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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.