Morning Cup O' Joe

Synchronization Heaven (or Not)

This past weekend I gave up my PDA Phone and bought a regular cell phone in an effort to take steps towards simplification.  Ever since getting my first PDA, I’ve booked myself solid sometimes as far as 6 months in advance.  There was something alluring about “filling in the blank spots” with stuff.

Well, that time is past.  I’m making a move towards a non-Microsoft existence.  Considering Microsoft Exchange is at the hub of my personal organization scheme at work, the best I can do for now is to minimize my dependency on it.  Here’s what my current setup (except for gSyncit):

Plaxo is my new PIM hub.  It’s basically Microsoft Outlook online–it handles Calendar, Contacts, Tasks and Notes.  Best of all, it’s free.  Another beautiful aspect of Plaxo is that it has plugins for Outlook, Thunderbird, OSX and more.  My first step was to create a Plaxo account.  I then installed the Microsoft Outlook plugin and synchronized all my data between Outlook and Plaxo.

My second step was to install the Plaxo Mozilla Thunderbird Extension.  This allows me to keep all my email addresses synchronized with Plaxo.

The calendar is a little trickier.  I just exported my calendar info from Outlook in CSV format and imported that directly into Google Calendar.  This, of course, gives me two calendars to maintain.  I’ve been using the Google Calendar exclusively, though, since it has more functionality than Plaxo’s calendar, specifically, the ability to send SMS reminders to your cell phone and email reminders.  For now, Plaxo’s calendar is unused by me, though we may be seeing interesting offerings in the near future since they bought out HipCal.  I’d still love to see a synchronization conduit between Plaxo and Google Calendar, though.

Plaxo Mobile Plus allows users to do over-the-air (OTA) synchronization of contacts between your cell phone and Plaxo.  My cell provider is Verizon, so I was able to download and install the Plaxo Mobile Plus software via their Mobile Web / Get It Now(tm) service.  Unfortunately, the use of the Plaxo Mobile Plus software requires a $5/month subscription fee.  I’m not sure if that’s a Verizon thing or if that’s the case for all cell phone service providers.  Also, basic Mobile Web service costs $5/month as well (and uses your airtime minutes).  Premium Mobile Web costs $15/month, but that gives you unlimited data and access to their VCast network (music streaming and such).

One thing of note, use the “Work Mobile” field in Plaxo if you plan to use Plaxo Mobile Plus.  On my phone, that field is mapped to the main mobile number for your contact.

I’m still forced to use Microsoft Outlook at work so I’m still debating whether to just keep appointments up-to-date manually or whether to install a synchronization tool to do the dirty work.  The most popular tool seems to be gSyncit.  It’s shareware and it only costs $5, so I may give it a shot if the manual thing gets too cumbersome.

Well there you go.  That’s my setup.  I get an email from my Google Calendar every morning giving me a daily snapshot of my schedule.  I get email and SMS reminders an hour (by default) before my appointments.  My cell phone’s contact list is synchronized with Plaxo.  My email address book is synchronized with Plaxo.

I know, this sounds pretty complicated.  It is.  I tell you, though, it’s still less complicated than having a PDA in the mix and trying to reconcile synchronization issues.  With no PDA and having a web-based PIM setup, I’m not as dependent on Microsoft as I used to (having a Windows Mobile device really limits you if you’re thinking of going the Linux or Apple route).

How do you guys handle your calendar and contacts?  Let me know if any of you try to do something similar to my setup.  I’m curious to see how it works out.

March 25, 2007 - Posted by Mike | Geeks and Gadgetry, How-To