FYI: You can sync your PIMs via local USB with your Android phone using Deja Office

[LandSurveyor]

As my use has evolved (and, it seems to me, features and capabilities have been pared from PDA functions,) other than having my contacts auto-magically kept up to date on my phone, I've considered the same thing: Going back to an ancient, non-connected PDA, and choosing an otherwise "dumb-phone" going forward.

Just my personal opinion but, it seems to me, today's handhelds are entertainment consoles. They're not useful tools. If I needed that sort of entertainment to occupy my time, I'd really rather consider a lifestyle change.

Now that I'm using a smartphone again (and bearing in mind that my last one was a Blackberry), I notice that I'm using it only to talk, text, take a few photos, and sometimes play music. I don't have time to mess with the web while in the field.

[tbessie]

Well, I dood it.

As I start my third week on Companion Link and Deja Office have nuked all my Google Calendars. I will give up good agenda widgets for now, I never had them on my Palm.

Why get rid of them? Because, as I became enabled to really use Outlook, I started changing things in Outlook specific ways, the way I used to do them before I began, 2 years ago, my odyssey to make Outlook work with Google. I've made so many changes and I just can't keep up the motivation to maintain a parallel system in Google and keep it up to date.

I now use Outlook with my handheld, synced via USB cable. It works because I don't use the Google data bases. And now I don't use Google Calendar.

I have moved my phone one step closer to being a PDA again. Makes me very happy.

You know... I NEVER thought I'd hear (read) you say this here - though you weren't a Cloud zealot per se, you seemed very happy to sync to the cloud.

Now you're moving back to a local-management model... will wonders never cease. :-)

- Tim

[Hook]

You know... I NEVER thought I'd hear (read) you say this here - though you weren't a Cloud zealot per se, you seemed very happy to sync to the cloud.

Now you're moving back to a local-management model... will wonders never cease. :-)

- Tim

I didn't think it was horrible and there are people who really make use of its benefits. I don't for various reasons having to do with situational variables, how I work and the fact that I really want to work in Outlook. I wanted it to work since that was where things seemed to be going. I tried starting in April 2009 and every time I ran into a barrier I rolled my eyes and said "well, this is new, but they'll get it working eventually." I finally hit the tipping point after 2.5 years of giving them the benefit of the doubt.Even in DJOs case, I stubbornly tried to make it work with Google and it was a disaster. I gave Google a fair shake. It's not for me.

I guess you were mistaking perseverance for being happy.

CL and DJO, while not perfect, let me work the way I want to work now.

[tbessie]

I didn't think it was horrible and there are people who really make use of its benefits. I don't for various reasons having to do with situational variables, how I work and the fact that I really want to work in Outlook. I wanted it to work since that was where things seemed to be going. I tried starting in April 2009 and every time I ran into a barrier I rolled my eyes and said "well, this is new, but they'll get it working eventually." I finally hit the tipping point after 2.5 years of giving them the benefit of the doubt.Even in DJOs case, I stubbornly tried to make it work with Google and it was a disaster. I gave Google a fair shake. It's not for me.

I guess you were mistaking perseverance for being happy.

CL and DJO, while not perfect, let me work the way I want to work now.

Oh, I didn't think you were saying one or the other was horrible - but it seemed like you were committed to the cloud model; maybe just because, as you say, you felt that that's the way the world was going, and wishing for the way things used to be was useless (eg. the old Palm local sync model).

I may have mistaken perseverance for being happy - you *seemed* happy with it, that's all I can say. :-)

Right now folks are having an awful lot of trouble with 2-way sync with DJO/CompanionLink in some cases. I myself still don't trust it, and generally add all permanent records into my Palm TX (still), and do a one-way overwrite sync from Palm Desktop -> Android via WiFi (yeah, I paid for the CL Pro version).

One thing that really irks me is, the CL people haven't given me a good enough answer to my question about why they can't sync multiple phone numbers of the same type, even in a 1-way sync. If I have 2 Mobile numbers, it will only sync the 1st... there's GOT to be something in DejaOffice and Palm Desktop that says "Phone number 1 is Mobile, Phone number 2 is Mobile, Phone number 3 is Home, ..." etc. so that you can sync by "phone number slot" as it were. They say they can't do that, but haven't explained it so that it makes sense to me.

By the way, on a sidenote, the president over at CompanionLink is... interesting. My main email address is at one of my domains, which contains the word 'sh*t'. The whole domain name is kind of funny, I think, but for awhile the CompanionLink president said he wouldn't do business with me unless I used an email address that wasn't 'offensive'. Since I tag my email addresses with each company I give it to (for tracking purposes), and after wrangling with the guy for awhile, I eventually created a whole new domain name for the sole purpose of tracked email addresses (and which couldn't possibly offend anyone - I probably should have called it 'fluffypuppies.com' or something, heh). Bit weird for a company to do that - no other company (and I have contact with thousands) has ever objected to my domain name.

- Tim

[Hook]

In general, since I have completely isolated CL-DJO from the Android data bases, I have had few problems and none that weren't quickly cured by a purge and Sync with Outlook. DJO can't do everything that Outlook can do, but what it does is a) a logical subset of what Outlook can do and b) Doesn't mess up Outlook when it syncs. It probably helps that I do most of my data entry in Outlook.

Have no idea about the domain name thing. Maybe it messed with their spam filters. ;-)

I still expect Pocket Informant to be a better product when it achieves full Outlook sync, but for now, I have what I want.

I never used Palm Desktop ever.

[tbessie]

In general, since I have completely isolated CL-DJO from the Android data bases, I have had few problems and none that weren't quickly cured by a purge and Sync with Outlook. DJO can't do everything that Outlook can do, but what it does is a) a logical subset of what Outlook can do and b) Doesn't mess up Outlook when it syncs. It probably helps that I do most of my data entry in Outlook.

Have no idea about the domain name thing. Maybe it messed with their spam filters. ;-)

I still expect Pocket Informant to be a better product when it achieves full Outlook sync, but for now, I have what I want.

I never used Palm Desktop ever.

Are you able to sync contacts that have >1 phone number of the same type, and it works as you'd expect?

I will probably move to Outlook eventually. Right now the TX is still going strong (holds a charge for a long time even though it's pretty old now), so I'll continue doing that until I decide to port everything over, I suppose.

I think the domain name thing wasn't just a spam filter thing - he seemed truly incensed that I would use a domain name with a 'naughty' word in it.

Pocket Informant doesn't seem to have anything to do with Notes, Contacts and Tasks, does it? It seems only to be a Calendar (from what I can see, though I didn't read everything on their page about it). Does it let you manage contacts, link them to events, attach alarms to Notes, etc.?

The reason I use Palm Desktop is I still use Agendus on my Palm as my main mobile PIM, and it works best with Palm Desktop.

- Tim

[Hook]

Are you able to sync contacts that have >1 phone number of the same type, and it works as you'd expect?

I will probably move to Outlook eventually. Right now the TX is still going strong (holds a charge for a long time even though it's pretty old now), so I'll continue doing that until I decide to port everything over, I suppose.

I think the domain name thing wasn't just a spam filter thing - he seemed truly incensed that I would use a domain name with a 'naughty' word in it.

Pocket Informant doesn't seem to have anything to do with Notes, Contacts and Tasks, does it? It seems only to be a Calendar (from what I can see, though I didn't read everything on their page about it). Does it let you manage contacts, link them to events, attach alarms to Notes, etc.?

The reason I use Palm Desktop is I still use Agendus on my Palm as my main mobile PIM, and it works best with Palm Desktop.

- Tim

Yes, I can have more than one phone number of the same type. Outlook doesn't care, I just label them differently and they appear that way in DJO as well.

Pocket informant currently only does Calendar and tasks and only syncs with Google, using the Android data base. It will eventually add syncing to Outlook directly with it's own data base and will incorporate everything. This will take time. Their development philosophy is to build up small pieces and get them right and then add more. It took 9 years for PI for WinMo to fully develop. I think it will take PI for Android another year to even 2 years to fully get there, but it will. I just couldn't wait.

I know why you or anyone else uses Palm Desktop. I'm just saying I never did. From the moment I got my T2, I synced with Outlook, first with Chapura and later with Beyond Contacts. I've been using Outlook since 1998.

[tbessie]

Yes, I can have more than one phone number of the same type. Outlook doesn't care, I just label them differently and they appear that way in DJO as well.

Pocket informant currently only does Calendar and tasks and only syncs with Google, using the Android data base. It will eventually add syncing to Outlook directly with it's own data base and will incorporate everything. This will take time. There development philosophy is to build up small pieces and get them right and then add more. It took 9 years for PI for WinMo to fully develop. I think it will take PI for Android another year to even 2 years to fully get there, but it will. I just couldn't wait.

I know why you or anyone else uses Palm Desktop. I'm just saying I never did. From the moment I got my T2, I synced with Outlook, first with Chapura and later with Beyond Contacts. I've been using Outlook since 1998.

I'll be keeping my eye on Pocket Informant as well.

Since Palm Desktop (and the Palm itself) is dead, I *will* eventually switch to Outlook; it's just entropy, mostly, that's been keeping me from doing it. Also, when I do the transfer, I want to have a lot of control over how the data is moved over... field mappings and such. I don't trust any automated procedure to do it just like I want to, so I'll probably do it at least partially by hand in some way.

- Tim

[Varjak]

It sounds like a decent setup; but I'm at the point where I'd like to get away from Outlook (and MS in general). But I like the 'back to a PDA' comment. I agree.

Interesting issue with email addresses. I find the pres. of CL to be a bit too sensitive; but I wonder how I'd react if the email address were racially or religiously offensive? Tough question.

[jigwashere]

It sounds like a decent setup; but I'm at the point where I'd like to get away from Outlook (and MS in general). But I like the 'back to a PDA' comment. I agree.

Seems like Outlook isn't the only option:

The only big news here is simply that if you want to have local USB sync with Android, using Outlook, Palm Desktop or any number of other PIMs/CRMs, YOU CAN!