Gamaze

I have a lot of gadgets in use and I really don’t like keeping separate versions of my contacts (~500 of them) and my calendar. Therefore, I’ve done the painful work of trying to find the perfect and free solution for syncing them between all my different digital storages automatically over the Internet including a Nokia E71 phone, an iPhone, an HP 2140 HD laptop running Windows XP with local mail and calendar software (currently Outlook 2007), a Mac Mini as well as Gmail contacts and Google calendar for online access. I really recommend you back up your data properly before starting a journey like this. Once done, you should be care free of backups and up to date versions of your stuff.

As you can see, I’ve split this approach into 3 separate sync relationships (1, 2 and 3 in the image above) to keep things manageable, even if the content of the sync is the same for all. This also makes it easy to set up only part of the configuration I explain in this guide.

Additionally, all pieces will need to use a central contacts and calendar database accessible online even if they all act as being the main database to the user. In this setup, after trying several options, I’ve chosen to trust Google for my calendar and Soocial for my contacts as the main "database" providers even if I do not use their online calendar or contacts management apps that often.

Part 1: Sync between PC and Mobile Phone

This is usually provided by the phone manufacturer as a default. E.g. Nokia provides the PC Suite and iTunes or the premium MobileMe service does this seamlessly for the iPhone. Unfortunately, the solutions currently limited to the specific phones of the manufacturers and I still live in a multi-vendor gadget world. Also, there is a limited amount of contact and calendar software supported.

That being said, here is the summary why Part 1 does not have to be further explored at this point. Additionally, the online sync need for #1 will be automatically solved by #2 and #3 as we only consider this to be a 3-way synchronization.

Why #1 is not an option for me…

1. It provides phone vendor specific sync only, I have a Nokia and an iPhone
2. It does not sync over the Internet (except for the premium MobileMe by Apple)
3. It is really not needed if we solve the other 2 sync relationships. Also, having two active sync configurations set up in your phone (if even supported) usually screw things up and you’ll end up with a corrupted or duplicated contacts database.

…but good for:

1. Sync between Microsoft Outlook (Express) or Apple iCal and Address book and one smart phone via cable or Bluetooth

Part 2: Sync between Mobile Phone & Google Contacts & Calendar

Here the fun begins. Fortunately, Google has been extremely pro-active in this area and already provides Google Mobile Sync, a Microsoft Exchange interface for their Calendar (and Contacts that I’ve chosen not to use for the Nokia phone) towards popular smart phones (unfortunately no Gmail syncing yet, but mail retrieval can be set up separately with ease). In Nokia Symbian S60 based smart phones compatibility is provided via the Mail for Exchange software, available for free and pre-installed in most of the newer ESeries devices from Nokia. The iPhone also supports this by default in software versions 2.1 and onwards. There are excellent instructions by Google how to do this so I won’t be re-writing what is already well documented.

For contacts I browse to the Soocial web site and set up a free account and with ease created  the needed contact sync connections described in the last section below. Soocial was a very positive surprise to me, simple and great service that worked like a charm.

Part 3: Sync between PC/Mac and Phone

This is where things could get out of hands. 3-way sync is usually not the most reliable setup but so far everything works well. Personally, I use Microsoft Outlook 2007 as the main laptop app as currently other Windows based applications are not currently supported by Soocial. As I also have a Mac Mini for media management that I want to be up to date as well, I’ve chosen a setup that works for both Windows and OS X at the same time.

If you want to use alternative, open source applications like such as Mozilla Thunderbird for contact management I suggest you take a close look at GCalDaemon or some of the application plug-ins for the final setup. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to cover that adventure in this article. Calendar sync is easy though as mentioned below.

Soocial once again seemed to be the answer to my contact prayers and it really worked like a charm. For my calendar, I once again trusted Google and simply installed Google Calendar Sync and my calendar was synced immediately. Of course, the Google sync works also for Mac (yes, I use this setup for my Mac Mini as well) and Mozilla Sunbird / Lightning. No questions asked.

How to get it to work in practice

Now even with the approach explained above there are many things that can go wrong. Below are a few practicalities and the setup order that worked for me in the end. I had to give it a few tries and in several occasions I ended up with duplicate or even triple contact entries.

As having several devices that need to be synced, you must chose a starting point that has the up to date contacts and calendar and delete all the information on all other devices (after backing it up). Otherwise you’ll most likely end up with duplicates and sync issues. As I had my Nokia phone fully up to date, I used that as a starting point.

Here is the order that I got the setup working:

1. Create a connection in Soocial for my Nokia phone contacts (i.e. the master set of contacts data) and make sure the sync is working before proceeding.
2. Create a connection in Soocial for Gmail contact sync. If you have duplicate contacts in Gmail make sure you delete them first. I deleted all contacts and started fresh. Make sure the sync is working before proceeding to the next step.
3. Create an Outlook sync connection in Soocial (you need to install an Outlook add-in available from the Soocial web site). Check that the contacts show up correctly in all areas.
   IMPORTANT UPDATE: Make sure that you have a “Location” set in Windows XP, otherwise MS Outlook will strip the “+” sign out of all phone numbers in international format (e.g. +44 xx xxxx xxx for the UK). You have to do this before the initial sync! In Windows XP, go to Start => Control Panel => Phone and Modem Options and define the country and area code you are in. For the contact sync with international numbers, it does not really matter what you enter as long as you have your location defined. I have not been able to test if this problem occurs also in Vista  and /or Win 7 but it is possible.
4. Create an Apple Address Book connection in Soocial to automatically sync the contacts to Mac and proceed to the next step when it works as planned.
5. Setup the Google Mobile Sync for calendar in the Nokia phone using Mail for Exchange. Make sure select the option to keep your items on initial sync unless you are comfortable with erasing the calendar data in the phone in your phone. Additionally, note that for my Nokia phone, I only set up the calendar sync with Google, the contacts are handled though Soocial as it provides much more flexibility for contacts. Once again, make sure the calendar sync works before proceeding to the next step. 
6. Install Google Calendar Sync to align your Google, Apple and Outlook calendars automatically.
7. Finally, link the iPhone to the setup by setting up an Exchange sync using Google Mobile Sync. Please not that on an iPhone this will automatically erase all your existing contacts and calendar entries, make sure you backup whatever you have available and export the contacts to CVS format via your address book application for easy import in e.g. Google. Also note that you should only select Calendar and Contacts, not Mail in the iPhone account configuration. As the iPhone does not support the SyncML interface, i.e. Soocial in this case, it needs to be set up to sync both calendar and contacts directly with Google Mobile Sync but this should not matter from a usage point of view.
8. Everything is pretty much done after this!

With this approach, I’m now having the same contacts and calendar available on all my devices and computers, always up to date regardless of how and where I update them. My digital life is now an easier walk in the park and I have no issue trusting that I’m calling the correct phone number at the right time any longer.

Enjoy!

Mattias Digital media, Mobile, Tutorials Apple, calendar, contacts, Google, Nokia, outlook, phone, software, Soocial, sync