HotSyncing large files to an SD expansion card can take some time via USB 1.1 (e.g. a dozen MP3s or so). Sometimes it's just easier to manage files on your desktop computer. For this a USB 2.0 SD card reader is ideal...
New Macs, and older ones retrofitted with USB 2.0 PCI expansion cards, can use USB 2.0 SD card readers which are available for a little as just over £10.
On the Mac you can store your pictures, MP3 music files, application etc. in any directory (folder) that you like—with a few UNIX-inherited limitations relating to permissions. This isn't so with the Palm OS file system. SD expansion cards recognise a small set of "standard" directories—so you need to know which file type goes into which directory.
/AUDIO is for music
MP3 files must go in here, or the RealOne player won't find them.
/DCIM is for photos
JPEG (".jpg" or ".jpeg") images/ photos go here. The subdirectory "Palm Photos" contains the thumbnails database used by Palm's own Photos program. To view any photos you have manually installed onto your SD card, use the pull-down menu in the top right of the Photos app to choose your SD card. Once you've selected a photo(s) you can choose the menu option "Copy to Handheld..." if you prefer to store your images on the internal memory
/PALM is for programs
This is where Palm applications and their data files go. Programs and data files that you can see icons for in the Palm equivalent of a desktop/ Finder go into the /PALM/Launcher subdirectory (this includes Kimona movies e.g. LordoftheRings.pdb). Everything else goes into the /PALM/Programs subdirectory. These files have the suffix ".prc" or ".pdb".
/RN_AUDIO is for RealOne playlists
The playlist created by the RealOne music player resides in here (a .pdb file inside the "Playlist" subdirectory).
What about "offline" Web sites?
You can't install Web pages to an SD card via HotSync:
"Failed to install test.html to the SecureDigital (SD) Card
- No application on your handheld to open these files."
"Failed to install test.htm to the SecureDigital (SD) Card
- No application on your handheld to open these files."
You can install them onto an SD card using an SD card reader. Just drag-and-drop a folder containing your HTML and images onto the SD card. You can create a new directory that doesn't have to be one of the standard ones (e.g. /mysite). If you chose "Open From Card..." from the menu in Palm Web Pro and navigate to your site folder, you can open images and display HMTL files. I've tested this with files with both the .htm and .html suffix, and with pages written in HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0—they work fine.
Tip: To see your images full-size, chose "Normal View" from the Options menu.
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