Hawk Wings » isync

Ghost Action GTD app: simple, slick, syncing

Tim Gaden — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:48:45 +0000

Ghost Park Software has released a simple, slick and polished app “for keeping track of your to-dos using the simple and stress-free Getting Things Done method”.

It comes from the “lean and mean” end of the GTD app market and looks more like Actiontastic than Midnight Inbox and other “eye-candy heavy” apps:

Context, Project and Action views provide powerful and flexible ways to carry your to-dos forward.

The developers give a lot of attention to syncing, which is good. Ghost Action has full two-way synchronization with iCal. It can also synchronize with any iSync-compatible device — a PDA, an iPod or a phone.

Syncing options are provided in the app’s Preferences:

One user provides Ghost Park with a full praise for its clever syncing:

I love the fact that Ghost Action recognizes theâ€¨project name in the to-dos imported from iCal (like â€œsome task [Project â€¨X]â€). Very handy, that means I can enter to-dos on my Palm and and they will be properly synchronized to Ghost Action through iCal. Cool! â€” Ksenia Marasan

Ghost Action is an universal binary and shareware (USD 19.95). You can get a free 14-day demo from the developer’s web site.

It seems like just yesterday that I wrote up “Ten Mac Tools for Getting Things Done“. Now it could easy be twenty Mac tools, all of them high quality solutions.

Ghost Action has the edge in sync options. Actiontastic gets brownie points for Quicksilver integration.

Address Book: Wipeout. Support Saga. Fix.

Tim Gaden — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 11:13:38 +0000

A Hawk Wings reader emailed me today with a depressing tale.

The Address Book had been wiped from her (or his) PowerBook, smartphone and .Mac account after syncing the Powerbook with a Nokia 6682, except for three contacts recently added through the new .Mac interface.

A rather weird email exchange with .Mac support followed, before a fix was found independently.

The names of the reader and the .Mac support person and the support ticket numbers have been removed.

The Hawk Wings reader contacted .Mac support:

Hello,

I recently sync’ed my .Mac account with my Address Book on my PowerBook G4, and all my contacts were erased, but for the three I had recently added via the .Mac website.

I can be contacted by email at Xxxxxxx@mac.com or by phone at x xxx xxx xxxx. Please let me know ASAP how to fix this, as this is a very, very serious problem, with heavy consequences for me.

Thank you
Xxxxx X Xxxxxxx

.Mac response:

Dear Xxxxxxx,

Thank you for contacting Apple and the .Mac Support Team. Based on the information provided in your email, I understand that your Address Book contacts disappeared after syncing with .Mac.

I’m sorry to hear that some of your data is missing, but data lost through .Mac Sync cannot be recovered.

.Mac Syncing is not designed to back up data, such as Address Book contacts or Safari Bookmarks. I recommend using an application designed specifically for data backup, such as .Mac’s Backup.

Backup allows you to automatically save photos, family movies, your favorite music, and other important documents to your iDisk, a CD, a DVD, or an external hard disk. This will lessen the possibility of losing any important messages or data in the future.

You can also save your important files to CD, DVD, or other removable media using Mac OS X instead of Backup, as described in these articles:

Mac OS X: How to back up and restore your files

How to back up and restore your important Mac OS X 10.4 files

Sincerely,

Xxxxxxx
.Mac Support

Puzzled, another attempt is made:

Let me clarify: I know .Mac syncing is not design to back up data. But I don’t think it’s designed to erase it, is it?

I do not sync my Address Book with my .Mac account and my cell phone in order to back it up. I do it, just as most of your customers, in order to be able to use the same contact info on my Mac at home, on my PC at work and on my smartphone on the go.

This “glitch” has caused an extremely severe damage to the personal use I make of .Mac, as well as to my professional practice. That is why I very strongly encourage Apple to make sure this never happens again to me, or to any other .Mac subscriber. This is an advice I am giving both as a faithful Apple customer and as an attorney at law.

Should this happen again, not only would I lose any confidence in Apple’s .Mac service — I would also probably consider seeking reparation.

Cordially,
Xxxxxx X Xxxxxxx

.Mac Support replies:

Dear Xxxxxxx,

I apologize for any inconvenience that this issue might have caused. Based on the information in your latest email, it appears you might be using iSync rather than .Mac Sync.

I have forwarded your report to a .Mac Support specialist for assistance. After the matter has been investigated, a .Mac Support representative will respond to you with additional information.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience, and I appreciate your patience as we work to make your experience with .Mac more enjoyable.

Sincerely,

Xxxxxx
.Mac Support

Fortunately, the reader did not have to rely on .Mac support in the end.

The solution, using Address Book’s AddressBook.data.previous backup, emerged in a forum thread he started, basically following this macOSXHint tip for restoring lost contacts.

[Thanks, Xxxxxx]

Take Control of Syncing in Tiger ebook

Tim Gaden — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 13:32:00 +0000

Take Control’s latest offering is an ebook that covers all aspects of syncing in 10.4.

It covers every conceivable combination of devices from syncing between Macs to mobile/cell phones, Palm OS handhelds and iPods.

Of course, Apple’s built-in iSync app gets the full treatment, but syncing software from third party developers also gets a look in.

Even those who are old hands at syncing will learn from the chapter which explains how syncing works and from the troubleshooting section, especially useful the press release says for “anyone who has experienced a syncing feeling upon realizing that the wrong data was overwritten”.

The ebook costs USD 10 and comes with a 50% discount voucher for PocketMac’s syncing software.

You can read more about the book and sample a free 24 page preview on the Take Conrol web site .

In another new development (at least, new to me), Take Control Books now offers a “print on demand” service for this title and for “Running Windows on a Mac”. The price for this service is USD 10-15 and the end result looks good:

Do it yourself .Mac

Tim Gaden — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:22:21 +0000

Like some other people, Matt Simerson decided that the cost of renewing his .Mac subscription wasn’t worth it.

He wanted to retain the good things about the service though, “iDisk, iSync (between computers), iCal sharing, and Backup” and if possible make them even better:

Simply retaining the useful features would be an utter failure. The most value can be found in addressing the shortcomings of each feature. For iDisk, speed and disk space are the impediments to its usefulness. iSync already works quite well. iCal sharing works well but publish and subscribe updates are terribly slow. Backup is hamstrung by the iDisk space issue.

In the rest of a long and detailed post he outlines how he achieved this using WebDAV.

He even goes as far as fooling his Macs into believing that his local WebDav server is Apple’s iDisk server.

It’s a technical post demanding a fair bit of coding skill. I don’t think that I would attempt this myself, but people with the background will find it a useful guide.

I’m not sure how I missed this back in February. Perhaps I was at the beach.

.Mac still value for money?

Tim Gaden — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:52:18 +0000

My wife’s .Mac subscription is due in a month.

Despite rave reviews like this recent one in the Times Record (“The best $8.25 you’ll spend this month”), I wonder if .Mac is still good value for money.

For less than half the price, USD 40, I can get a 2GB IMAP account and 1GB of WebDAV file space at Fastmail. Other providers no doubt provide deals that are just as good.

A number of apps provide synching abilities for iCal and Address Book (you can find some in the iCal and Address Book sections of the Hawk Wings plug-in and add-on list).

iWeb, Groups and other features are things my wife and I never use.

The only reason I can see for renewing her subscription is to show support for a great company.

Perhaps “value for money” is not the right way to think about it. It’s about belonging. It’s a tribal thing, not a financial decision.

More butt-kicking: Entourage over Mail.app

Tim Gaden — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 14:54:05 +0000

A number of people now believe that the new Entourage is significantly better than Mail.app.

Smallerdemon adds himself to that list, writing a five part series comparing his experiences of using Mail.app to life with Entourage.

The verdict: “Mail.app was given a good, fair shake I think, but Entourage’s interface and features drew me back.”

Part one addresses the new features in Entourage 2004 11.2.3 like Spotlight and sync support.

Parts two and three consider how the interface of Entourage is nicer than Mail’s.

In parts four and five he talks about how the Project Center is one of the key things that drew him back to Entourage.

Troubleshooting Address Book sync problems

Tim Gaden — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 13:00:41 +0000

Sometimes attempts to sync Address Book using iSync will fail and produce an error message as cryptic as the cause of the error itself.

The message will read something like this:

Conduit Address Book generated exception NSInternalInconsistencyException: Type of value {
identifiers = (“005CB3CB-945D-11D9-935D-00112479516E”);
labels = (“_$!!$_”);
primaryIdentifier = “005CB3CB-945D-11D9-935D-00112479516E”;
values = ();
} does not match property ‘Phone’ type 257. Can’t commit item EC776A4A-91ED-11D9-82C9-00112479516E:ABPerson.

This tells you that there is a problem with the phone record of person “‘EC776A4A-91ED-11D9-82C9-00112479516E:ABPerson.”

Helpful, eh?

Michael Lafferty has written a small utility, ABFinder, that helps to troubleshoot this problem.

Entering the long alphanumeric string into this utility will disclose which person’s record is causing the problem, so that you can remove or replace the offending data and get a successful sync.

ABFiller is freeware and available with a helpful readme in this zip file.

Entourage to get Spotlight and iSync support

Tim Gaden — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 23:02:21 +0000

Microsoft has announced at MacWorld San Francisco that Entourage will soon have Spotlight and iSync support.

From March this year, Entourage users will be able to search their emails with Spotlight, finally bringing Entourage into line with Word, PowerPoint and Excel, which already have Spotlight support.

Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit will also bring iSync support to Entourage, so that users will soon be able to sync their Entourage calendar, address book, notes and tasks with handheld devices that also work with Sync Services.

Entourage will also gain new converters to allow it to read the new Microsoft Open Office XML formats.

Microsoft introduced these improvements as part of a promise to continue the development of Office for Mac for another five years. ?¢‚Ç¨?ìWe?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢ve had many years of success with Office for Mac”, Microsoft Consumer Productivity VP Tom Gibbons said in a press release, “and this formal commitment confirms that we?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢re in the Mac business for the long haul.?¢‚Ç¨¬ù

[Thanks, Dan!].

The full text of Microsoft’s Macintosh Business Unit after the jump…

Microsoft Commits to New Versions of Office for Mac
Formalised commitment underscores Mac BU, Apple long-term relationship

SAN FRANCISCO ?¢‚Ç¨‚Äù Jan. 10, 2006 ?¢‚Ç¨‚Äù Microsoft Corp.?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢s Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) today announced at Macworld Conference & Expo 2006 a formal five-year agreement that reinforces Microsoft?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢s plans to develop Microsoft?Ç¬Æ Office for Mac software for both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs. The Mac BU outlined several upcoming improvements to Entourage?Ç¬Æ 2004 for Mac and said it plans to build converters to read the new Microsoft Office Open XML Formats. The commitment agreement and product announcements emphasise the cooperation between the two companies and serve as significant indicators of Microsoft?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢s ongoing commitment to the Mac platform.

?¢‚Ç¨?ìMicrosoft has a history of successful collaboration with Apple, and this agreement underscores our commitment to the Mac platform,?¢‚Ç¨¬ù said Tom Gibbons, vice president of the Consumer Productivity eXperiences Business at Microsoft. ?¢‚Ç¨?ìWe?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢ve had many years of success with Office for Mac, and this formal commitment confirms that we?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢re in the Mac business for the long haul.?¢‚Ç¨¬ù

For more than 20 years, the Mac BU has collaborated with customers, other Microsoft teams and Apple Computer Inc. to deliver leading-edge productivity software. The agreement paves the way for the two companies to combine talents to meet the needs of Mac customers now and in the future.

?¢‚Ç¨?ìMicrosoft?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢s Mac BU continues to be a great Mac developer, bringing innovative and compatible versions of Microsoft Office to Mac customers,?¢‚Ç¨¬ù said Philip Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing at Apple. ?¢‚Ç¨?ìThe Mac platform has never been stronger, and we?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢re pleased that Microsoft is committed to delivering great Mac products for many years to come.?¢‚Ç¨¬ù

Entourage 2004 Delivers on Customer Requests
Microsoft is putting the final touches on a number of Entourage 2004 enhancements scheduled for delivery in March 2006. Since the release of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), the Mac BU has worked with Apple to enable Sync Services integration with Entourage information and data. Customers will soon be able to sync their Entourage calendar, address book, notes and tasks with handheld devices that also work with Sync Services. Support for Spotlight, another Tiger feature, will allow customers to more effectively search Entourage e-mail messages, as they are already able to do with their Office 2004 for Mac Word, PowerPoint?Ç¬Æ and Excel?Ç¬Æ files. The Mac BU has enhanced Smart Card technology for customers who need to send digitally signed and encrypted e-mail messages.

Messenger for Mac Meets Enterprise Needs
The Mac BU will release new features that continue to make Messenger for Mac an ideal messaging application for Mac enterprise customers. While the current version of Messenger for Mac provides more secure messaging and file transfers within the firewall, Messenger for Mac 5.1 will allow users to send files more securely to external contacts. The updated version also will be better able to determine a user?¢‚Ç¨‚Ñ¢s location and where to send the message if the user is logged into Microsoft Office Live Communications Server on more than one machine. In addition, IT managers will have improved control over how they save chats at an organisational level. Messenger 5.1 is expected to be released in March.

Mac BU Focuses on Cross-Platform Compatibility
Seamless cross-platform compatibility is of prime importance to Mac users and remains a key focus of the Mac BU. To ensure that Office for Mac customers receive the highest level of compatibility, the Mac BU will issue converters that let Office for Mac users read the new Microsoft Office Open XML Format. These downloadable converters will be released for current versions of Office for Mac following the availability of the next version of Office for Windows?Ç¬Æ. The Mac BU partners daily with many groups at Microsoft to help ensure that its software operates smoothly with software on the Windows platform. Through this ongoing collaboration, the team is well positioned to continue identifying new and creative ways to help Mac users work smarter.

Sync problem with random sigs on multiple Macs

Tim Gaden — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 13:31:35 +0000

David Chartier at TUAW reports on the weird situation that arises when you try to sync settings on two or more Macs when more than one has Mail.app set to use random signatures.

This situation sends iSync into an endless loop of error messages, that can only terminated by syncing the computers with Apple Mail active on only one of the Macs.

Take Control of .Mac released

Tim Gaden — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:48:24 +0000

Take Control Books has just released a book on .Mac, written by Joe Kissell and edited by Dan Frakes.

Designed to “help you take control of every aspect of your .Mac membership”, it covers the whole gamut — .Mac‘s online contacts, iDisk, Backup, using iSync, publishing web pages an getting the most out of .Mac’s new Groups feature.

But what interests me most is the coverage of .Mac Mail, and the many tips on how to use it best both from its web interface and through Mail.app.

Joe covers all the features of email with .Mac — autoreplies, polling other POP accounts, adding your picture, aliases, the different kinds of .Mac memberships available and how to get the right one for you.

The style is clear, direct and firmly focussed on making the use of your .Mac account better in real-world terms.

At only USD 10, it’s a bargain. The perfect companion gift to the .Mac account you are buying for the people you love this Christmas!

Check it out on the Take Control web site. Read the preview. Buy the book.

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