Managing documents in Documents To Go: the Memory Stick and RAM

I was having some problems with Documents To Go crashing after a restore from MSBackup. I think I found the problem and an explanation.

The specific problem I was having as I detailed in another thread was that after a complete restore using MSBackup, I could not access any of the document file stored on my Memory Stick through Documents To Go. It would crash and crash and crash.

Anyway, here’s the tip: I was manually moving documents back and forth between RAM and the Memory Stick using ClieFiles. While this seemed to work, I think that was the roor of the problem. It may not be obvious at first, but you specify where you want your documents to reside (Memory Stick or RAM) based on the Category within Documents To Go. From the list view, click on a document’s “i” icon (ie: bring up the documents’ details) and click on the category dropdown. Assuming you have a Memory Stick inserted, the bottom category is your Memory Stick. Just select that as the document’s category and it will be auto-moved from RAM to the Memory Stick. Conversely, if you change a document’s category from Memory Stick to one of the other RAM-resident categories, it will be auto-moved from the Memory Stick back to RAM. Very slick!

This can also be done through the Documents To Go Windows application by right-clicking on a selected document, selecting Item Details, and clicking on the category dropdown. Changes made here will be applied to the Clie on the next HotSync.

As always, this stuff may be somewhere in the documentation, but when I find ‘em, I post ‘em!

Did you know that you can play your MP3′s in the background while running other apps? Well, you can!

Launch the Audio Player app, click the Menu button, and select Options > Preferences

Next, check the “Enable Background Play” option and ckick “OK”

When you launch another app, any playlist currently playing will continue to play! Just re-launch the Audio Player app to adjust the volume, stop the playing, or select another song.

Just be aware that MP3 playing will cause quicker battery drain as well as slowdown in some apps (like games.)

Memory Sticks and backups…I purchased a 128MB Memory Stick along with my NX70V, and found a use for it that I never really considered before: Backups.

Sony includes a program called MSBackup, and it seamlessly and easily backs up all the contents of the NX70V’s RAM to a memory stick. I used to require FlashPro on my Palm Vx, but now that everything can be backed up to the memory stick, it is really no longer needed. I can rest much easier.

To test, I performed a backup to the Memory Stick (took under a minute), did a hard reset erasing all data, then, keeping fingers crossed) performed a restore selecting to overwrite everything…. Drum roll please!…Voila!…back exactly as it was prior to the hard reset! Very cool!

There is no “scheduleer” to automate backups, but it’s literally a couple button presses and you are done.

MSBackup will keep up to 5 prior backup sets (assuming you have the space) so you could conceivably “roll back” to any of the 5 saved sets. And because the NX70V only has 11MB of RAM, there is pleanty of room for all the other goodies (MP3′s, videos, etc.)!

How do you view your recorded movies on your PC?

Use the MSImport program to copy your recorded movie files off of your Memory Stick. (See “Jim’s NX70V Tip #2″ for how to set this up.)

Bonus tip: You may not know this, but in order to record video, you must have a Memory Stick installed!

OK. The files are stored in the /MQ_ROOT/100MQV01 directory on the Memory Stick with cryptic names like “MOV00001.MQV”. Just use MSImport to copy the file to your PC (like your Desktop or some other folder.)

Next, rename the file extension from .MQV to .MOV The files are QuickTime-compatible files and will play very nicely using the QuickTime player.

But wait…there’s more!

What if you don’t have QuickTime? Though QuickTime is popular, not everyone has it installed, and Windows Media Player, by default, cannot decode the QuickTime format. One solution is to convert the file from a .MOV file to a .MPG MPEG-1 format using TMPGEnc, and the resulting file will be fully Windows Media Player compatible. The problem is that TMPGEnc doesn’t read QuickTime files by default, so you need a plugin. Based on some information found at VCDhelp, download the QTReader plugin for TMPGEnc Just unzip the file and stick it in your TMPGEnc directory and you can now select .MOV files from your Browse dialogs.

TMPGEnc has a TON of settings to tweak, so the scope of TMPGEnc goes far beyond this tip, so please go to VCDhelp for help with TMPGEnc.

Oh, and if you really want to go all the way, you can burn the resulting MPG file to a CD-R in VCD format using something like NERO and view your video on your TV using a VCD-compatible DVD player! It will probably look like crap, but it does work!!!

Happy viewing!

Update:

It looks like QuickTime version 6.x plays .MQV files, but Sony ships v5.x with the Clie.

How do you copy files from your Memory Stick to your PC? Use the MSImport program! It’s included free with the NX70V and it can save your butt if you are away from your PC!

You must first install the Memory Stick Export program found on your Installation CD. Click on “Clie Utilities > Memory Stick Export” and follow the prompts. You may be asked to reboot–do it.

Now, when you put your NX in the cradle and execute the MSImport program on the Clie, your PC detects the Memory Stick as a removable hard drive and maps it to the next available drive letter. (I’m using Windows XP Pro, and this happens automatically.)

You just open up an Explorer window and navigate through the directory structure. You can copy, move, and delete files. You can add and delete directories. Pretty cool! Note: Be very careful when deleting! You could really screw things up if you don’t know what you are deleting!

It’s simple and fast!

True one-handed Launcher operation:

I don’t like the default CLIE Launcher and I can’t wait for new OS 5 compliant launchers. I tried to like the new launcher, but it seems to take too many jog dial turns to find and select a program, and I find it hard to navigate from category to category using the jog dial–it really requires stylus tapping. I REALLY am stuck on the Launcher iii, Launch’em, LauncherX style of launchers. So, what to do? None of the “good” launchers are fully OS 5 complient (yet.) So, why not go back to the “Classic” style.

But wait…don’t use the default settings! In my opinion, by default, the preferences aren’t very friendly: There is no way to easilly change categories short of clicking the dropdown and selecting a category.

-Go into Options and select “Go To Standard view”
-Next, go into “Options” and click “Preferences”
-Check all boxes and change the “Jog Select” dropdown to “PopUp”

Finally, edit the categories and rename them to whatever you want, and use the “Categories” menu item to assign categories.

OK, what does this give you?

Pressing the jog dial cycles you through the categories in the order that the categories are sorted (see bonus tip below to sort otherwise unsortable categories.) The “Unfiled” category is ignored, which is nice because it allows you to “hide” unused or infrequently used programs. Rolling the jog dial brings up a popup list of all apps in that category through which you can scroll and select. Pressing the jog dial on the selected entry in the popup starts the app. Is the popup displayed, but you want to go change categories? Press the “Back” button and it will dismiss the popup allowing you to then press the jog dial to cycle the categories.

Also, pressing and holding “Back” from within any application takes you back to the launcher.

Bonus tip:

Don’t like the way the categories are sorted? Rename the categories by prepending numbers to the names. For example, “Main” becomes “1. Main”, “Games” becomes “2. Games”, etc. Adjust the numbers to your liking, and you can determine the sort order!

It’s not perfect, but I can actually select any app from within any category with just a couple jogs and presses.

More tips coming as I uncover them!

Update:

Even if you don’t enable the “PopUp” function, you can still use the Jog dial to scroll through the apps. Now, this is my preferred setting. If you have an app highlighted and want to go back to selecting a category (because pressing the Jog Dial will launch the app) just press the “Back” button! So simple!