the wifi icon in your system tray to bring up your wifi network.
     2. Right click on your wifi network (by default My Tether calls itself, AoNet).
     3. Click on Status and then click on the Details button.
     4. Your IP adress will be listed in the Network Details box that comes up.
   • In Windows XP,
     1. Your connection will sometimes put a network icon in your system tray.
     2. Click on it and select the Support tab of the status dialog that pops up.
     3. Your IP Address will be listed here.
        or
        1. If this icon is not in your system tray, open My Network Places instead.
        2. Click on View network connections in the sidebar and click on Wireless Network Connection.
        3. It will pop up the same status dialog as in the above example.
5. Launch the Hotsync app in Classic.
6. Tap on Select PC.
7. The Hotsync app will be unable to find a PC and will ask you to enter your PC's name or IP address by hand.
8. Enter the IP address that your Pre assigned to your PC.
9. Tap Done.
10. Tap Hotsync.

That should be it. You should now be able to do a successful hotsync. Or at least that's what I did to get Hotsync running in Classic.

Hurry Up and Wait—Palm's Update Cycle Slows Down

Ever since Palm came out with its Pre phone, they have been updating its webOS operating system approximately once a month. Sometimes the updates have been small and sometimes they can introduce bugs. But even so, it was OK for me since there would usually be another update just around the corner. Now with their latest update which brought webOS to version 1.3.1, the update cycle has apparently slowed down. webOS 1.3.1 came out in mid-November and now we are nearing the new year with precious little word of another update. While normally a delay in updating webOS might not be a problem for me but webOS 1.3.1 has unfortunately introduced a rather serious bug which causes Motionapps' Classic emulator to be very unstable. Worse yet, just running Classic now can leave my Pre so sluggish that I have to reboot it both before and after using this program. And just to add insult to injury, apparently Motionapps has already fixed this bug but can't release the fix until Palm does its next update.

A perfect storm of incompetence. Suddenly the new Palm is starting to look a lot like the old Palm.

Classic Takes One Step Forward, Ten Steps Back

There is something of a compromise these days between gadget and software makers and their users. They put out incomplete gadgets and software and we put up with it because we think it's part of the price for getting to play with the latest and greatest. Witness the Beta label which clung to GMail for years. And it's not just with software. It took years for the iPhone to get a basic feature like cut and paste.

Similarly, Palm was able to release the Pre without certain features, like video recording, and with few native apps, asking its users to trust in its ability to update their phone. And certainly Palm has been good about updating the Pre with updates coming on a monthly, sometimes even weekly, basis. And they smartly made sure that one of the first third-party apps available for the Pre was Motionpps' Classic, an emulator which allows its users to run PalmOS apps.

For me, Classic essentially sealed the deal and made me get my Pre simply because I have used PalmOS apps like SplashMoney and HandyShopper for years and could now use them on my Pre. And while Classic isn't perfect, sometimes it crashes and freezes up and it has even crashed the entire phone on occasion. But generally it has been improving through updates.

Until now. With the recent 1.2 webOS update, Classic gained the ability to Hotsync to a desktop computer over wifi. A second update added the ability to sync over Bluetooth. And yet, I still haven't figured out how to make this sync work even though I frequently used both Bluetooth and wifi to sync my older Palm devices. This isn't too bad, I'm willing to be patient with MotionApps as they have promised to put up a FAQ to help users sync to their computers. But the thing that really bothers me is the fact that ever time I start up an app in Classic it pops up the following message:

Great, a nag screen for all my older apps. Perhaps MotionApps think they are helping users. Perhaps it's trying to cover itself legally. Or perhaps they just want them to badger software makers into joining Classic's certification program.

Either way it is annoying. It gets in the way of my work. And worse yet, it reminds me of Microsoft's obnoxious User Account Control in Vista. Sure it only runs the first time I run an app inside Classic but unless I keep Classic running all day long—something which given Classic's stability problems is not realistic—I will wind up seeing this message hundreds of times a day as I start and stop Classic and apps within Classic.

Another new addition within Classic isn't quite so bad as the nag screen but it is puzzling. I give you full screen mode:

Not much to look at right? All it does is hide the Pre's top bar, giving you exactly zero extra pixels because it merely replaces it with its own considerably less useful and less informative top bar. Now if full screen mode would collapse the virtual d-pad and buttons and give you full use of the Pre's 480x320 screen, it would be something which I've wanted since the Pre debuted. As it is implemented now, Classic's full screen mode is both pointless and useless.

For the first time since I got my Pre I'm an unhappy user. Ever since updating to version 1.2.1, my Pre has been slow and buggy and I can't pin-point the reason why. Classic is getting in the way more than it is helping. And at a time when Palm is ramping up its efforts to get more apps onto the Pre, webOS doesn't want to load more than fifty apps at a time.

Are these just growing pains for a young platform with a bright future or is it a sign that Palm has reached the limits of its ability to create something good and useful for its users. I deeply hope that its the former and not the latter.

Classic Running Smoothly Since Latest Palm Pre Update

Much has been made of the latest Palm Pre webOS 1.04 update closing an email hole which allowed the installation of homebrew apps while at the same time exposing the device to a serious security threat. But one thing that I've noticed as a user is that Classic hasn't crashed once since the update. It turns out that this is no coincidence. The update also addressed the stability problems that Classic was suffering. It also changed the Classic installation folder back to the ClassicApps/Install folder. This is the same folder which had been causing many of the "blue screens" in Classic.

While it's nice that they fixed the blue screens, I had gotten used to using a second folder ClassicApps/PALM/Install to install software into Classic and now it doesn't work (this folder can and should be deleted by anyone who is running Classic on their Pre). This is no big deal in the larger sense—in fact it's a relief since it was confusing to have two install folders (one of which could cause Classic to crash) was confusing. But it would be nice if Palm had some sort of release notes in their update app explaining the reason for the update and that it was going to change the default behavior of one of their apps. I think that MotionApps has been working hard to communicate with the user community even if some of their attempts leave something to be desired. But Palm has a special responsibility as the gatekeeper to the Palm Pre and to webOS to work even harder to keep its users informed and something as simple as including a "What's New" blurb for OS updates in their Update app would go a long way in fostering better user satisfaction—providing a link to Palm's support page where you can eventually drill down to a brief explanation of the current update is not enough in my opinion.

On a positive note, Classic's increased stability has given me more confidence to install more PalmOS apps. Here are some apps which I've tried:

Bang!: Display is completely corrupted and the game is unplayable.
DateDiff: Runs well.
Documents to Go: Runs reasonably well. Docs to Go is a pretty complex application with numerous components so it's hard to tell which problems are a matter of incompatibility or of missing files. This is an app which really needs to be ported to webOS.
Haemoncrules: Runs well
Progect: Runs well.
Shortcut5: Runs well and I would love to see a utility like this one for webOS.
Statcoder Cholesterol: Runs well.
Stopwatch: Runs well.
TouchTetris: There seems to be some minor corruption of the graphics while the blocks are falling and this game is decidedly lo-res but otherwise it plays better on the Pre than it does on most PalmOS devices in part because of the Pre's finger-optimized screen.
Tricorder: Runs well, sound is very loud.

Palm's Angsty Update

Due to heavy thunderstorms in the Chicago area, a large swath of the city and suburbs were plunged into darkness, including my own home which was without power for about four and a half hours. Without TV and without DSL Internet access, I turned to my phones with their 3G connections for information. Thanks to Palmdoc's Twitter feed, I learned that there is a new update for my Palm Pre which breaks the Classic emulator. So I'm sitting in the dark with only a flashlight to illuminate me, my Pre's battery is down to less than 50%, and I could break one of the applications which I depend upon the most. Naturally I had to try it.

And sure enough, when the update installed and the Pre restarted, Classic crashed. But I wasn't too worried. I'd gone over the Treocentral thread which reported the problem carefully and thought that I had a good idea of what was going on so I connected my Pre to as a USB drive and cleaned out the ClassicApps directory, moving everything to my netbook. When I disconnected and started Classic, it came up just fine.

Interestingly enough following the 1.03 Pre update, Classic now reports its version as "1.1.05." It looks like there was an undocumented update for the Classic bundled in the Pre update. Which explains the crashes and the subtle changes in Classic's behavior. For one thing it is a little "slower" to start up in that the MotionApps logo takes longer to fade away even if though it is still possible to scroll through the Launcher and launch apps while the logo is displayed. Also, Classic now informs me that none of my apps is "Classic certified." (Tapping on this message launches the browser and displays Classic's web page but does not appear to offer any solutions at this time.) I'm not too worried about this as they all continue to work properly.

Classic has also added a Preferences item with a number of options. "Emulation Mode" allows you to choose from "Games," "Normal," "Fast," and "Safe" modes. Fast appears to be the default. Games mode enables sound in Classic but warns that it is very experimental and could cause Classic to crash. And indeed it does tend to crash once it has been restarted a few times. Normal also enables sound but toggles off Classic's "Turbo" mode. (Turbo mode is probably the reason why MotionApps claims that Classic is twice as fast as real PalmOS devices.) The speed difference between Normal and Fast modes are negligible but turning on sound support tends to cause Classic to crash. Safe mode turns off both sound and Turbo mode. In general the default Fast option seems to work best on with Classic.


Classic also has a new directory structure. (Which perhaps is what caused all the crashes in the first place.) It mimics a Palm SD card more closely by creating a PALM folder with Launcher and Programs folders underneath it. Notice from the screenshot that there are now two Install folders. The one underneath the Launcher folder is the new "Install" folder for Classic. You put .prc and .pdb files here if you want Classic to import them when it starts up. The other Install folder, the one directly underneath the ClassicApps folder is the old install folder and will cause Classic to crash if it is used. Naturally Classic dutifully recreates it if you delete it....

If you avoid the first Install folder, you should be fine but MotionApps would be wise to delete it altogether in order to avoid confusing users.

Update: Precentral reports that MotionApps has put up a blog post and FAQ to address the issue.

Classic—Bringing New Life to Some Old Apps

I checked the Palm Pre's App Catalog today and it had the same thirty applications that have been there for at least a week. Thirty apps. That's one ten thousandth the number of applications available for the iPhone and about one thousandth the number available for Android phones like the T-Mobile G1. But all is not lost for the Pre. One of the apps in Palm's App Catalog, is MotionApps' Classic PalmOS emulator. This app makes it fairly easy to run many of the thirty thousand apps available for older PalmOS devices on the Palm Pre.

But how easy is it to run PalmOS apps using Classic really? Since I've been a Palm user for over ten years, I was eager to learn. While the results are somewhat mixed, I've come to the conclusion that Classic is definitely a viable solution for Palm enthusiasts trying to convert to the Pre.

The Classic screen resembles that of a Treo smartphone—well, really it resembles the Palm Centro with its stacked, paired buttons and big d-pad. Unfortunately, Classic is locked into a 320x320 interface, using the rest of the screen for its virtual buttons. On the list of improvements that I want to see in Classic, being able to take advantage of the Pre's 480x320 screen is number one.

Number two is being able to copy and paste between other webOS applications. Classic handles copy and paste among applications that run inside it just fine. In fact in some ways it's even better than the implementation of copy and paste in webOS as a whole. But you can't for example cut a block of text from the PalmOS Memos app in Classic and paste it into the modern webOS Memos app.

Classic is also missing sound and codec support. This makes games somewhat less exciting and is a disappointing omission.

Classic also has problems with stability. It will sometimes throw up a Windows like BSoD which asks you to close the window and try again. Sometimes it will even crash the Palm Pre itself, causing it to reboot. Fortunately, these crashes are rare and have become even more rare since MotionApps updated Classic to version 1.0.2. MotionApps also has a separate Rom Update application which helps fix some bugs when it is installed inside Classic. We sometimes forget how unstable and cranky the PalmOS had become in its final years and some of these problems have definitely been carried over into Classic. But again, these problems are rare. Generally speaking most apps run faster and better under Classic than they ever did under the old PalmOS. MotionApps claims that PalmOS apps will run twice as fast under Classic as they would on a native PalmOS device and that seems about right. Everything in Classic seems to happen instantly and that is definitely a good thing.

While Classic does emulate an SD card treating its "ClassicApps" folder on your Pre as if it were an SD card, I've found that most of its crashes can be traced to a conflict between the app its trying to run and Classic's SD card emulation. It's much easier to "install" applications into Classic by putting them into a folder, appropriately named "Install" which Classic creates under its "ClassicApps" folder on your Pre. In the case of older applications which don't support loading from an SD card this is your only option for running them anyway. Also apps which consist of a .prc file with several .pdb data files tend to run better and more stable when they are installed instead of being run from Classic's virtual SD card. This causes a slight start up delay as Classic imports these files but the increased stability is absolutely worth it.

While Classic does not at this time support PalmOS Hotsync (MotionApps claims that it is looking into adding it in the future), it does support a Hotsync ID. This allows users to use software which they've bought and registered over the years without buying it again.

Importing PIM data is a little more involved than importing third party applications. MotionApps has fairly detailed instructions on how to do this but the gist is that you need to use a third party file manager like Filez on your PalmOS device to move the PIM databases to an SD card, copy them to your computer, and copy them again to the "Install" folder on your Pre. Once they are on your Pre, the Classic PIM apps look just like the PIM apps on any PalmOS device. If nothing else they are a good way of handling your imported data while waiting for better native Pre apps to come along.

Overall, Classic is a good way to ween PalmOS enthusiasts off their old apps while plugging some software holes in the Pre App Catalog. Buying Classic was fairly easy. I went to MotionApps' website and bought it and the next time I ran Classic it already knew that it had been registered. While this process is easy, it is interesting to note that the purchasing process for buying apps on Android is even more seemless—if you've ever bought anything through Google, the Android Market has your information and that makes purchases instantaneous.

Here are the applications which I've tried to run in Classic along with brief summary of the degree to which I succeeded:

AcidFreecell—Crashes when run from the ClassicApps folder. Generally stable (still occasionally crashes but not often) when installed into Install folder.

AtomSmash—Not compatible with Classic. Crashes under all circumstances.

Bejeweled!—Runs well in Classic.

BellTime—Runs well but without sound support, alarm clock apps are essentially useless.

BibleReader—This is a pretty good application for showing off Classic's strengths and weaknesses. It crashes when run from the ClassicApps folder and runs well when installed in the Install folder but it cannot see its databases unless they are also installed in the Install folder. Once everything is installed properly, BibleReader runs instantly in Classic—faster in fact than on any PalmOS device which I've ever used it with.

Bubblet—Runs well in Classic.

Converter—runs well in Classic.

D2RuneWords—Crashes when run from ClassicApps folder. Runs well when installed in Install folder.

DateBk5—Runs well when installed in Install folder but floating events require no longer "float" as they require Classic to remain running at all times.

Diddlebug—Runs well when installed in Install folder but requires more precision than is possible with the human finger.

Eat Watch—Runs well when installed in Install folder.

eReader—Runs but cannot see books unless they are installed in the Install folder.

FreeJongg—Runs but distorted graphics make the game unplayable.

HandyShopper—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

JFile—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

Keygen—Runs well.

Mass Transit—Runs well

Noah Pro—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

PalmFiction—My favorite ebook reader on PalmOS runs very well under Classic, viewing books no matter where they are in Classic's directory structure. If only Classic supported 480x320 resolution.

PsMemo—Runs well.

SplashMoney—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

T-Crisis—Runs well but virtual D-pad makes control difficult.

Thesaurus—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

TopSecret—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

WordPop!—Runs well.

USDA Foods—Runs well when installed together with its databases in Install folder.

Cut and Paste—webOS vs Classic PalmOS

One of the big albatrosses around the neck of the iPhone was it's lack of support, until recently, of copy and paste functions. So naturally Palm has trumpeted loudly that the new Palm Pre supports copy and paste from day one. And it does but there's a problem—actually two problems. Palm's copy and paste doesn't work everywhere and it doesn't work as well as it did under the older PalmOS operating system.

In order to copy and paste text in the Palm Pre's webOS, you tap to place the cursor at the beginning of the block of text you want to copy, hold down the shift key, and drag your finger horizontally to choose the text you intend to copy. Then you choose "Edit" from the drop down menu and select ." Palm has even created a little shortcut where you can tap and hold your finger in the gesture area and it acts like an unlabeled Menu key—the Pre will cut, copy, or paste whenever you press the "x," "c," or "v" keys on the keyboard. Pretty slick right? Actually, in the old PalmOS it was even easier to copy and paste. You could simply drag your finger across the text you wanted to copy and select "Cut," "Copy," or "Paste" from the edit menu which is even easier and more intuitive than with the Pre's webOS. In fact, I was so used to this way of doing things from my PalmOS devices that at first the webOS felt more awkward because I was trying to drag my finger across the text I wanted to copy when I was supposed to first place the cursor and drag my finger horizontally in the direction that I wanted the selction to move. This feels confusing and unintuitive, the older PalmOS way of doing things feels simpler to me.

Of course the older PalmOS was designed for PDAs and smartphones with different types of touchscreens than webOS. PalmOS was optimized for use with a stylus while webOS is designed for use with a finger. Could this be the reason for the Pre's Cut and Paste method? If only there were a way to compare these two methods side by side. There is—MotionApps' Classic emulator allows us to run PalmOS apps side by side with webOS apps. So I loaded the webOS Memos application and PsMemo within Classic. And it turns out that it's just as easy and intuitive to use the PalmOS Copy and Paste method in an emulated PalmOS app on my Palm Pre as it is on a Treo or a Palm TX.

I suppose that it doesn't make much difference one way or the other—the Palm Pre cuts, copies, and pastes just fine. It's just interesting how in the march of progress we sometimes take a tiny step back even as we move ahead.

One thing that does make a significant difference to me is the fact that webOS' copy and paste only works in text fields. As a result, you can't copy a block of text from your browser and paste it into a memo or anywhere else. The PalmOS web browser, primitive as it was, has always been able to do this and it should be simple to implement. Of course it this is so simple why did it take Apple, many times larger and richer than Palm, so long to implement it in the iPhone? Even Android, which is made by Google and had copy and paste on day one, took over a year to implement it in its browser. So perhaps I should cut Palm some slack.

Nevetheless, this does have a practical downside. I have secured my home wifi hotspot with a long 63-character wifi password. It's easy for me to put this key in a text file on a flash drive copy and paste it into any laptop that connects to my home network. It's also easy to put it into a memo and copy and paste it onto my Palm TX. With my T-Mobile G1 it was a little harder. First I had to find an Android application that could read text files and copy and paste. Once I had done that, it was easy to copy a text file to the G1 and copy and paste the wifi key.

With the Palm Pre it was even more of a challenge. While I had imported my old PIM data into Classic, including a memo with my wifi key; Classic sadly does not appear to support copying and pasting data between PalmOS and webOS applications. And neither does the Pre's built-in document viewer, the text file option was out. After trying several solutions, I concluded that the easiest solution was to email the wifi key to myself and open the email in my Palm Pre. But since the email application only displays the email I wasn't out of the woods yet. I had to tap reply in order to place the text of the email into a text field so I could copy and paste the key. Once I did that, I finally had access to my wifi hotspot on the Pre. That's not exactly what I'd call elegant.

MotionApps Brings PalmOS Apps to Palm Pre

One of my misgivings about Palm's upcoming Pre smartphone with its fancy new webOS and way cool Synergy with all of your Internet based information was that it was not backwards compatible with PalmOS applications. Now MotionApps is creating an emulator for running PalmOS apps on the Palm Pre's webOS operating system. This is pretty good news for me even if it means I have to shell out more money for the application. I've depended on PalmOS applications for a decade and I still haven't found better alternatives for many of them on other platforms. So I'm a little more excited about the Pre than I was yesterday.