Lingua Franca for PDAs

IntelliLink for Windows 3.4 does for personal digital assistants (PDAs) and desktop applications what graphics converters like HiJaak have been doing for graphical images for years: It changes files into a form you can use, thereby ironing out many of the kinks associated with transferring information.

Given the right cable, IntelliLink provides intelligent data transfer among many applications, ranging from Act 2.0 for Windows and Ecco to dBase IV, Paradox, Excel 7.0, Word 7.0, and WordPerfect fo r Windows. Supported PDAs include most of the devices from Casio, Hewlett-Packard, Psion, and Sharp.

The intelligence comes in when your job is more than just copying a file from one system to another. The program recognizes the source type, and, depending on the application, can even handle such special items as recurring appointments.

In addition to format conversion, IntelliLink allows you to reconcile the data in a target file with that in a source--for example, when two records share the same personal name but are otherwise at odds. You can filter data when you don't want to transfer an entire file. IntelliLink's ability to map fields in a source file to those in a target is crucial, as anyone who has dropped one PIM for another knows well.

Occasionally we encountered difficulties in mapping fields for data transfer. When we attempted card-file transfers from Sidekick 2.0 for Windows to the Sharp Zaurus, we got a "Fields in data file have not been mapped" error message without further explanation. The message appeared even when the map showed all fields in the source were mapped. The documentation didn't explain the problem, nor did In telliLink's technical-support staff, which kept us on hold at length.

Minor drawbacks aside, however, IntelliLink's file-conversion capabilities make this a dandy little application for people who demand an honest day's work from their PDA.