My Mitsubishi m342i phone and Linux
Technical description:Here are some technical details about the phone:
- 900/1800 Mhz
- GPRS
- VGA camera
- Color screen
- Doja Java VM (with games)
- 5 MB internal memory
- I-mode
- Infrared connection
Since the first day I try to:
- Get picturesfrom the phone (phone->PC).
- Get CSV cards from the phone (addressbook cards, phone->PC).
- Get calendar events from the phone (phone->PC).
- Get ring tones from the phone (phone->PC).
- Upload pictures into the phone (PC->phone).
- Upload CSV cards into the phone and update/replace the addressbook (PC->phone).
- Upload calendar events ino the phone (PC->phone)
- Upload ring tones into the phone (PC->phone).
- Transfer addressbook entries from the phone to the palm.
- Transfer addressbook entries from the palm to the addressbook.
- Synchronize the phone addressbook with the PC.
- Synchronize the phone calendar with the PC.
All these tests are done using a Linux laptop as the base station. I can sync my pda with the PC, and uses the pda addressbook from my mail app (sylpheed), so natural next step is to sync the phone with it…
As the phone is said to support the IrDA and OpenOBEX protocols, I started with these tools…
Try to make Palm talk to Phone:
I can successfully beam an appointment from the Palm to the phone, but get an error when I try to beam a contact. I found the vCard format supported by the phone is the v2.1 while the Palm seems to send v3 cards. This was with my old Palm on PalmOS 3. I changed it to a bright new Zire 31 on PalmOS 5, and this time I can exchange vCards between the Palm and the phone.
With the Zire, I can upload pictures from the phone to the Palm, send contacts to the Palm, send contacts from the Palm to the phone…
To do this, go to the personnal area (on the phone) select an object (picture, etc) select the action “Send to…”, and choose the IR link.
In order to receive anything on the phone, you must first open the IR port. To do so, go to the desktop and select the “IR port” menu entry, then select “Open”. The IR icon will show up in the upper bar, and the IR port will stay open for a while. After a delay, it will be automatically closed.
Export the telephone addressbook:
The first step would be to backup the phone addressbook. You will need the “irxfer” utility from the OpenOBEX package (get the package from here):
So on the PC, in a terminal use: irxfer
On the phone, go to the addressbook, select the “Copie to…” action, to create a copy of your addressbook in your personnal area. Once done, change to the personnal area, select the new file (something ending with the vcf extension), and choose the “Send to…” action, send it by IR (make sure the phone is in front of you PC’s IR port).
On the PC you should see a message reporting the filename, length and the number of bytes written. This file is a vCard file that contains several cards, using the vCard 2.1 format.
How many numbers could be listed for the same person?
I notice something strange, the phone addressbook only contain two fields for the phone number: one for the home number and one for the cellular number. In the Palm addressbook I have often three fields: one more for the office number. When browsing the phone book entries I can only see two numbers (the home and portable numbers) but when I try to call someone (by pressing the blue phone button) I can choose among a list of three numbers, it includes the office number. It’s magic!
Upload a new addressbook:
In order to update the telephone’s address book, as the phone does not support synchronization, you must upload a new (and complete) addressbook. This can be done from the Palm: open the addressbook, select all the cards (select the “All” category) and choose to send the category. Open the phone’s IR port and wait. Once received, the addressbook appears in your personnal area, you then have the option to save it and replace the current phone’s addressbook.
If you do so, you will have a new and updated addressbook, but you will also loose all the settings that are phone specific. I mean, the ringtone selection, the groups, the images,…