mail2web, goosync or other?

[questionfear]

I am trying to determine a good OTA sync system for my epix. I sync with outlook at my office and my mac at home. It is a personal device so I don't have any office sponsored exchange access.

I've looked into mail2web (free and premium) as well as goosync. Am I missing any others or those my two best options? I am pretty tied in with gmail, my only concern is that the to-dos might not transfer well to gcal...do they sync via rememberthemilk?

Basically I need to do an end run around ical, I hate it, and I don't have an updated Entourage. Rather than blow the money on an entourage update I thought I'd look into fancier OTA options. Any suggestions?

 

[George Ponder]

I'de be interested in the same. I'm looking for something that will sync OTA with my calender, contacts and tasks.

I'll take a gander at mail2web as well as goosync. I use Dashwire and would gladly trade syncing call history and photos for calender and tasks.

 

[questionfear]

My only concern with goosync is the extra layer, since my data is flowing through someone else. On the other hand, nothing I do is that interesting.

I think I'm going to try mail2web first, since I can try the free membership and see if I like it, then maybe try free goosync to try that...whichever system I like better I can upgrade to a full version.

 

[George Ponder]

what about windows live? Or does that create a second set of contacts, appointments, and tasks?

Nevermind... it looks as if it will only sync contacts through hotmail. Either that or I haven't found where it addresses appointments and tasks.

 

[bubbatex]

I used mail2web and it worked pretty well, but then I started my own company and we have a host service for the site and Exchange with our own domain name. If you are using your own domain, there are a TON of good choices. However, one of the other companies that usually comes up in this conversation is 4smartphone which is a competitive product to m2w.

 

[riChchestMat#WP]

I'm fairly set on using Google as I can easily mash that into my Outlook calendar at work to have my private and work calendar side-by-side.
I'm set on OTA sync because my work no longer supports ActiveSync.

So I've already tried SyncMyCal Mobile Pro but just it refunded as it was crashing my Treo 750, not syncing and generally being very flaky.

I'm just trying OGGSync Mobile Lite now and it seems to work but the sync takes A G E S. Plus they want $30 every year for the Pro version that syncs multiple calendars and contacts.

I'm looking at trying GooSync next but they will also want ?20 or so per year.

I suppose I could sync my contacts with Windows Live/Kumo but the Hotmail part has really got my goat lately with its redesigned interface that doesn't work on Chrome and a failure ot send Japanese emails via Pocket Outlook.

Any suggestions or experiences you can share?

 

[questionfear]

Ok, so here was my experience so far, and I know some of this comes from being a total newbie at exchange and activesync.

-I set up a mail2web free account. Followed the download instructions, installed the file to configure my device, I get an error message.
-Digging through the knowledgebase on mail2web yields the manual settings.
-I set everything up and go to check off that I want to sync calendars. No go. Apparently because I was syncing calendar and tasks to my work pc, i can't sync to the exchange server without turning off the work pc sync. Ok fine, I try the sync first with just contacts.
-Sync works except for about a dozen names. I decide I'll go back to that, and start with getting calendar up and running.
-Apparently, deselecting calendar from my work pc will wipe out all calendar entries made via work pc activesync.
-I decide all this is too much trouble and delete the mail2web exchange setup.
-I sync with my mac and find out that by deleting mail2web I wiped out my entire contact list except for the dozen who didn't sync.
-Luckily, missing sync flagged the change and gave me the chance to cancel the sync, and I was able to have my mac data override the phone and replace my contacts.
-I downloaded the free goosync version, and it went off without a hitch. Initiated two syncs, one to get data onto gcal, and one to test adding an event from gcal to my device. Perfect both times.

So far it looks like I am going goosync. I'll play with the free version for a while, and then probably upgrade to the paid one just for the extra calendar syncing and auto syncs.

 

[riChchestMat#WP]

I'm having good experiences so far with GooSync's free version. I like the fact that it shows you some kind of progress bar and switches to a faster sync after the first job. I love the fact that you can override that setting.

However I read somewhere (which could be out of date) that it doesn't work that well when switching timezones. I'm not able to test this until March personally.

The proof will be in the paid-for version pudding with multiple-calendar syncs (important!) and contact syncing.

 

[George Ponder]

For what it's worth, we are working on a few reviews of OTA solutions. Goosync will be one of the solutions looked at as well as a few others.

 

[questionfear]

For what it's worth, we are working on a few reviews of OTA solutions. Goosync will be one of the solutions looked at as well as a few others.

Oooh...definitely looking forward to those articles! Exciting!

 

[kraski]

For what it's worth, we are working on a few reviews of OTA solutions. Goosync will be one of the solutions looked at as well as a few others.

Dashwire's a good one to look at, too.

 

[George Ponder]

kraski....

Take a look at this. We've got a few articles on Dashwire that should help.

I use Dashwire and my only issue is that it doesn't sync your calendar. I'd trade call history or voicemail for a calendar option any day.

 

[kraski]

kraski....

Take a look at this. We've got a few articles on Dashwire that should help.

I use Dashwire and my only issue is that it doesn't sync your calendar. I'd trade call history or voicemail for a calendar option any day.

I agree with you about the calendar synch. Right now, I don't have anything but several recurring events, for the most part. So, I can pretty well reproduce my calendar manually in a brief time. But I know there are those with a lot of schedule variation & my life isn't always that predictable, either.

 

[riChchestMat#WP]

I'm going to buy GooSync (at least give their 30 day money back satisfaction guarantee a run) but they are charging VAT (sales tax) on top of the quoted prices. Currently that's showing as 17.5% and it should go down to 15% by Monday if they haven't hardcoded it in.
Featurewise they seem to have the best AutoSync in that you can set when you want it to happen based on time of the day and remaining battery power.

 

[riChchestMat#WP]

https://www.nuevasync.com looks interesting. It's an ActiveSync compatible OTA proxy for Google Calendar and Contacts. It's in beta now but when it adds support for read-only calendars and Gmail (both in their plans) then this could be excellent. No software required!
I'm not sure I can wait before splashing out on GooSync though.

 

[questionfear]

Nuevasync looks good, but I agree that I'd rather wait for them to support gmail (and a way to support task synching!)

My only concern with Nuevasync is that I'll hit the same weird issues I hit with mail2web, mainly that anything added via activesync on my work PC would get wiped out. Is there a way around this when setting up an exchange server?

 

[riChchestMat#WP]

Well I'm trying it now. Unsuprisngly the first sync has created loads of duplicates and it's taking an age. All expected and I have a backup to fall back on. Software-less sync with OTA push for calendar, contacts, tasks and email is the holy grail though and so far these guys are the closest. I just wish they could get some funding to get these coming soon features to come sooner even if they charged the users a reasonable fee.
They've got the Apple users with this too so some cross-platform action gives these people the strongest chance of suceeding. They have to deliver on those features though.
If I do go for Goo-Sync I certainly won't go for more than a year's subscription.

EDIT: Oh balls the contact sync is eating my contact's photos. Sod that for now.

 

[questionfear]

Ouch. So Nuevasync duped a bunch of stuff AND ate your contact photos? Not cool...

 

[riChchestMat#WP]

It did eat my Contacts photos but I don't blame it for duplicates. The sync wasn't able to complete cos I ran out of storage. That was cos of the duplicates I think but I have to be fair and recognise that ActiveSync is to blame for that. It does the same thing when syncing via USB to Outlook.

So far GooSync Premium is behaving very well although I noticed that it's essentially SyncML rebranded. After my PIM data was obliterated by NuevaSync and Sprite Backup failing to restore properly (sigh) GooSync got me back all my calendar and contacts. For some reason the paid version seems faster than the free one.

 

[questionfear]

With GooSync premium, how does the automatic sync work? It's not clear to me from the website, does it push or sync at a set time? Also, are you syncing to-dos via goosync or do you have a calendar line for remember the milk?

I am holding off until WMExperts does their OTA articles, but right now GooSync is my most likely option.