Configuring a Palm Pre phone for Over-The-Air sync with ChaosHost

Palm Pre phones

If you find these instructions don't match up with the screens you see on the Palm Pre, please let us know so we can improve this guide!

Please plug your phone into a power supply when doing your initial sync! It is not a requirement, but the very first transfer will be sending enough data that most users will notice considerable battery drain.  A Wi-Fi connection is also preferred, if available, for its superior transfer speeds.

 
1. Configure Mobile Sync Options and Time Zone Settings

To successfully transfer your appointment data with correct times, you need to select a default Time Zone for your database on ChaosHost.com.  You will also want choose the same timezone you use on your device to ensure that all the appointment start and end times come to your device as they should.  WARNING:  If you change the timezone on your device, it will change all of the start and end times on your appointments!  If you want the start times and end times to continue to match what you see on ChaosHost.com and in Time & Chaos/Chaos Intellect, the time zone on your phone must match!

On ChaosHost.com:

• Login to your account on ChaosHost.com, and go to Options.
• Select "Change Over-The-Air Mobile Sync Preferences".
• On "Enable", choose True.
• Select a Timezone for your database.  Timezones are listed by Continent, so Canada, Mexico and the United States would all be considered America, for example.
• The other preferences are optional, but useful if you have extremely large databases. If you have more than 2000 contacts, consider synchronizing one group instead of all contacts. If you have more than 2000 future appointments, make the window for future appointments shorter by sending just the next few months of future appointments rather than the defaults.
• When complete, SAVE your settings.

  
2. Add a new account to Palm Pre

• From the Mail, Contacts, Calendar or Task app, look for the option to Add Account.
   
  
• Tap on "Microsoft Exchange".
   
  
• Look to the top left for the menu, which should offer an option for Manual Setup.
   
  
• Manual Setup should take you to a screen looking for email address, incoming mail server, domain, username and password.
• For email address, you must fill in something that looks like a real email address like chaoshost@chaoshost.com. Do not use a real email address that you plan to check separately with your Palm Pre's email app.
• For incoming mail server, after the "https://" add "www.chaoshost.com".
• Leave domain BLANK!
• For user name, enter your actual ChaosHost.com login for your database.
• For password, enter the same password you use to access your ChaosHost.com account.

The first sync can take a while, depending on how large your db is, so you might want to make sure you have time to let it run for awhile AND that you have a way to power the device so its not running down your battery. Having Wi-Fi enabled is also a good idea if it is available. Future syncs are faster once it gets past the initial load.

Once you have configured this ChaosHost account for one type of data, it should automatically be added to all the other types as well, so you should only have to set this up once.

[Thanks to Annalee for the great screen shots and blog post!]

  
3. Is the ChaosHost account your default account?

Palm Pre can have multiple sources that your data comes from. If you setup more than one source, you'll want to be careful which source account has been selected as the Default account.  When you add new records to your Palm Pre, it will transmit this new information to your default account, unless you tell it otherwise. Making ChaosHost your default account should result in new records you add to your Palm Pre being added to ChaosHost as well.

4.  Want better battery life and sync behaviour?

If you go to the Mail app on the Pre, you can control how often each account checks for mail.  In the case of this Exchange account for ChaosHost, this constant checking is definitely NOT wanted, especially since we do not have any mail to give you!  So, if you go to the Exchange account (which you can also rename to something else like ChaosHost if you like) look for the option to change how often this account checks for mail and change it from "as messages arrive" to something else. The more frequent you choose, the more battery use that will be required, so think about how often is often enough to maximize your battery!

This help article applies to ChaosHost, a cloud database service for users of Chaos Intellect, Time & Chaos, and Chaos Free