■ your computer must support the ircomm implementation of the irda standards.
■ your computer must have an enabled infrared port that's built into the computer, or an enabled infrared device attached to the computer.
desktop computers are likely to require an infrared device attached to a physical com port. laptops are likely to have a built-in ir port, so no external device is necessary. your computer must also have an installed infrared driver.
check your computer's documentation to learn if the computer supports infrared communication. if your computer is a macintosh g3 or later, or uses microsoft windows 98 or later, infrared communication is built into the operating system. some versions of the apple imac also have built-in infrared communication.
the following procedure explains how to find out if your windows 95 computer has an infrared driver installed.
to check if your windows 95 computer supports infrared communication:
1. in the windows taskbar, click start.
2. choose settings, and then choose control panel.
3. in the control panel, look for the infrared icon.
if the icon is there, your computer is enabled for infrared communication. if it isn't there, you need to install an infrared driver.
if you have an external infrared device attached to your computer, a driver is probably included with the device. consult the documentation included with the device for information on installing the required driver.
to install a windows 95 infrared driver:
1. click the hotsync manager icon
in the windows system tray and choose setup. click the tabs and note the com ports being used by the hotsync manager. you need this information later.2. go to this web site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads
3. follow the links to the windows 95 irda 2.0 (infrared driver), and follow the instructions to download the driver.
4. close your internet browser if it's in the way.
5. find the file w95ir.exe on your computer.
before you go to the next step, be sure this file is in a folder where you want to store the infrared driver.
6. double-click w95ir.exe.
a window lists the files that are unzipping onto your hard disk. when the title bar displays finished, close this window.
7. double-click setup.exe to begin installation. this file is in the folder where you unzipped w95ir.exe.
the add infrared device wizard appears.
8. click next.
9. accept the defaults provided until the wizard asks you to select an infrared port. be sure to select an available communications port.
do not select the port that the hotsync manager currently uses.
10. continue the rest of the installation using the defaults provided.
if an alert appears telling you that there is a communication port conflict, click ok and proceed.
after you install the infrared driver, check the ports used by your computer for infrared communication.
to check the ports used for infrared communication on a windows computer:
1. in the windows taskbar, click start, choose settings, and then choose control panel.
2. double-click infrared.
3. click the options tab.
4. select enable infrared communication.
the com port displayed in the drop-down box is the port where your infrared device is attached. it should be different from any port used by the hotsync manager.
5. make a note of which port is listed as "providing application support." you need this information to configure the hotsync manager for infrared communication.
this port (com4 in this example) is the simulated port, the channel through which the actual infrared communication takes place between your computer and your handheld.
6. deselect any other check boxes in the options tab.
7. click apply and ok
to install the extensions for infrared communication on a macintosh:
1. insert the palm desktop software cd-rom into the cd-rom drive on your macintosh.
2. open the palm extras folder.
3. open the irda files folder.
4. open the install in your system folder.
5. go to the extensions folder in your system folder and move the files with the same names as the files in the install in your system folder to another folder. (this will enable you to reinstall them later if needed.)
6. copy the four extension files into the extensions folder in your system folder.
7. restart your macintosh.