Post 10.5.3 update, what's the best way to sync?

[Scott T. Sanford]

Runing 10.5.3 and 12.1 for Office Mac.

I was wondering what the best way to configure Entourage is for
RELIABLE syncing with Address Book and iCal.

Is it now better to just use those applications' preferences to sync
rather than going through the Entourage / Microsoft Sync Services
stuff....

I'm having some issue where all my contacts from AB disapper, they do
show back up, but sometimes it's 10-15 minutes later and if I am
syncing my iPhone, I will occasionally take an empty address book with
me.

Can't wait for 2.0... should make this a bit smoother...

Scott

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I'm having some issue where all my contacts from AB disapper, they do
show back up, but sometimes it's 10-15 minutes later and if I am
syncing my iPhone, I will occasionally take an empty address book with
me.

I don;t know why your contacts disappeared, but in my case, 12.1.0 +
MacOS X 10.5.3 made a big difference. I'm not seeing duplications
anymore and all my data seems to sync without issues.

Corentin

 

[Scott T. Sanford]

They don't disappear permanently, address book goes blank, then after a
time, re-populates with all my contacts.
Very strange, I have posted before on that issue and have yet to get
any response.

Scott

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

They don't disappear permanently, address book goes blank, then after a
time, re-populates with all my contacts.
Very strange, I have posted before on that issue and have yet to get
any response.

I must have missed your post. Does it do it repeatedly?? (appearing,
disappearing, reappearing, etc)

It looks like a SyncService bug. The idea of SyncServices is nice, but
it's still quite buggy. I sync accross .Mac (iCal to iCal (and every
day at home, I get a warning telling me that 545 events are going to be
synched.....

Corentin

 

[Fred_Davenport]

I have found syncing with Office 2008 and 10.5.3 Ical and Address Book to be very, very hit or miss....

When it works I do not know how or why

When it does not know how or why.

Hopefully the two billionaires at Apple and MS will make easier for all to sync their products.

 

[Diane Ross]

They don't disappear permanently, address book goes blank, then after a
time, re-populates with all my contacts.
Very strange, I have posted before on that issue and have yet to get
any response.

Did this happen after the QT 7.5 update? I found 10.5.3 to be problematic
then when I updated QT, Entourage went wonky. Lost all my contacts, but they
would come back then disappear again. Had other minor problem in other
applications so I reverted to my backup volume and the problem went away. No
10.5.3 and no QT 7.5.

 

[Scott T. Sanford]

Did it happen post QT update...
Can't say for sure, what highlighted this issue was that I have Plaxo
installed and its growl messages would alert me that 2000 contacts were
deleted and then a minute or two later 2000 contacts were added back
in.... I noticed that this has been happening quite regularly...

 

[Scott T. Sanford]

Hopefully the two billionaires at Apple and MS will make easier for all
to sync their products.

Love the sentiment. I am a recent convert from Windows to Mac and
thought it would be better.... While some parts are, it's more of the
same for lots of facets.

Thanks again,
Scott

 

[Sam Brown]

I would agree to some extent. I'm moving over to MAC out of necessity. MS
had some Vista bugs that affected my business and weren't fixed with SP1.
But while the MAC isn't perfect, it's much much better. Thus far the only
problem I've had really is with Entourage and Excel. Go figure.

Thus far the only Micrsoft products that have worked well for me are RDC
(remote desktop connection) which is just awesome, and a free download, and
flip4mac, which lets you watch wmv files with quicktime.... Also free.

Office for mac has been crippled. Html email is hosed in several ways.
Exchange doesn't sync notes or tasks. You can't import PST files. VB doesn't
work in Excel. Windows Messenger can't do video chat with windows users.
It's like the Achilles' heal of each office product has been crippled in the
most clever way, making it theoretically compatible with Windows, but
practically unusable.

 

[Scott T. Sanford]

I wonder how many people agree with the sentiment that M$ seems to have
purposely crippled their Mac applications.

Maybe with the mobile.me solution, many people won't really need to
deal with the M$ software anymore. Did I read somewhere that
SnowLeoppard will have native Exchange Support built into Mail.App.

The fact that Daylite uses Mail.app for it's mail has been a major
barrier to my going that route, however now with native connectivity
with Exchange, Daylite may be a viable solution...

-Scott

 

[Diane Ross]

I wonder how many people agree with the sentiment that M$ seems to have
purposely crippled their Mac applications.

It might be more correct to say Microsoft has not put the resources into
Office for Mac in the past, but I understand they are correcting this and
will hire more staff to bring Office for Mac more in parity to Office for
Widows.

 

[Scott T. Sanford]

It might be more correct to say Microsoft has not put the resources into
Office for Mac in the past, but I understand they are correcting this and
will hire more staff to bring Office for Mac more in parity to Office for
Widows.

Very diplomatic Diane...
A company as large as Microsoft certainly has the resources to do
whatever they choose. I see their Mac products as well developed, but
missing significant features. As such, I see no other explanation other
than purposeful crippling. Then again I'm a NY-er and prone to cynicism.

 

[Diane Ross]

Changes made in Address Book are for the majority of the time, 9 out of 10
times, disrespected. I had thought this was due to changes made on the
iPhone, but my iPhone isn't in the loop now...

Any ideas would be most appreciated!

I would turn off Sync Services. I have Sync Services turned off and my iCal
lists multiples of each calendar. There is no way Entourage could have had a
part in this since I have it turned off. Something is just screwy with Sync
Services right now.

 

[Scott Sanford]

If I turn off Sync Services, will Entourage sync directly with iCal and
Address Book? Is that just the setting in iSync that needs to be turned off?
Thanks again for your help,
Scott

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

If I turn off Sync Services, will Entourage sync directly with iCal and
Address Book? Is that just the setting in iSync that needs to be turned off?
Thanks again for your help,

Sync Services are the services used for all such synching on the Mac:
iSync, .Mac sync, Sync with a Palm through The Missing Sync, Synching
with Entourage...

You cn't turn SyncServices off per se. What Diane meant was to turn off
Sync Services support in the Entourage preferences. Obviously, after
that, no more synching with the address book and iCal :-\

I agree with Diane: there are issues with SyncServices (and I suspect
both on Apple's side and with Entourage - though things got a lot better
lately). I made the choice to learn to live with them :-\ (multiple
backups, etc).


Corentin

 

[Diane Ross]

You cn't turn SyncServices off per se. What Diane meant was to turn off
Sync Services support in the Entourage preferences. Obviously, after
that, no more synching with the address book and iCal :-\

Correct. Turn off Sync Services in Entourage. You could still sync your
Apple Address Book and iCal with your devices.

There was improvement in SP1 for Entourage but there are still issues with
Sync Services and we will just have to wait until Apple addresses those.