Using MilliLock and MilliLockDesk

MilliLock and MilliLockDesk are designed to be simple, efficient and interface-paradigm consistent. What this means in a nutshell is that the Desktop program mimics, in many ways, the phone (J2ME) program rather than acting like a standard desktop application. In other words, navigation of the desktop program is just like on the phone and not a bit like in, say, Microsoft Outlook.

But rather than worry about that, let's walk through setting up and using them.

MilliLock

Downloading and Installing

J2ME programs are installed typically by pointing your phone's web browser at the "JAD" file. This is a text file containing the attributes of the binary file to be downloaded. It will have contents very similar to:

MIDlet-1: MilliLock,/MilliLock/keylogo.png,MilliLock.SecureMidlet
MIDlet-Data-Size: 99000
MIDlet-Icon: /MilliLock/keylogo.png
MIDlet-Jar-Size: 57213
MIDlet-Jar-URL: MilliLock.jar
MIDlet-Name: MilliLock
MIDlet-Version: 1.0.4
MicroEdition-Configuration: CLDC-1.0
MicroEdition-Profile: MIDP-2.0

Your phone will process this and ask if it should download-and-install "MilliLock". If you allow it to, it will.

Initial Run and Configuration

When you start MilliLock, you will see options for:

Passwords
Notes
Addresses
Configuration
About
Help
Info

The bottom three are informational only, and aren't covered in-detail here. You shouldn't need them. If you do, they're there.

The top four are covered below. But first you should go to Configuration. So that's what we cover first.

Configuration

The configuration options are:

URL For Passwords	Default URL for downloading Password data	http://www.myweb.com/passwords.enc
URL For Tasklists	Default URL for downloading Notes and Addresses	http://www.myweb.com/todo.enc
Replace vs. Update	Does downloading a list wipe out all previous members of the list?	In "Replace" mode, all list data is deleted first. In Update mode, data is added. If the titles match, the new item replaces just the one matching old item.
Password Entry Mode	Mask password entry	Should password entry consist of asterisks or of characters? For security, asterisks are provided, but they aren't so necessary (or friendly) on a tiny cell phone.
Sync Passwords	Should the same password be used for downloads as for the password list?	Generally this should be set to "Ask each sync", because while you can use the same password for everything, it isn't recommended and you will still need to enter passwords for list downloads.

Note that the URLs must be filled in before Sync can be performed on the List menus. The Sync command will display the configured default URL for that type of list and allow editing. This, for example, allows you to change http://www.myweb.com/todo.enc to http://www.myweb.com/groceries.enc to download your grocery list, and allows you to have many lists available for download at the same time.

Notes

The MilliLock Notes functionality consists of Note Sets, each of which may hold multiple Notes. Each Note consists of a Title, checkbox and Description. The Title is limited to a rather short amount of text on the phone, around 50 characters. Notes may be 500. The checkbox is merely a convenience, for using Note Sets as To Do lists or Grocery Lists, for example.

A Note Set is just a collection of Notes. Notes are created inside a NoteSet, which may be the default one (cunningly named "(default)".)

Selecting a Note Set displays a list of notes for that Set. Note cannot be moved between sets.

Selecting a specific note and clicking on it (in the Desktop) zooms to it, just as if Add were chosen from the menu:

Except when being exported for transfer to the phone, Note files are not encrypted. This is for faster performance on the phone. Use the SIM protection built into your phone to protect MilliLock notes.

Notes are stored in Note Sets. In the Desktop, a Note Set is a distinct file, prefaced with "Notes" and suffixed with ".ssd". To change the name of a Note Set from, for example, "Cats" to "Pets", simply exit MilliLock Desktop, navigate to the configured data directory in Explorer and rename "NotesCats.ssd" to "NotesPets.ssd".

There is no rename functionality on the phone application, but this is solved by deleting the entire list, creating a new list with the desired name, exporting the full list from the Desktop and importing it to the phone.

The quantity of Notes and NoteSets is limited only by the data total for the application of about 150KB. This can easily be changed and raised. It has been set at this level to work-around a bug in the J2ME on Motorola phones.

Passwords

Passwords work just like notes inside a Note Set except that they are password-protected and encrypted, both on the Phone and in the Desktop, plus the fields are different.

The first time you enter the password section of either system, you will be asked for a password for the creation of the database. Subsequent accesses are for entering it. There is no provision for changing your password-access password currently.

Password Tips

Because all passwords are encrypted and cellphones are not particularly fast computers, password operations on the cellphone can be slow. It may take 30 seconds to open and display the password list or update it after a Sync or edit.
Use your phone's Data Entry Mode switch to adjust for your password. If you use a numeric password, you will find it easier to enter the password by switching to that mode. If you have symbols such as = or *, the symbol mode is faster than scrolling through all fourty or so options.

Addresses

Addresses are similar to Passwords and individual Note Sets also, with a few other wrinkles. The biggest one is that addresses tend to be verbose and there's no real good sorting or searching functionality yet. So you should only export to the phone addresses you actually expect to need on it.

Desktop Features and Usage

MilliLock Desktop is modeled after MilliLock for the phone. Where applicable, screenshots for both appear in the previous sections. The primary differences are:

MilliDesk requires Java Version 5.0 or later to run. MilliLock for the Phone requires J2ME, but you either have or don't have that. You can install Java for your P.C.
MilliDesk allows the Data Directory to be set. If you change the data directory, you will have to move your data files. (All the data files end with .ssd.)
MilliDesk can import from select other formats. This is covered below.
MilliDesk can export to the phone, which is also covered below.

MilliDesk Importing

MilliDesk can import from csv files. Several pre-built CSV format filters are provided, primarily for importing from SplashData and from the Palm personal information manager. Others may very easily be built - they consist solely of a set of field mapping numbers equating the incoming field to the MilliLock field - but at the moment they must be hard-coded into the program.

A future-enhancement project is to allow a list of mappings to be easily created and appended to, such that imports can be created without recompiling the program.

MilliDesk Exporting

The primary strength of MilliLock is the ability to move data from the P.C. to the cellphone. This is done by exporting from the P.C. to an FTP directory and then importing from the corresponding HTTP space to the phone.

Here's how this would work, using a standard (and cheap) GoDaddy-hosted account:

Get yourself a domain. You can host it yourself, but for the sake of this example we will assume you're using GoDaddy simply because few end-users will be able to set up their own externally-accessible servers and adjust the DNS.
1. Let's assume it is "MyMilliData.com". Actually that would be an annoying name to type into your phone's keypad, but just as an example.
2. You selected a login ID and Password on GoDaddy; let's call them "celluser1" and "supersecret".
3. Your GoDaddy-assigned FTP address is ftp.MyMilliData.com so that's what you will enter into Explorer or FileZilla to configure your page... or what you will enter into the FTP URL in MilliDesk.
4. GoDaddy doesn't require a subdirectory to reach the web site, so you can just put a "/" for directory name.
Select Configuration on the Main (top) Menu, and FTP Uploading on the Context Menu below it, and edit the resulting dialog as shown above. In reality you should put in the values corresponding to your account.
On the Record List - i.e. the list of Notes, Addresses or Passwords - that you wish to export from, you may select Export To Phone to export the entire list. Or you may switch the radio buttons at the top right from Edit to Export. This puts you in multi-select mode, which allows you to mark multiple records for export. Any records not highlighted won't be exported.
Select a good name for the file. You should be able to remember both the name and password, because you will need them on the cellphone also. There's no reason to use the same password each time or the same password as protects your Password List; you may create a new one each time, just as long as you remember it long enough to enter it on the cellphone for the Sync.
Finally, allow the Upload to the configured location, which places it up there for the cellphone.

MilliLock Importing

Assuming the same domain data as for the Export above, Importing, which is called Sync, is really easy on the phone.

First, Configure the default paths on the Configuration screen. Two default fields are provided, for passwords and for notes. You may want to fill both in the same way, but if you sync both regularly, you may find it easier to prefill different names. The actual filename doesn't really matter - you only need the file at all for a few minutes between when you Export and when you Import.
Next, navigate to the list you wish to import to. You may have to create the list. The name does not need to match the exported list name or even the name in MilliDesk.
However the type must match, which means that you may only import Password exports to the Password list, Note exports to the Note lists and Address exports to the Address list. Anything else will cause bizarre results. It won't damage your phone or anything like that, but the data may be pretty ugly.
On the Context menu, select "TCP Sync". If your phone numbers the options, as shown here, you can just press the appropriate number. (Depending on your phone, the number may not always match the number here.)
Input the correct filename and password for the file. And then wait. That's it.

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