On 8/17/2011 9:02 AM, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
- Roger Oberholtzer<roger@opq.se> [08-17-11 08:28]:
On Wed, 2011-08-17 at 07:23 -0400, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
I plug my Motorola Android Atrix into a usb port and access as an external drive. Then I can use mc or ... to copy music directly from one device to the other.
Indeed this works. But I have over 5000 tunes on the device at a time. And this is a subset of what is available. Of course I could copy/delete tracks by hand. But it seems a step backwards. Heck, next you'll tell me I do this at the command line! :) :)
it's quite possible and I am sure you know how or could find out quickly. Doesn't amarok allow access to external devices? There is the sorting and cataloging you desire.
So really, since it hasn't appeared in the discussion by now, the take away is that there really is nothing good like the days of Palm and WinCE where there was a single sync app, and/or auto detecting and syncing daemon, that kept several different types of data not merely copied but converted and imported/exported all in one go, and even all done automatically just by plugging the device in and having a daemon detect the usb or infrared connection, or automatically over wifi or bluetooth on a scheduled basis, or by bluetooth detection. Where apps themselves were copied for re-install if necessary, apps state were saved such as registration/serial numbers, and various app's data were intelligently integrated in various ways into various appropriate desktop apps. Contacts went into (and came out of) one of several PIM apps, including at least for Palm (on Windows) a very sweet and handy and configurable raw CSV file option that could be used to sync really custom stuff with the regular on-device PIM and Notes apps. Photos and other media didn't necessarily just go into a folder although that was the norm and there's not much reason to do much else, and various & sundry other specialized apps each could have their own custom "conduits" that synced their data to some desktop app or web site that was peculiar to that app, data loggers synced to specialized viewer/analyser desktop apps, cad drawings to a cad app, notes to a document app, etc etc. A lot of that has been obviated in later days by just the fact that newer apps just don't store as much locally and less of what they do store locally really matters. It's all usually synced on-line in some way such that after a clean install, most apps can be reinstalled from the market easier than restoring a backup. The apps themselves are readily downloadable, the metadata about what you've purchased is stored in your gmail account and automatically detected by the Market. You rarely have to re-enter a serial number and those few times you do, it's retrievable in the original saved gmail email receipt. There goes much of the reason for backups in the old days right there. Media and most documents are pretty standard and easy to deal with a number of ways. It's not special data that needs a special app to understand it or convert it to be imported/exported. Merely existing as files on the SD card, and those CD card directories being reachable from the desktop as a plain usb drive or via ftp or bluetooth is pretty much good enough for a lot of things. But there is no current good version of the nice syncing of other data. Some apps have their own answers via their web sites, Some don't, or it only goes between the phone and the web site and there's no good way to go between phone-desktop or phone-web-desktop. All you can do is write your own scripts using rsync and command line sqlite, xml, json, etc tools to sync things, which even that is still only remotely easily doable one-way. Application-specific intelligent two-way syncing is, "non-trivial". Even just the basic contacts, mails, and notes there's no actual convenient answer for local syncing like there used to be. Funambol seems closest, or go all-in with google but use the google take-out a lot to keep a local copy up to date. Just use the online service (of your choice) as the clearing house, not as storage. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org