Re: Conflicts between device and PC

Very much appreciate your time, Sven. And your candor.

The aptly-described-by-Todd clusterf*** problem continues (i.e. I can't come
back into the office without deleting and recreating the partnership... which
takes a very long time to get through the first sync.)

I don't have exotic or unusual software or hardware that I'm incapable of
maintaining.

Sadly the reality, as I believe it, is that keeping desktops in sync was
never a goal of MS with AS.<<

This is indeed the sad part because the problem in fact was my decision to
move to WM/AS. Clearly I was naive to simply think that a company wouldn't
release something if it didn't do what they represented that it would do. And
when it gets to the point where your life/work is adversely affected, one can
get viciously resentful about it. When this much time goes by, and things
seem to actually get worse, you're left with the impression of a cavelier
"Yaa... so what" attitude. That's not a good feeling.

I appreciate your pointing out the difference between this and the Palm OS.
I could probably be satisfied with either system if it worked well enough to
get through the day.

Oh well. Onward. Too bad ritual sacrifices can get you arrested.
:-)

"Sven" wrote:

Sort of hesitate to jump in here, as I have always felt and said, AS/WMDC is
the single weakest link in the Windows Mobile (or Pocket PC) landscape.
Can't deny it is fraught with horror stories. The mere existence of a
newsgroup dedicated just to AS is indicative, and the volume of
participation is scary. I have personally had issues with AS, but not really
horrible ones, though they are frustrating when they occur. Typically
rebooting the PC, resetting the device, and swinging a dead cat during a
full moon resolves the problem. I haven't had real noticeable data issues
beyond the duplicates that are bound to crop up when syncing multiple
devices to multiple PCs. The sync DB that keeps track of what was done, to
what, when, is a bit fragile IMHO, and forgets that two things are the same.
In my experience that has typically resulted in both being kept on both
sides; a duplicate. Sometimes it seems to be an issue between revisions
where something is supported on one device and not the other and that causes
a difference assessment. In any case, it is not a good experience.

Sadly the reality, as I believe it, is that keeping desktops in sync was
never a goal of MS with AS. That is a job for Exchange. It seems clear that
the synchronization of multiple PCs was never high on the scenario list, as
a very typical scenario has never been addressed. Who doesn't have a PC at
work, one at home, and a laptop associated with one or the other, i.e. 3 PCs
that need synchronization. Ignoring that scenario indicates to me that
synchronization of PIM across PCs was never a real goal in the first place.
Doing two was a concession to partnering with more than just home or work,
but syncing home and work wasn't the underlying reason. In fact the
byproduct mixing of home and work info, irreversibly, was an unintentional
(I hope) deterrent to dual partnerships for many people.

On the point of Palm doing it well, remember that Palm never had a real file
system or any real documents. The whole thing was basically a database, and
the entries of any sort were DB entries. Note .pdb is Palm Data Base. I only
mention this because synchronizing and merging databases is a well
understood art. If your data is in fields in records, you can extend the
schema to cover age, dates, indexes, etc. When you start with a little copy
of the Windows file system, it presents a bit more of a challenge to keep
things under control. Not intended to minimize the issue, just an
acknowledgement that syncing Windows Mobile is a different problem than
syncing Palm, just because of the basic OS concept.

Beyond that, don't know what to say, other than you do seem to have more
severe issues than many, and so I would be looking for what is unique about
your setup. Installed apps, oddball configurations, multiple USB hubs, maybe
substandard USB, something. By odd configuration I mean things that are
different than usual. I for instance do run an Exchange server at home, and
I connect Outlook on my PCs to it. But, I sync my WM device to Outlook on a
PC, not to the server. I find that causes issues when I try to create a
partnership with a second PC's Outlook also connected to Exchange. Why, I
don't know, but it is a scenario that MS wouldn't 'officially' expect. Why
wouldn't I just sync the device with Exchange? Why would I try to sync with
two PCs that really should have the same info, that should be the same as
the device (syncing with Exchange)?

So, best of luck. Short of starting everything from scratch, hard reset the
device, and set up the partnership before doing anything else, and let it
percolate that way for a week or so to see if it stays stable (assuming it
is), I don't know what to suggest that doesn't involve some sort of ritual
sacrifice.

"John Ciccone" <JohnCiccone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:BCF2F673-3B85-4C0E-AB60-D5D9D67B89C0@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thanks so much for the tips, jss. I'll look into XTND.

Another bit of a bandaid solution for you might be a little Outlook plugin
called ODIR. Outlook Duplicate Items Remover. It doesn't always get all
duplicates but sometimes it's helped in the process. One place to find it
is

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,73466/description.html?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a41:g29:r9:c0.001619:b20089855

NB: Since I have quite a number of Notes, Tasks, Contacts, etc. I don't
really have a way of confirming that ODIR works perfectly, but searching
the
net shows that people generally seem to find it reliable.

Another odd thing that ODIR can't help with is that for some reason,
Carriage Returns/Line Feeds are added to the end of my Notes. Sometimes
lots
of them by accumulation. A couple of Notes have had more CR/LF that actual
text :-) This seems to change randomly and often. Subsequently, ODIR is
unable to find some duplicates since one of the notes will have 8 Carriage
Returns instead of 6.

Best of luck and thanks again.

"jss" wrote:

I have a laptop and desktop and a Treo with WM6.1. I'd like to sync
contacts, calendar, tasks, notes, and files in a given location. I found
that AS will not sync two pc's. Some folks suggest not syncing notes, and
if
that doesn't help enough then don't sync tasks, and so on.

Before I got the Treo, I was very happy with KeySuite from Chapura
running
on a Palm Zire 31. It has a bonus of carrying over custom categories and
label colors. I've been using it to do Outlook sync between the desk and
laptops; using AS to get the phone updated from the laptop and to also
sync
the file folder. It kinda of works but since I've using the phone, I get
tons of duplicates of some appointments and notes.

I just looked at XTND Connect from Sybase, sold on handango. There is a
home
and office version for $90 that might be useful. It still uses Active
sync
for the connection. The Sybase website doesn't show this particular
version
and the data*** for the other one is very skimpy. You can get a trial
from
Handango. If I have the energy after dealing with AS I might try it.

I may just try to get my Zire scheme working right again. Some of the AS
problems are due to weaknesses in the WM applications, like no categories
for tasks or colors for appointment labels. Chapura wrote their own app
for
the Palm that is more faithful to Outlook than the MS written
application.


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