Where Are My Palm Treo 650 SMS Messages

You may be aware that I have been a long-time Palm user and fan of their products. Sure, like many, I have been frustrated that their development lacks the pace of some of the others in the same space and their product range is limited. But I was a user of the Treo 600 when it was first launched in the UK and am, currently, a Treo 650 owner. They may not be the best ‘phones in the world, and they’re old-school when it comes to PDA functionality these days, but they more-or-less work for me. I also have a Palm Lifedrive that I don’t really use and am trying to find a sensible use for.

Having said that, I am a fan; I really must impress upon the product managers to work with users. It’s always the technology that lets me down. Yesterday, just before I went to Helsinki, my Treo’s SMS Message program somehow corrupted, leaving me with limited access to messages. A few users have posted handy hints, but there’s little official help (it’s the Messages Database in case you’re wondering, not the SMS Messages, as some threads seem to hint). I spent a good hour trying to fix it, as SMS capabilities are quite important to me when I travel (it saves on the cost of calls).

To resolve the problem, I had to completely remove the Messages Database, and then we were back to normal functionality. On my journey of Palm discovery, I realised there is really no SMS back-up help. I sync my Palm daily, and you would have thought that SMS and MMS messages would have been archived in the Palm Desktop. But no, they are stuck in their little databases with almost no way to get them out – and once your database is corrupted, all hope is gone.

Fortunately for me, it’s not that important to keep old messages, but it’s nice. This site is a reminder of things I did, and I increasingly use my Palm Treo 650 photographs on Flickr as a visual reminder of what I have done. It would be nice to add an SMS/MMS timeline to that as a personal record (a little like Nokia’s Lifeblog). So, c’mon Palm: help us keep our data in multiple ways.

On this day…