[missing-sync-palmos-talk] Categories & iCal

[Paul Berkowitz]

Yes. Entourage is much more useful and professional than the free Apple
iApps. Actually, Address Book is not too bad now, but iCal and Mail are
still pretty poor. And the integration of Entourage is great. But the number
of different Mac OS features that work automatically with the iApps is
getting pretty impressive. So that's why I provide the scripts.

Microsoft has already announced (at MWSF) that they intend to integrate with
the new Tiger SyncServices in due course. When that happens - and all the
bugs are ironed out - my scripts should be superfluous and unnecessary. The
way SyncServices are supposed to work is that all applications that
subscribe to it will sync all their data to its central store automatically
every few minutes, and then all other applications and devices (such as Palm
conduits) will also sync the same central store. Presumably Entourage will
sync _all_ fields there, and improved conduits will then sync all fields now
supported by Palm OS, so we'll finally get both addresses, etc.

The trouble is that there are still (or have been) Apple bugs with
SyncServices, that affect iSync synching for example. So it looks less
likely that the Entourage SyncServices will be supplied in the next
Entourage update which is supposed to be primarily for improved Exchange
use. I guess it won't be until the next update after that, or maybe not
until the next major version release - no one knows. So for the time being
my scripts are still needed. (I've heard lots of mixed reports on e2Sync -
if they ever iron out their problems I guess that would be an easier way.
But so far not dependable.)

So in due course, you ought to be able to sync with Entourage as easily as
with the iApps. But in itself? Yes, Entourage is far better if you need more
than just the simple name+address+email features of a PIM, impressive though
the iApps progress has been to date. If, like most people, you need to have
MS Office for Word and Excel anyway, in my opinion it's a no-brainer to use
Entourage. But I've been with it from the beginning - as a beta tester too.
I'll leave it to others to enumerate all the advantages. Or you could do
worse than check out the $5 eBook "Take Control of Entourage" published by
TidBits. (Or even just explore the "Discovering Microsoft Office" pdf promo
in the Entourage or Word Help.)

-- 
Paul Berkowitz


> From: Michael Griffith <m.griffith at mary.acu.edu.au>
> Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2005 04:32:29 +1000
> To: <berkowit at silcom.com>, "The Missing Sync (Mac/Palm OS) Discussion List"
> <missing-sync-palmos-talk at lists.markspace.com>
> Subject: Re: [missing-sync-palmos-talk] Categories & iCal
> 
> So Paul: reading between the lines here: are you a committed
> Entourage man? it is always good to know what the real professionals
> prefer and why! But then I supposed you would not have spent all that
> time writing the Entourage Sync Conduits if you were not an Entourage
> enthusiast??
> 
> Michael
> 
> 
> On 29/07/2005, at 3:44 PM, Paul Berkowitz wrote:
> 
>> On 7/28/05 10:21 PM, "Mac Mike" <miketall at mac.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> There are plenty of scripts
>>> for Entourage, but not quite as easy to use as the plug-ins for
>>> the Apple
>>> apps.  Plus a lot of those scripts wouldn't be things that a
>>> typical user
>>> would use on a daily basis.
>>> 
>> 
>> Why not? There are many people who do just that. Some scripts are
>> used 100
>> times a day.
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> (2) the tight integration?
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> For example, you can send out an iCal event to people in Address
>>> Book using
>>> Mail.  This is something handled quite well without having to cut-
>>> n-paste
>>> addresses and remember all the info you just entered in to the
>>> iCal event.
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> But in Entourage all you have to do is click "Invite"! And send the
>> event as
>> a message. What could be tighter than that? There's no cut and
>> paste at all.
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Paul Berkowitz
>> 
>> 
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> 
>