[missing-sync-pocketpc-talk] RE: Sync to Mac and XP?

[Joaquin Menchaca]

There are a few ways to do this outside of
MissingSync:

  (1) Use an Exchange Server as the transfer mechanism
  (2) Use the iPod as the transfer mechanism
  (3) Script your own or use a plethora of tools.

Exchange Server
--------------------
If you use an Exchange Server for your Windows Outlook
access, you can use Exchange as the way to get data
from the Macintosh into Exchange, and then view it
from Outlook from WindowsXP.

On the Mac, there's Outlook 2001
(http://www.mactopia.com) which will work with an
Exchange server.  This tool runs under Mac OS 9, so it
doesn't have the pretty Aqua user experience.  It you
can get data into Outlook 2001, you can then get
synchronization.

Somehow, when using Outlook 2001, it took data used in
Entourage running on Mac OS X and auto-magically
synchronized it with the Exchanage server.  So, this
might be the easiest method to get data into Outlook
2001 is by using Entourage.

The problem with synchronizing Entourage with iSync
(and hence the family of iTools) is that Apple is
pretty closed about iSync, and does have public SDKs
on this.  However, I do remember some recent tools for
this.  One quick search on google brought e2sync for
$39 at http://www.e2sync.com/.

Thus this solution involves the following path to get
data to go from PocketPC/Mac/OutlookWin solution: 
         missingSync -> iSync -> e2Sync -> Entourage
-> Outlook 2001 -> Exchange -> Outlook on WinXP.

Using iPod
-------------
Another possibility would be to use an iPod that can
easily synchronize with Macintosh OS X iSync facility.
 This data would then be carted to Windows and use
third party tool to get it.  

Once the iPod is accessible under Windows, there are
several tools available that can suck PIM data from it
and place it into Outook and vice-versa.  You can find
a good listing at http://www.ipodlounge.com.  I think
ipod-sync seems to be the cream of the crop and they
can be found at http://www.ipod-sync.com/.

This would involve the following path to get data to
and from PocketPC/Mac/OutlookWindows solutions:
        missingSync -> iSync -> iPod -> Windows file
browser* -> ipod-sync -> Outlook on WinXP
    
* Note, that this is just used in theory.  I have
never tested an iPod formatted with the Windows file
system (FAT32) on a Macintosh, and determined how well
it works under both Windows and Macintosh. 
Alternatively, one can use the native Mac file system
(HFS) under Windows using a tool like MacDrive
(http://www.mediafour.com/products/macdrive6/).

Scripting Your Own Solution
--------------------------------
There are plenty of little tools and scripts out there
that can do synchronization, or data import/extract. 
Much of the data in proprietary programs can be
extracted and saved into standard formats like vCard
or vCal (http://www.imc.org/pdi/) formats either (1)
the application’s user interface in recent programs,
(2) custom scripts especially for older programs, or
(3) third party tools.  There might be a problem
specifically with iCal, as this doesn’t adhere to the
standard vCal format, and is troublesome to work with.
 Some great tools for this is a PHP webbased utility
that can import/export vCal formats called php
icalendar (http://phpicalendar.sourceforge.net). 
Yahoo mail also supports some import/export
capabilities with vCal and vCard formats.

For rolling out your own scripts and solutions, here
some notes below that might prove useful:

Both Outlook 2001 and Entourage are scriptable using
either AppleScript or another scripting language that
supports AppleEvents, such as Perl through MacGlue
module (or MacPerl at http://www.macperl.org for Mac
OS 9).  The Apple tools (Addressbook, iCal, etc.) also
support scripting in this manner as well.

On Windows, Outlook 97/2K/2K2/2K3 supports forms of
scripting through OLE-Automation.  This can be used to
get at all the items at Outlook.  This can be done
through VBScripts using WSH or VBA, or through Perl
using Windows OLE perl modules.  On Windows,
ActiveState Perl
(http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/) is a
free solution that includes many of the needed
modules.  There’s a beautiful IDE for perl called
Komodo that can be used to easily get into Perl
programming.  Off the topic, Komodo using Mozilla
technologies, the same used for Firefox and it works
on Linux and Solaris as well.  Unfortunately, there is
no Mac OS X solutions, despite numerous requests.



I hope the above might be useful.  

regards, 
 Joaquin Menchaca



		
__________________________________ 
Do you Yahoo!? 
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. 
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail