Sep 28, 2008

Tucano WorkOut Laptop Bag

With the iPhone replacing my iPod, cel phone, PDA, and camera (for casual use), and with my switch from older, clunky laptops to the svelt MacBook Air [macbookair, macbookair, usingthemacbookair], I decided to downsize my laptop bag / briefcase.

My previous bag was pretty small to begin with, but it couldn't beat the slim and lightweight 13" Tucano Workout bag. This classy Italian-made bag is designed for the standard 13" MacBook, but the MacBook Air fits inside perfectly. A lot of people opt for basic sleeves for their Airs, but I prefer to use an actual bag with zipped pockets and slots for business cards, cables, pens, etc. And even after filling the pockets in the Tucano bag, it still remains incredibly small, light, and comfortable to carry.

I bought mine at the Flight 001 store in Berkeley, CA, but you can find it online at a variety of sources for under $60. It comes in a few different colors (I chose black).

Tucano Workout 13"

Aug 24, 2008

Suck-O-Meter for the iPhone

Due to overwhelming lack of demand, the Suck-O-Meter is now available for the iPhone! Just head to www.suckometer.com with your iPhone or iPod Touch, and the Suck-O-Meter will launch automatically.

Using a proprietary algorithm that takes advantage of the unique capabilities of the iPhone, the Suck-O-Meter allows you to test whether objects and items "Suck" or "Do Not Suck". Finally, thanks to the Suck-O-Meter, the iPhone is actually useful!

With the Suck-O-Meter, you'll never find yourself wondering if something sucks or not. Now, with the click of a button, you'll always know for sure.

Isn't technology amazing?

Note: Please exercise caution when using the Suck-O-Meter on people.

Aug 17, 2008

Fun with Funambol

In my quest to find the ultimate solution for contact list and calendar synchronization, I decided to try out Funambol. Funambol is an open-source product formerly known as sync4j, which provides client and server sync applications, as well as a sync portal service at http://my.funambol.com. Funambol is closely, but not exactly, based on the SyncML standard.

I decided to run my own Funambol server (version 6), and synchronize it with four clients:

1. Outlook 2003 at home
2. Outlook 2003 on Exchange Server 2007 at work
3. Palm Treo 650
4. Apple iPhone 3G

All but the iPhone were previously kept in sync manually via Pocket Mirror for the Treo.

Setting up a Funambol server was quite easy, at least for someone with basic technical skills. They thoughtfully provide the server in a ready-to-run package that includes all of the base host components, like Apache Tomcat and Java. You just need to extract the package, start the server, and run a simple configuration utility. The included PDF instructions are easy to follow. If you are behind a firewall, as most people are, you'll need to forward port 8080 to the machine running the Funambol server.

Funambol provides their own Outlook plugin, which installs easily, so I installed it on both Outlook clients and configured them to point at my server. Here's a lesson I learned when dealing with syncing Palm Pilots: Always choose one, and only one, client to be the "master sync source." When you first configure a sync solution, you will inevitably screw up the data somewhere, either nuking everything, or duplicating everything. I chose my work Outlook client as the master. I also backed up my home Outlook PST file. I first manually synced the work Outlook client, then did a one-way sync from the server to my home Outlook client. I ended up with several duplicate appointments on the home client, so I manually cleaned out the dupes, and did a standard two-way sync. When I synced the work client again, the dupes appeared on the work client, so I removed the dupes there as well. And here's where I ran into a problem: the duped appointments were missing all of the Exchange meeting data, so information about the meeting organizer and attendees was lost. Luckily, because I chose the work Outlook client as the master sync source, I could compare duped meetings on the work client and delete the dupe that was missing Exchange data. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the problem until I had deleted a few of the wrong dupes. Contacts synced fine between both clients.

There is no Funambol client for the Treo 650, so I tried the Nexthaus SyncJe client and the Synthesis SyncML client. The SyncJe client would connect to the Funambol server, but it couldn't see any of the data stores, so I couldn't use it. That left the Synthesis client. The Synthesis client would connect and sync, but I had several issues, presumably due to differences in adherence to the SyncML standard. I lost all contact pictures on the Treo, and several address fields were incorrectly combined or deleted. All-day appointments (like birthdays) were converted to 6 hour appointments randomly a day before or after the original date, and other meetings would mysteriously vanish. I suspected some of the issues were related to data on the Treo previously synced from Pocket Mirror, so I wiped the contacts and calendar clean, and re-synced from the Funambol server. After manually cleaning up the contact data in Outlook and syncing all clients, the contact info on the Treo was fine. But each time the Synthesis client synced, it would randomly screw up some part of the calendar. I ended up setting the Synthesis client to only do a one-way sync from the server, and never "write back" to the server. This prevented corruption of the server's sync data, but it also meant that I could never add new appointments from the Treo. And even in this case, some appointments would still never appear on the Treo.

When I picked up my iPhone 3G, I walked to a nearby coffee shop, sat down, launched the AppStore on the iPhone, downloaded the native Funambol client, configured it to point at my server, and synced. And just like that, I had all of my contact data on the iPhone. Upon careful inspection, however, I noticed two issues: 1) Email addresses were listed in a category called "Other", instead of "Email". This doesn't seem to cause any real problems, as I can email everyone fine. 2) Contact "Group" info was not synced. If you sync contact data from Outlook to the iPhone via a cable and iTunes, Outlook's Contact folder data will be translated into Group data on the iPhone. This information is not translated when syncing via Funambol, so all of my contacts are listed in one long list. I'm able to manually assign group information using the iPhone app ABGroups, and while the Group data is not synced with Funambol, it does seems to be preserved on the iPhone after syncing.

Apple currently doesn't allow third party software to modify the iPhone's calendar, so the Funambol client does not sync the calendar. This flat out stinks, and it makes you wonder if Apple is trying to force users to subscribe to their MobileMe service. In the mean time, I use Google Calendar's Outlook Connector to do a one-way sync from my work Outlook client, and I view the calendar using Google's iPhone-optimized Google Calendar web site. It works surprisingly well, and I can even see organizer and attendee data on the Google calendar. But it is far less than ideal, as I can only see the calendar when I have a network connection. Note that based on usage reports from Omar and others, I don't trust a two-way sync from Google calendar, so like the Treo, I cannot add new appointments on the iPhone. Come on Apple, open up the calendar!

After two months of usage, I'm still using Funambol on a daily basis. I occasionally get duplicate appointments in my calendars, but I'm not sure if it is Funambol or other issues (I've seen dupes appear when I modify my Exchange calendar via Entourage on the Mac). I don't think I would recommend Funambol as a bullet-proof calendar sync solution, but for Contact data, it does the trick. And in both cases, I like that I'm syncing everything without cables.

UPDATE: Well, today I updated my iPhone to firmware 2.0.2. After doing so, used the iPhone Funambol app to sync with my server as usual, and it decided to duplicate almost all of my contacts. Why? The firmware update? Was it because I added Group info? As much as I want Funambol to succeed as free alternative to MobileMe, I'm dubious of its reliablity.

Aug 10, 2008

Migrating from Treo to iPhone

Migrating from the Treo to the iPhone 3G was a lot easier than I expected. Thanks to the App Store, I was mostly able to find good (and sometimes great) iPhone alternatives to essential PDA apps that I used on the Treo, with a notable exception.

As you can see, it is important to me that there is desktop and offline access to all of my data.

Evernote a terrific app for note-taking, and I love that there are native clients for Mac, Windows, and the iPhone. I also like the web app, which works great on Linux machines. And most of all, I like that all clients automatically stay in sync with each other via Evernote's web service. The iPhone app is a bit basic right now, and needs two key new features: 1) Editing existing notes (coming in next version) UPDATE: Editing now works in the latest version, and 2) Caching notes so they can be read offline.

Bonsai is a tough app to replace, but I'm becoming a big fan of toodledo.com. There are several list management web apps, but I like toodledo.com for two main reasons: 1) It is extremely fast, and always available, and 2) they provide several easy-to-access export formats that allow me to archive my data should anything happen to their service. I happily subscribe to their $14.95 annual service. There are also several(!) to-do list apps available for the iPhone, but the one I like is called Todo from Appigo. Todo is rock solid, unlike many other iPhone apps, and syncs perfectly with toodledo.com. The only thing it needs is the ability to display sub-tasks, which is coming in a future version.

I was happy to see that SplashData provided an iPhone version of SplashID on the App Store's launch day. The iPhone version works fine, but is a bit rough around the edges compared to the clean Treo/Palm app, and the manual data migration process was flat out clumsy. The sync process is interesting in that it syncs without a conduit directly from the iPhone app to the desktop app, but the sync button is inconveniently buried a couple of menus deep. And unlike the Palm version, the iPhone version insists on navigating the password list via categories, whereas I prefer to just see my accounts listed alphabetically. Luckily, SplashData is actively developing and updating SplashID, so I expect it to mature over the next few months.

The lack of a native Excel and Word doc editor is a real pain, and web-based office suites like Google Docs, Zoho, and Editgrid just don't cut it on the iPhone. Besides, I want my data local, not in the "cloud." I wouldn't be surprised if someone ported Gnumeric and AbiWord to the iPhone soon, and if Microsoft was smart, they'd make their own slimmed down office suite. But in the mean time, I'm using a basic FTP client called Caravan to copy Excel and Word files from my PC to the iPhone. Caravan is a nice little $3 app, with a developer who is actively maintaining it. Alas, the iPhone's built-in Word doc viewer inexplicably refuses to display several of my Word documents, no matter how simple they are.

All in all, I was able to move from the Treo to the iPhone easily, and I find it exciting that we're only seeing hint of the flood of new iPhone apps coming online over the next year.

Jul 09, 2008

A Syncing Feeling

Like many people, I store and use Contacts and Calendars on several devices and computers. At home, I have a personal address book and calendar, and at work I have the global company address book and my shared work calendar (on Exchange Server). Other family members also have their own address books and contact lists. And I want to prune my contacts into categories so I can sync just a subset of the list.

I want a solution that allows me to synchronize my personal contacts/calendars with my work contacts/calendars, but not vice-versa. And I want to share that personal data with my family. Here's a diagram of what I'm looking for:

The rectangles are client devices, and the circles are data sources. The dotted lines represent "read only" paths. My devices/computers are on the right, my family's on the left. For example, my PDA/Phone will need to show my family calendar and my work calendar, but my family's PDA/Phone only needs to show the family calendar.

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone with this data sync problem.

With my Treo, I can mostly make this work by manually hot-syncing in the cradle on my home machine and my work machine. I have yet to try syncing one home machine to another, though Easy2Sync looks like a fine solution if everyone is running Outlook.

But with the migration from Treo to iPhone, and some home machines from Windows to Mac, what is the best way to keep everything in sync? And can I, preferably, keep the iPhones in sync wirelessly?

• Apple's MobileMe service looks interesting, but will it support shared contacts and calendars with multiple users? Will it work alongside a sync to an Exchange server? And it costs $99/year.
• Exchange ActiveSync works on the new iPhone, but will it coexists with any other syncing solution?
• Funambol looks very interesting, and is open source, but will it support multiple data sources? Can it coexist with ActiveSync? Is it stable?
• Am I just stuck with cradle syncing?

Either I'm missing something obvious, or there is an interesting solution opportunity for someone.

UPDATE: This just in from Uncle Walt regarding the new iPhone: While you can have both personal and Exchange email accounts on the new iPhone, if you synchronize with Exchange calendars and contacts, your personal calendar and contacts are erased.