Calendars
Microsoft Outlook at work for professional scheduling
Google Calendar for personal scheduling
Contacts
Gmail for email addresses
Microsoft Outlook at home for contacts
Gadgets
Nokia 6682 for access to contacts/calendar on the go (or any mobile phone that has software to synchronize with Microsoft Outlook, ie: all of them)
iPod for access to contacts/calendar on the go
ScheduleWorld wasn’t something I used before I tried to do this, but it is the glue that holds it all together.
Here is a beautiful drawing of The Plan. It was made with Gliffy, a web-based Visio clone.
This is how I want to sync it (follow the diagram):
Contacts are sourced from my Phone + Outlook (at home).
Calendar is sourced from Outlook (at work), Google Calendar, ScheduleWorld.
I only want to synchronize my phone/iPod when I’m at home (so I don’t have to bring the USB cables back and forth)
I don’t want to synchronize over WAP/GPRS (wireless data) because I am a cheap. My local wireless provider charges too much.
It should be easy to extend these instructions to your specific situation. If this isn’t your boat I also list some alternatives at the end of the article. If you have a specific question, post a comment and I’ll try to answer it. Sometimes the owner of ScheduleWorld pops by and gives suggestions as well.
But why?
Why use Outlook? Isn’t Microsoft “Outbreak” the devil?
I won’t be using Outlook for email. Outlook is a necessary evil if you want to do contacts synchronization since it is the only software that you mobile phone supports synching with.
ScheduleWorld also supports Evolution/Linux and Thunderbird/Windows.
What about Linux/Mac OS X support?
Microsoft Outlook is funamental to how I’m moving the data from my computer to my phone/iPod.
You can replace Microsoft Outlook with Evolution or Thunderbird and still use it with ScheduleWorld.
Why not source contacts from Gmail?
You can’t automatically sync Gmail to anything.
If you have a free solution for synching Gmail to Outlook then please post a comment.
Gmail also adds any you’ve emailed to your address book automatically. Gets cumbersome.
Why use ScheduleWorld?
It’s there. It’s free. It automatically supports Google Calendar synching.
The interface for ScheduleWorld looks like PHP iCalendar. You could run your own Funambol server instead, but it wouldn’t be as slick. No, Funambol isn’t a clever name for a new hemorrhoid cream. ScheduleWorld uses the Funambol server for SyncML interoperability and that’s it.
ScheduleWorld is quite a large project and does a number of things outside of SyncML.
Why don’t you sync email?
I like using computers for email. My thumb gets sore.
The approach I’ve outlined doesn’t sync email. I’d recommend using Mobile Gmail with a data plan to access mail on your phone and on any computer.
Why don’t you use Remote Calendars and cut ScheduleWorld out of the loop altogether?
I tried Remote Calendars and I found it a bit of a pain. It requires three other Microsoft tools installed (.NET, Office Something, VSO). It would still give me “Invalid URI” errors even though it was synching properly. Screw that. The Funambol Outlook plug-in is simple.
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