The Holy Grail of Synchronization: combining Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, Gmail, iPod, and mobile phone

The Holy Grail of Synchronization

2008/03/06: Google now official supports synching between Google Calendar and Outlook

Last updated: 2006/09/19

This is a guide for synchronizing Contacts (address book) and Calendars (schedule) across multiple computers and gadgets.

Common terms:

• synchronization – making the information the same on two different applications
• WAP/GPRS – wireless Internet access for mobile phones
• SyncML – a synchronization protocol

This is the setup I am trying to sync:

• Calendars
  • Microsoft Outlook at work for professional scheduling
  • Google Calendar for personal scheduling
• Contacts
  • Gmail for email addresses
  • Microsoft Outlook at home for contacts
• Gadgets
  • Nokia 6682 for access to contacts/calendar on the go (or any mobile phone that has software to synchronize with Microsoft Outlook, ie: all of them)
  • iPod for access to contacts/calendar on the go

ScheduleWorld wasn’t something I used before I tried to do this, but it is the glue that holds it all together.

Here is a beautiful drawing of The Plan. It was made with Gliffy, a web-based Visio clone.

Blogging as Unofficial Corporate Representation

John Battelle has a good piece up where he transcribes a recent conference panel with Matt Cutts from Google, Jeremy Zawodny from Yahoo!, Niall Kennedy from MSN, and Gary Price from Ask. Good points were made about how company bloggers become the voice from the company – intentional or not.

Blogging has disrupted the media gatekeepers. Anyone can be a gatekeeper with the click of a button. Audiences are smaller, more dispersed, and more specific. As people take the media into their own hands there has been a positive backlash from corporate “public relations” as they scramble to find the new media sources: bloggers.

People blog because they have something to say, they want something to do, or to generate attention. As the mainstream media shifts bloggers go from reporting news to being news (case in point, this post). This is where the backlash turns from positive to negative because rarely do they want or desire the attention from “being news”.

“My exercise in figuring out where the line was repeatedly crossing it and then be told that I crossed it. Lawyers have come into my office three times.” — Zawodny.

Is that the position a blogger wants to be in with their employer?

>> John Battelle’s Searchblog: Blogging for the search engines

Social Bookmarking Made Easy

A Netscape employee An industrious East-Coaster has put together a bookmarklet that allows you to save to Reddit, Digg, Netscape, and Del.icio.us with one click. This is essential, as there are way too many social bookmarking sites out there. I can see why Netscape wanted this, because if they can get people submitting to Netscape along with the “Top 3″ then they might generate enough users and traffic to meet their lofty goals of competing with Digg.

Update: This bookmarklet made me sign up and try out “the new Netscape”. There were some major issues with trying to create an account and sign in for the first time, but they appear to be fixed today. The site looks pretty good and AJAXy. I like it. It may be a competitor.

• Adventures @ Netscape.com � Blog Archive � Welcome Redlicious and DiggScapeRedlicous?!
• Techcrunch � Blog Archive � Diggscaperedilicous: Save to Digg, Netscape, Reddit and Del.icio.us with one bookmarklet