The Syncing Apple

Upgrading to Leopard 10.5.2 fixed many sync issues with iDisk, however, is stopped syncing all together on my ibook. This ars article has some good tips on fixing sync issues w/ iDisk.

How-To: Truly reset your .Mac sync data

iTunes has the new iPhone 1.0.1 update- the first one from Apple. It says it just has some bug fixes.

$250, 16Gb flash drive, 512Mb RAM, 7″ LCD, 2 lb., full keyboard. Runs Linux. Has Firefox and Openoffice, Skype. 3 USB ports, VGA out, SD card reader, ethernet, wifi, webcam. Linux.

On sale worldwide in August from Asus. Is this going to be a hit or what? I’ll pick one up for that. It’s less than the Nokia 800, and it has a keyboard. For when I need to do more typing that I can stand on my iPhone.

Nice hands-on review and many pictures at Notebookreview.com

Word around was that Apple introduced a new version of iSync with 10.4.9, and with it the promise of direct OSX support of the V3m. And Apple did add support for the V3m model to iSync, but they didn’t add support for the Sprint version! It still wouldn’t pair correctly with a fresh install of 10.4.9 and my razr.

Luckily however, Clockskew has been keeping pace with his excellent iSync plugins. He has recently introduced a forum, where he stashes his latest downloads for his plugins as well and support for them. The forums help, I’m sure, as individual emails to CS don’t benefit other users.

I had some issues with his earlier plugin (my post here) but this one seems to work OK, with some reservations. It won’t work when you choose (in iSync) to erase device and sync, which is what I wanted, as I don’t trust that it won’t just dupe a whole bunch of contacts in my Addressbook. iSync started to clear the existing contacts from my phone, but but quit claiming it couldn’t delete them. Upon looking at my phone it had deleted all contacts save one, and thought it may be that one sticking up the works. However, when I manually deleted that, iSync still wouldn’t complete the erase and move on to the merge, until I manually changed the ‘on first sync’ option in iSync to just merge data on device and the Mac. Which wasn’t an issue now since all the contacts on the phone had been deleted.

I have yet to try the calendar syncing, since I keep most of my important calendar items on Entourage. I still have to enable the Entourage/Addressbook, iCal syncing that Entourage has introduced.

I ordered a Razr V3m from Sprint last week since the krzr looks to be too fat, and the razr has a larger screen. The phone is nice but one of the most important features I’ve been lusting after is the ability to sync my contacts over using iSync and USB. All the Moto phones use USB, and have thankfully left the the old proprietary connectors behind. One problem- the Mac and iSync seem to know nothing about the V3m Razr.

These sites however, have fixes. Clockskew has nice phone plug-in available for download, that worked fine for me, until I updated the Sprint Software on the V3m. Then it stopped working (allthough the author seems to have it working with the latest Sprint firmware on his Razr….). Luckily the strange site Whopack (which seems to exist only to impart this exact bit of knowledge) has another working solution. Follow the steps at Whopack and you to can easily sync your contacts back and forth from the V3m and iSync.

And one other issue- why won’t an ordinary mini-usb cable charge this phone? Now I have to drag around the adapter that came with the Razr.

I started this site out to keep track of my travails with the many, many options and pitfalls of syncing my pim data back and forth from my Macintosh to my current PDA of choice. I feel stupidly proud over the fact that I have some core pim data that was originally entered into my first PDA, a Newton 110. About 30 PDAs later, I have moved back and forth from the mac to windows (ActiveSync vs Hotsync) supplementing with various ancillary 3rd party products (mostly for syncing stuff to the mac, like the Blackberry or PocketPC) that I’ve lost track. The one thing that doesn’t change however, is that it just never syncs right. Not more than a few months at a stretch. Sooner or later it gets whacked and I spend time re-categorizing all my contacts, only to find that the categories don’t sync around properly.

My current hell revolves around my Mac, my Treo 650, Microsoft Entourage and iSync (and the Apple apps- AddressBook and iCal).

Then again, at some point invariably some incredibly cool new PDA is released, and I must have it, which entails a move off of Palm to PocketPC (or vice-versa). They seem to one-up each other every three years. For instance– Palm device development seems to have ground to a halt. Sony has dumped the Clie, PalmSoft has released some new versions of the PalmOS that no one has bothered to built a device for. Palm might very well be dead but for the Treos. Speaking of which, I’ve really taken to my Treo 650, since it is both my phone and PDA. However, this choice in devices makes syncing harder on the Macintosh, even with the absolutely necessary extra software made by Mark & Space, Missing Sync. Why? Beacuse the Mac is again becomeing a pariah with Palm.

Meanwhile, the new Blackberries are very attractive, since they are just the same size as the Treos but much lighter and their unique keypad really does work. I’ve been able to play with one and have tried it– it works. But you still can’t run much other software on it, which is the best part of the Treo– all the Palm software.

Back to the point: at some point in changing or updating blog software on my server, I totally spaced out and started calling this Syncing Mac instead of Syncing Apple. I have no other reason, except that it sounded ok at the time. Now, with the move over to WordPress, which I think I’m going to be happy with for a long time, I’ve moved back to the Syncing Apple nomenclature– it sounds better. When I say it I think of a washtub full of floating apples that you used to bob for at grade-school Halloween parties.

The authoritative how-to is at Trevor Harmon’s site. Thanks Trevor.

Update on Feb 23 ‘05 - I only ever used this once. It wacked the hell outta the T650. Nothing permanent, just massive reboots and it never worked. I’ll wait for PalmOne/Sprint to do the right thing…

So I just switched yesterday from iSync & Addressbook/iCal syncing to Entourage. I’ll miss Mail.app the most, but I’m tired of not having syncing Categories. Already I like having them back. The syncing works well, and I’m enjoying using Entourage 2004. Its project view is very helpful for the work I’m doing now. The only downside so far is that the Notes sync doesn’t work, and the whole Entourage Conduit is all or nothing: I can’t choose to not use its Notepad sync, and choose to use the Mark/Space Notepad, which was really nice.

I just noticed this interesting looking iSync module: e2Sync. It claims to sync Entourage with iSync, so you have use all these apps and keep them synced, even sync multiple Entourage installations via .Mac. This looks very interesting.

I’ve been having an issue with my Mac and the Treo650 for a while now: the USB sync stops working. I know it’s related to the Mac OSX doing something loopy with USB, because for the past two versions of OSX my USB has been flaky– devices stop working, the T650 won’t even charge (on a powered hub). After a reboot I can sync for a while, usually a day, then it stops.

So there was a nice new version of Chatter Email Client (which is almost ready for its 1.0 release) that I needed to install, and the USB flaked out. I didn’t feel like rebooting my Mac– since I’ve had it back with the new Power supply, I’ve been happy to be able to have it run for days and days…. but I needed to sync now. So I spent a few moments and got the BT Sync working, which turns out to be a breeze with MissingSync.

First I tried to stop and re-start the MissingSync ‘usb watcher’ process, which shows up as:

root      187   0:01.86 /Library/Application Support/Missing Sync for Palm OS/MissingSyncMounting

But no matter what I did, killing and restarting that would not kick over the USB and allow the T650 to sync.

So I quickly setup a new BT connection profile on the T650. In it I searched for an found my previousy bonded G5, which I bonded using the Bluetooth Assistant in OSX. But How to make MissingSync sync? The trick I found was to enable the Menu icon for MissingSync (a preference option). With that in my menu bar, I had a choice to sync. Choosing that after telling the T650 to sync started my sync going.

I had forgotten how slow BT syncs are on the Mac… they are slowwwwwwww. USB is at least 10 - 20 times faster. I’m still waiting here for this sync to finish up.

What to use to get your Treo 650 photos onto the Mac? The easiest thing I’ve found is SplashData’s SplashPhoto. I’ve been a staunch user of SplashID for a few years now, and have entrusted all my sensitive data to it, but I haven’t looked to closely at SplashPhoto until recently. I got my Treo 650, took some pictures and soon realized that I wanted to get those photos on my Mac.

SplashPhoto has a really nice Palm interface that is integrated with the built-in camera on the Treos. See the little camera icon at the bottom of the screen? Click that and your in camera mode. It also has a nifty slideshow mode that can play back MP3s.

SplashPhoto also has a great interface on the Mac, and a conduit that will sync your photos back and forth between the devices. SplashPhoto is $30.

If you use Apple’s apps (iCal, Addressbook, Mail.app) like I do, you really get used to the complete integration of these applications with one another. It’s getting Newtonesque. If you also use a Palm, you probably are using iSync to syncing these apps with your Palm’s PIMs. One constant irritant however, is the lack of support of Categories on iSync to Palm synchronization. For some reason Apple engineers can’t sync my Addressbook & iCal categories with those on the Palm. Everthing new on the Palm shows up as Untitled on the iApps, and vice-versa. Not a big deal for me, as I’ve just given up catagorizing my contacts and appointments. However, if you are addicted to catagories, I did see a nice hint on how to make it work somewhat over at Mac OSX Hints.

In my never ending quest for complete sync, I’ve gone thru many different configurations. It’s cool to think that a lot of my PIM data was created back over 10 years ago on my first newton- since then it been converted and bounced from PDA to windows to PDA to Mac many times over. Still, I’ve never been able to unite my Windows and Macintosh data-stores into one single source. They have always remained disparate, and depending on which type of system I’m doing my work on (Mac or Windows) I’ll use a PocketPC or Palm. Though I have been known to switch just cause some super-cool advance is unveiled on one platform or the other. Below is my current syncing configuration. I just recently switched my primary source from Windows (Outlook and my Toshiba E405) to Macintosh (.Mac apps and the Palm T|C).

Of course, my addiction to the BlackBerry precludes me from dropping the Windows side completely. I’m anxiously waiting to see how two developments unfold: 1. the Treo 650. I’ve seen and used the 600, its crap. 2. The BlackBerry integration suite with Palm. PalmOne is making noise about something by the end of the year. If they release something for the Treo 650, then as soon as Verizon has it, I’m ditching my Nextel BlackBerry 7510 for the Treo. That would be nice.