Dutchy in the USA

The kids went out to find some pumpkins this weekend.

Arnold

Ok, this is probably one of the most irritation topics to tackle in general and especially getting an Android phone. Contact Management! I have contacts all over the place, my gmail original account, my google apps main account, linkedin, facebook, plaxo, yahoo, outlook contacts work and probably some I never use anymore and forgot.

I have tried to sync them in the past but never have been very success full. So with my Droid X coming up next week and Christy on her Droid 2, I have been reading some posts on this topic and it basically comes down to pick a spot to make this your main contact management location (either your phone, google gmail contacts or outlook and then select the proper sync solution).

1st step – Which application? So I decided to maintain my contacts in my google apps gmail account as this is my main mail account. I decided this as I played on the Droid 2 with contacts and that was not really fast enough. Also Outlook on my work pc is not always available for me. 2nd step – Prepare before you use your Droid.

Well this is getting tricky, first of all, when you activate your phone you need a google gmail account. Your google apps account won’t work initially. You could make your apps account the primary account but I understand that gives problems buying apps on the marketplace through google checkout.

So I deleted all my contacts from my gmail first after I export and imported and merged them with my google apps gmail account. Then I went into my apps contacts and basically cleaned up duplicates etc, With over 500 accounts you can imagine this took a while, spend probably 3-4 hours on this but I know it will work for me at the end. Then I exported and imported my outlook work account contacts into my google apps contacts and did a final cleanup.

3rd step – sync between Google Apps or Gmail Contacts and outlook

For this I found a small free application called GO Contact Sync

This little nifty app runs on startup (optional), auto or manual sync between your Outlook Contacts and Gmail contacts. Initially I had some issues to get it to work but after I manually merged first all my contacts to Gmail and deleted all contacts in Outlook. I ran the options Google to Outlook only first to sync them back and this works wonder full. Now I have Sync Delete and Merge Google Wins setup as options and I run it manually when needed. Go Contacts Sync (webgear open source)

4th step – Add your google apps email account to your Droid phone

Now you can add your google apps email as 2nd account to your phone and all your contacts should sync up automatically between google apps and your phone.

Christy is using local Outlook with a POP3 setup to a hosted mail server solution for her company. So no exchange. This has always been an issue when travelling as sent emails from the web account would never sync back unless she CC-ed herself and moved those emails to the sent folder when she got back home. She is asking the hosting company to install an exchange module so we can do Corporate sync with Exchange active sync solution on the Droid 2.

My company has exchange but no Android phones from Verizon are supported currently on the server. So either webmail through the browser is probably the best option currently till they approve the phone.

So no experience yet with Corporate Sync features for outlook apart from hotmail but hopefully an update on this topic soon when one of us will have this in place.

As of now the best option for the email part remain a pop3 solution for Christy and using the webmail solution for me. Further posts on Calendar Sync and Contacts, Tasks and Notes sync as there are solutions for this.

	So after looking for hours and trying out several apps like K9 and the default email and going through several forums I finally found the solutions to sync hotmail between Christy her Droid 2 and her hotmail account. When I initially set it up it was just a pop3 solution so it didn’t really sync properly.

She deleted an email on her webmail account it did not get deleted on the phone email and vice versa, neither did the sent email get synced properly. So handle this frustration as husband to tell her that is just the way it is. She wanted to return the phone already after 2 days. So hubby geek, spent the entire night browsing forums to find out this issue was already existing since like 2008 for Android phones and seemed not resolved yet. Till I found a post with this link:

Hotmail corporate sync for Droid phones with 2.2 Android Froyo

It works by setting up a corporate sync with active sync using m.hotmail.com. I configured it and it seems to work great as her phone is on 2.2 Android. For my X I don’t have to do this as I use google apps/gmail for my email account.

Further syncing posts will follow for exchange, local outlook Google gmail, apps gmail account and calendar, contacts sync.

So I finally got a new phone the Droid X, Christy got a Droid 2. So now figuring out which apps to run, how to sync my calendar and contacts. It seems really connected to Google and its online services, but I was using this already so more post to follow

Movie star

As we try to skip naps as Gavin doesn’t take them at school anymore, a little bit too much activity in the weekend crashed him… This is how Papa found him in the office after he had a time out… in this corner… he decided too take a nap instead 😉