If you have the cable with the funky flat connection at the Clio end and a standard 9 pin serial connection at the other, you don't need the docking port. If you just have a cable with 9 pin connectors at both ends, I think you need the docking port. Don't forget that you need ActiveSync on the PC as well to make it all work together. The connection speed between PC and Clio is only about 19.6k baud, so have a little patience in downloading. I've also been putting as much as I can on the CF card I installed rather than into main memory. I've only got 16K and I want to conserve as much as possible to run the larger programs efficiently.
Hope this helps.