How not to design a website...

I've been running tickets at work, and one of them was for a coach who was having trouble getting his PDA to sync with his PC. I get there and the PDA is an old Handspring Visor. I'm not sure what model it was, but it had a greyscale screen and took disposable batteries.

I run Palm Desktop, and it promptly crashes. So i go to Palm (excuse me, PalmOne's) website to download a new copy of the Palm Desktop software. After running around in circles between "palmsource" and "palmone" websites, I finally find a link to download the software.

But there is a catch - you have to enter the serial number of the PDA to get to the software. The serial number is in a different place on each Handspring, and I'm not even sure what Handspring I was working on. I check all the places on the site (under the battery door, under the "Handspring slot" cover, ect) with no luck.

I gave up. I never found the damn number. I finally found a copy of the software on a network share.

But I don't understand the "enter your serial number" bullshit. There is only one reason that someone downloads Palm Desktop - to sync a PalmOS pda with their computer. (I guess you could use it aa a standalone calender, but it's not a very good one, and it's hard to imagine too many people doing that). The software is freakin' useless unless you have a Palm. Why make it so hard to download?