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.Mac Alternatives?
peel asks: "In the endless effort to get organized I'm looking for an alternative to signing up for a .Mac account that allows me to sync iCal and the Address Book between multiple computers (mainly work and home). I found iSyncCal to let me sync calendars, I can also publish them using my personal server setup with WebDav. I haven't found any such utilities for addresses. What I really want is something that works more like .Mac but that I can run at home on my server without paying the monthly .Mac fees. What are some solutions people are using for syncing contact info for people stored in multiple places (Palm, cell, work computer, home computer, laptop)?" There was a similar discussion over on MacInTouch, although the alternatives offered cover more basic needs, the information may still prove useful for those looking for "a cheaper .Mac".
"Six Great Tips for Homemade Dot Mac Servers"
According to Palm, this is not recommended. I used to transfer data via my m500 and found a lot of duplicate entries. I don't know if a computer ID is a part of the record, but it didn't work for me.
Most of the fancy devices use syncML which is the XML schema for transfering all your contacts and addressbook information. on sourceforge there is a program called Sync4J which is a java program you can connect to from your devices over the web and transfer/sync all your data http://sourceforge.net/projects/sync4j/
How much time per month are you going to spend maintaining your own server? What's it going to cost in terms of bandwidth? What will the electricity cost you? If you value your time at all, get .mac, because it works out to only $8.33 per month, and you're quite likely to spend more than an hour per month working on your sever, and quite likely won't have the reliability of the real .mac, which also backs up your data to backup servers nightly.
.mac server, you don't pay a dime, and at most, you lose one day's data, and experience no or very little downtime.
For example, look at the scenario of what if a hard drive dies. If it dies in your server, you go out and spend $100 on a new hard drive, and possibly lose months of information, and may have days of downtime while you reconfigure everything. If it dies in a
Karma: Ran over your dogma.
The proprietary part of .Mac really is just a virtual device that iSync connects to over WebDAV (I think it is the encryption/authentication that closes the interface, not really a new protocol). The problem is, as I said, that it is proprietary and thus there is no open way to simply create a service on your own computer that iSync can connect to and stores the same information as .Mac.
.Mac and created a dummy server. The problem was that it was far to complicated and generally not a feasible solition.
I do remember seeing one person that had sniffed the communications to
The solution would be to create a plug-in to iSync that allowed the use of a different server. Imagine a virtual bluetooth device that was really a connection to remote server. It might also be possible to plug more directly into iSynch. I am aware that it is based on SynchML, it strikes me that this standards based approach makes virtual device solution possible.
The suggestion to use a PDA or phone is good, but some of us don't have these toys. I really just want to synch multiple computers.
If I recall correctly, the first time I performed a sync between my computer and my T68i, I got a dialog box asking me what to do:
1. merge the data on both computer and phone (with an option not to copy addressess without a telephone number to my phone)
2. Overwrite the phone with the computer data
3. overwrite the computer with the phone's data
On subsequent synchs, I get asked for each item whether or not to add it to either the computer or the phone, modify the data or, if applicable, delete the data. It works pretty well.
However, I think your problem stems from the fact that you're using a Palm device with iSync. I don't own a Palm myself (thus I lack any hands-on experience), but I thought using isync with your Palm involved using a Palm desktop conduit to get the thing to work (correct me if I'm wrong)? Maybe the whole Palm desktop to isync routine is still incomplete?
Either way, to try and solve your problem: in isync: can you click on the Palm icon, and do you get a dialog box/window with options? I get that with my T68i, and there i get the option to choose whether the computer or the phone takes precedence when synching (thus effectively telling the phone data to overwrite the computer's data, if i choose so). Maybe that functionality just isn't there yet for Palm devices (which would be a shame)?
I'm not sure either, but it'll most likely be in your user folder somewhere (duh ;) ). Either way, you can manually save and or export both your calendars and your contacts (as separate vcards) to use for backup, and even to use bluetooth file exchange to get them on the Palm. Maybe worth a try?
The abovementioned method (exporting to vcards) works on a P800. To be fair, on ease of use wrt to this whole isync stuff, my T68i blows the P800 out of the water... for now. Support for it indeed can't come soon enough.
Cheers