I'm done syncing with Outlook!

[Hook]

It also helps that Symbian has one of the most powerful home screen search features I have ever seen. It searches everything on your device and even the internet and pulls it all together for you. A feature of Symbian I will miss.

[Antoine Wright]

@hal: I have about 3 years or so of appointments (currently, used to be 5 or 7) and a titch over 1200 contacts. For the most part, I have everyone in a category and do a reasonable job of knowing what buckets people are in. I give Outlook and CHapura's KeySuite the credit for helping me to see that in my Treo days. There is always a need for categories on a high level for a lot of that information. But - as I kinda stated in reference to my move from Palm to Symbian - I could not do the deep categorization without losing some of the more finely tuned aspects.

For example, contacts were sorted by region, business or association, then circle of reference. That worked well with Outlook, but I just couldn't maintain that with Symbian. I had to use groups for the more austere items, and then leverage the device's ability to tag (contact or event details) items and group what I could. With that, I - in effect - stopped categorizing, and started spatially organizing folks. So now, everyone has to have a last name, and some main contact info. Its on me to add a note. After that the device has more than enough to search for what I need in 3 or fewer taps from the homescreen - which is similar to what the Treo 650/680 offered.

Its in that ability that PIM apps such as Outlook, GCal, etc. have lost their appeal. Yes, they are great for categorization, but the ablity to be as simple as a search-and-go just pushed them out of my personal use. I do learn from the experiences that folks here and other places post as I'm always looking to tweak my own methods and find ways in which software can better serve us, leaving less time for admin and more time for connecting - which to me should be the point of software at this juncture in mobile/web.

Hope that clears things up a bit; I didn't want to confuse what Hook is doing with my own perceptions, but did want to detail a bit where I'm coming from in my comments.

EDIT: If any of you with Outlook use Xobni or similar tools on top of Outlook, then you'd also get some of what I'm saying here. That's the kind of spatial indexing/referencing that I do with mobile, for now.

[questionfear]

It also helps that Symbian has one of the most powerful home screen search features I have ever seen. It searches everything on your device and even the internet and pulls it all together for you. A feature of Symbian I will miss.

Well theoretically the Google Search widget does that too.

If it's too broad or too internet-y, there's also Gesture Search, which can find anything locally stored on your device.

[Hook]

Well theoretically the Google Search widget does that too.

If it's too broad or too internet-y, there's also Gesture Search, which can find anything locally stored on your device.

Thanks for reminding me, I hadn't gotten around to trying that.

[Evil Claw]

Hi everyone. New to this forum, but have been apart of the Laptops forum for sometime. After 7 years with a Motorola Razor and syncing Outlook with BVRP software, I think I have come across most of the problems mentioned in this thread. I have been searching, waiting and finally found "THE" phone as of last Thursday and it is the Nexus One, which is why I am here. Please be gentle.
I am looking into syncing "one way" from Outlook to Google calendar only. Is there any foreseeable problem with that? I work for gov't and don't want personal appts to be viewable, so this is the method I would prefer. I know that its doable, I just want to know what I might expect as far as errors.
Contacts I may try to sync, but with past history of errors I may pass. I have already uploaded csv file to google and synced with phone.
I am not syncing business email as this gets to cumbersome, I think I will keep separate. Thanks in advance. Oh yeah, Love this phone.

[Hook]

Hi everyone. New to this forum, but have been apart of the Laptops forum for sometime. After 7 years with a Motorola Razor and syncing Outlook with BVRP software, I think I have come across most of the problems mentioned in this thread. I have been searching, waiting and finally found "THE" phone as of last Thursday and it is the Nexus One, which is why I am here. Please be gentle.
I am looking into syncing "one way" from Outlook to Google calendar only. Is there any foreseeable problem with that? I work for gov't and don't want personal appts to be viewable, so this is the method I would prefer. I know that its doable, I just want to know what I might expect as far as errors.
Contacts I may try to sync, but with past history of errors I may pass. I have already uploaded csv file to google and synced with phone.
I am not syncing business email as this gets to cumbersome, I think I will keep separate. Thanks in advance. Oh yeah, Love this phone.

Lol, we're probably neighbors. Hope we don't work in the same office.

Yes, there should be a number of solutions for this. The one I know is Companion Link, which is pricey, but works pretty well. In fact if you want a one-way sink *from* Outlook *to* Google, just set the calendar for a purge sync each time (erases the Google Calendar and copies the Outlook calendar). Doing it that way, you really shouldn't have problems.

Contacts, however, is more complicated, you are wise to avoid. Doing the same thing with contacts, the Android contacts appp will have a fit because it will claim there are too many deletes (I think this is some kind of misguided security thing) and almost anything you do will screw up your contacts on either the phone, gmail or both).

There are other solutions I have seen, but don't have any experience outside of Companion Link.


EDIT: Oops! How rude of me to forget. Welcome to Brighthand, Evil Claw!

[Evil Claw]

if you want a one-way sink *from* Outlook *to* Google, just set the calendar for a purge sync each time (erases the Google Calendar and copies the Outlook calendar). Doing it that way, you really shouldn't have problems.

Thanks for the welcome. If we are neighbors, then its a small world after all. (Had to say it ) Grew up in Alexandria, eventually settled outside of Herndon and work in Leesburg. I assume that you know the area.

Anyway, what you propose I do "(erases the Google Calendar and copies the Outlook calendar)" is not what I expected. I don't want to have to re-enter all other "non" Outlook appts. I wanted to populate the Google calendar with either my phone or online with personal Appts, and then only syncing Google calendar with Outlook(business appts) or Outlook => Google. And then everytime I sync Outlook => Google, it would only update the "Outlook provided info" leaving everything else alone. At least, in my minds eye, this is how I thought it could work.
I share my Outlook calendar with my boss and others and don't really like the fact they could see what I am doing off hours.
I'll take a look at companion link in a few. Thanks

[Hook]

Sorry, I misinterpreted what you wanted. Your scheme should work fine. All of my struggles with Outlook <--> Google have been with Contacts. Calendar seems to work fine with Companion Link, and actually anything else. However, I'm going to have to look at the companonlink settings tonight to make sure it really will sync one-way (in the non-purge situation)-- I think it does, but have never used it that way.

Hopefully others will chime in here (might want to start your own thread with a more useful title--- there are folks here with a lot more experience than I have).

I work more East and live more South in the I95 corridor.

[Hook]

Yes, Companion Link for Google should do *exactly* what you need for Calendars. It has a 14 day free trial.

[Evil Claw]

Hook, will I run into this problem using ANY syncing method with Nexus?

http://www.nexusoneforum.net/forum/n...ndar-sync.html

I noticed that Companion Link doesn't mention whether it supports Nexus One. I assume it does since you are using it. Have you had any other issues syncing with companion link other than those listed earlier?