Living without Outlook: syncing Thunderbird and Google Calendar with Windows Mobile
On the MoneySavingExpert.com forums I commented that I don’t use Microsoft Office; I use OpenOffice.org for office stuff and Thunderbird and Google Calendar as a replacement for Outlook’s email and calendar functionalities respectively.
I have a Windows Mobile PDA phone, and I can keep my phone and PC in sync perfectly well without Outlook. Someone asked how:
Syncing email
This one is easy. Don’t store email in Thunderbird. Instead use IMAP email and keep it on the server. That way you can collect email in Thunderbird at home, anywhere from webmail, from any IMAP client (e.g. Outlook or Thunderbird) at work/uni/wherever, and from your PDA phone. The email remains on the server so no syncing is necessary really. (I guess it helps if, as I do, you have flat-rate internet access on your PDA phone).
Syncing contacts
This is the other half of syncing with Thunderbird. I’ve not yet found an easy way to store your contacts on a remote server. Instead I use FinchSync (free) to sync the phone with the PC every so often. (I connect my phone to my laptop by Bluetooth, but you could use a cable, or whatever).
This also has the brilliant advantage that if I lost my phone, I’d have a backup of all my contacts in Thunderbird.
Syncing calendar
Google calendar is very useful, but accessing it from a PDA phone isn’t straightforward. There are several applications to sync your Google calendar with your phone’s organiser “over the air” (i.e. using your mobile internet connection), the one I use is OggSync. There’s a free basic version, though if you want support for multiple Google calendars and other features the Pro version is about $30 (£15) a year, and well worth it.