Peacemaker is a cross-platform Infrared transfer utility for Pocket PC.
Windows CE cannot inherentely beam contact information to devices that
run Palm OSŪ. With Peacemaker, users may beam their business cards to
users running on the other platform, without any added utilities having
to be installed on the Palm OSŪ device.
Peacemaker integrates itself into the Contacts application of the Pocket PC.
There are two menu items that are normally not present on the Tools popup
menu: Beam Selected and Card Exchange.
When the user selects one or more entries in the Contacts application,
and then chooses the Beam Selected menu item, the entries in question
will be queued for beaming to a Palm OSŪ device. Through the Tap-and-Hold
stylus method introduced on the Pocket PC, one may beam a specific
contact. By tapping and dragging on a range of items, multiple contacts
are selected and can be beamed.
The Card Exchange menu command works a bit differently -- it beams the
same card every time. When this item is activated, the intent is really
to "exchange business cards" with a Palm OSŪ user. The interface is simply
a depiction of a business card with the name of the selected contact (that
will act as the business card) on it. The card choice is persistent
between sessions. The interface also allows for the user to select
a new card.
In both cases, the Pocket PC is also set up to recieve a beam from a Palm OSŪ
device. In that event, the Pocket PC receives the information and then
prompts the user to import the contact(s) received into the Pocket PC
Contacts database. Also, the option to close Peacemaker after the
transfer is complete is also present.
Due to the limitations of the Palm OSŪ, certain fields present in the
Pocket PC will not be transferred over to the Palm OSŪ device. For
instance, Palm OSŪ only stores one address block, while Pocket PC can store
work and home addresses. If both work and home addresses are present in
an entry, Peacemaker will prompt the user as to decide which address the user
would like to beam. The complete list of fields supported in both ways
of transfer is: first name, last name, title, company, email, home
telephone, fax number, pager number, mobile number, address, city, state,
zip code, country, and notes (text, not ink).
With Peacemaker Professional, beaming appointments and tasks is just
as easy. The Tools menus of the applications have menu items
entitled "Peacemaker" which will beam the selected item(s), or, if no
items are selected, launch Peacemaker in "beam receive only" mode.
To beam notes or files, use the Peacemaker shortcut on the Programs menu as the
Notes application doesn't have plugin capabilities.
