09 Mar 09 Sync contacts and calendars with your smartphone

This is great news – Google has now made it possible for you to sync your contacts & calendars with your smartphone. I’m using it with my iPhone, in fact, and so far it’s been great.

Basically, I sync Google Contacts & my Google Calendars with my iPhone over the air using Google Mobile Sync, but I also sync Contacts and Calendars with my Mac’s Address Book & iCal using Spanning Sync. That way, everything works together seamlessly, which is just the way I want it.

You can read articles about how to enable Mobile Sync for your smartphone, as well as how it all works, in some of the following:

Google Sync for your mobile phones
Google Tutor

http://www.googletutor.com/2009/02/12/google-sync-for-your-mobile-phones/

Google beta of Sync for mobile contacts & calendar is live
The Unofficial Apple Weblog

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/02/09/google-beta-of-sync-for-mobile-contacts-and-calendar-is-live/

Finally: Google Sync Comes to iPhone and Windows Mobile
Mashable

http://mashable.com/2009/02/09/google-sync/

Google Mobile – Sync
Google [the official pages & instructions]

http://www.google.com/mobile/apple/sync.html

Tags: Contact Manager, Google Calendar, New features, Smartphones, Spanning Sync, Synchronization

09 Mar 09 Contacts getting better #23: Merge contacts

Finally, it appears that Google is improving the anemic Contact Manager that is part of Gmail. The 1st improvement I want to bring to your attention: you can now merge contacts. Thank goodness!

You can read more at:

Merge Multiple Gmail Contacts
Google Tutor

http://www.googletutor.com/2009/02/17/merge-multiple-gmail-contacts/

Merge Gmail Contacts
Google Operating System

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/02/merge-gmail-contacts.html

Four changes to Gmail contacts
Official Gmail Blog

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/four-changes-to-gmail-contacts.html

Tags: Contact Manager, Gmail

19 Nov 08 Syncing contacts and calendars? I still prefer Spanning Sync

In Google Apps Deciphered I spend a lot of time talking about Spanning Sync, Mac-based software for syncing calendars & contacts. Yes, there are free options, but I still believe that paying $25 for Spanning Sync is a good investment. For a list of good reasons to buy and use Spanning Sync, check out Google Tutor’s “6 Reasons Spanning Sync Still Rocks“. The 6 reasons:

1. Event Reminders & Alarms
2. CalDAV Doesn’t Sync Address Book
3. Two-way Sync is Unreliable
4. Easier Set-up
5. iPhone Incompatibility
6. CalDAV is not Internationally Inclined

I couldn’t agree more.

Tags: Contact Manager, Google Calendar, Spanning Sync