Comments on: Gluing Together Outlook, gCal/Contacts, Tasks, iPhone, and More

By: Bruce Keener

Bruce Keener — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:33:05 +0000

Hi Matthias.

At the time I wrote that, I was still using Outlook and my Pocket PC and a BlackBerry Curve. (That was probably several months ago, since I use my iPhone now.) At that time, Remember The Milk had a utility to sync its tasks, On A Pro Account, with a Pocket PC. It was still in beta if I correctly recall. I had the RTM pro account and tried it out, and it actually worked pretty well. Once I synced to the Pocket PC, via Wifi, I would then sync the Pocket PC to Outlook, so it was the same as syncing Outlook to RTM.

I assume they still have the app. RTM and Toodledo both have some apps that sync with other services, if you get their pro accounts (about $20 per year if I recall correctly). I do recall that using their sync utility for the BlackBerry along with the Pocket PC sync led to duplicate entries, and, disturbingly, to some missing ones.

If I were you, I would look through RTM and Toodledo’s blog posts and forums to see what sort of comments are being received on the current versions of their various utilities. Bassam notes in the comment above that Toodledo now syncs with Outlook (pro account only, I assume), so I’d look closely at that one too.

Anyway, I hope that clarifies how I got Outlook and RTM to sync. Let me know if I muddled it so it is not very clear.

By: Mac_BetH

Mac_BetH — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:02:23 +0000

Hello Bruce,

you write in your article, that is possible to sync Outlook and Remember the milk. How do you do that?

Thank you!

best regards

Matthias

By: Bruce Keener

Bruce Keener — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:56:21 +0000

Bassam,
It’s great of you to post your results, and it’s good to hear that you are successful. That is a good assortment of apps to keep in sync. Particularly good to hear about the success with Toodledo … last time I checked (it’s been a while), syncing between Toodledo and Outlook was problematic, so I am glad the bugs seem to have been worked out.

By: Bassam Osman

Bassam Osman — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:40:11 +0000

I just started experimenting my tasks:
Using the following product: 1) MS Outlook 2007, Trial MLO (My Life Organized), Toodledo Free Acct, and the iPhone 3GS Toodledo app.

I have the trial MLO syncing with MS Outlook and MS Outlook syncing with Toodledo, then to make even more complicated, I’m also syncing Toodledo with an iPhone’s Toodledo App.

Knowing that I can only use the outlining features in MLO, and that I will only get straight forward task syncing to Outlook ToodledoiPhone.

Day 2 and so far, no complications. The first couple of syncs between MLO and Outlook needed some tweaking of the Sync feature in MLO.

Most importantly make sure you create a backup Tasks folder in in a seperate pst Outlook file and copy your primary tasks to it

I’ll post in a few days and let everyone one if successful and if it does not turn out to be too complicated and causes lots of conflicts.

I’m sure I’ll need to fine tune the sync settings on both MLO and Toodledo, a few times.

By: Bruce Keener

Bruce Keener — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:59:28 +0000

@Thomas, thank you so much for stepping in to clarify and to describe some alternatives.

@Deryl, I hope this is helpful. Let us know if not.

By: Thomas R. Hall

Thomas R. Hall — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 10:58:12 +0000

I think Bruce may have been able to sync his contacts via Google Mobile Sync, as Bruce mentions. There are a few alternatives for Windows-based syncing between Outlook and Google. The main one is OggSync, which can sync both calendar and contacts. Google also recently announced another option called Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, but it is only available for Google Apps Premier users. Both solutions cost money. OggSync has a "free" and a "Pro" edition and I don't know the differences between them. Hope that leads you in the right direction.

By: Deryl Gallant

Deryl Gallant — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:17:35 +0000

Hey Bruce…I know that when you setup Google Mobile sync it will sync the contacts from Gmail to the iTouch/iPhone but not to Outlook.

My current setup is:

Google Cal Sync – 2way from my home outlook
Google Cal Sync – 2way from my work outlook
Google Mobile Sync – from google cal to my iTouch so I have both home/work cals on my iTouch and at home/work as well

But my contacts come from my home PC when I sync with iTunes.

but thought it would be great if there was a google Contact Sync that did the same as above ( from home to google, from work to google, from google to iTouch and work/home )

Can you tell I’m in sync heaven?!??!

By: Bruce Keener

Bruce Keener — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:07:17 +0000

Deryl,
You might be right …. I just did a quick web search trying to find the answer and did not see anything that showed how to sync the contacts using Google Cal sync. However, I don’t see how the contacts would have gotten to Google otherwise, because I cannot recall importing them into Google Contacts. Hence, I had assumed that the Cal Sync app also sync’d the contacts for me … if not, I don’t know how else the contacts got into Google Contacts.

Good point. I’ll research it some more tomorrow … for now, it’s bed time for me.

By: Deryl Gallant

Deryl Gallant — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:41:34 +0000

Hey Bruce…I don’t think google calendar sync will sync contacts to outlook…just the Calendar….

or am I crazy?

By: Bruce Keener

Bruce Keener — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:59:20 +0000

pritchett4, it’s always good to hear from you and thank you for the compliment.

While I love my iPod Touch, there’s a lot to be said for the WinMo platform, too. As you know, I have used it for years, and it works so well with Outlook. So as long as it works for you, I wouldn’t sweat it. For me, the Touch is such a nice device that I don’t miss WinMo, except maybe for the ability to sync notes to Outlook.