Sync, sync, sync

Written on August 24th, 2010 by Vincenzo Vecchio
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Probably I’m obsessed by this word: synchronization.
But if I’m not the only one who tries to keep all calendars, emails, to-do lists, files, contacts in sync, then I would like to share some of my considerations and some of my experience with a pretty good cocktail of tools I regularly use. Truly enough, I would love to hear similar thoughts and experiences from anyone.

First of all let me say that I’m a great fan of David Allen‘s GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology and that I love to be organized, efficient and productive. Second, I must admit that I’m also fascinated by new technologies and not very keen anymore to use paper and pen.. Oh, and I’m a Mac man.

What I would like to share are some experiences, workarounds and ideas I came up in the last years in order to try to keep my life (and work tools) in sync.

1. Files: it is since I first discovered Dropbox a couple of years ago that my file sync and disk backup has become a game. Dropbox is a wonderful application which automatically syncs your files on multiple computers. Each time you are connected to the Internet the latest changes on your computer are reflected on all other computers (including iPhone). This is also a wonderful method for backing up all your file, forgetting about it!
All your files are stored both on your computer and on remote servers. This means opening and saving files is as fast as before, plus you can access and change all your files also through a web interface if you’re not using your computer.

2. Calendars: many have tried to imitate it.. but I think there is nothing like Google calendar (read more). Clean, web 2.0 interface and hundreds of features it is really one of the greatest tools from Google. Obviously there is nothing to sync from one computer to another since it is all remotely stored. But there is some work to do in order to sync with your iPhone. Here is how to do it.

3. Tasks: if your life is (or tries to be) organized using task managers, then this is another piece of life you need to keep in sync. You cannot write down a note or to-do on your mobile device while on the go and then don’t have it on your pc!
If you are satisfied with what a web 2.0 interface can give you, then I would suggest web tools (such as Remember The Milk) that obviously don’t need any sync, since all data is remotely stored.
If you prefer stand-alone applications, you might want to try Omnifocus and Things. While OmniFocus comes with a pretty good sync process using MobileMe or any WebDAV server, Things does not: you need to have your computer and iPhone/iPad on the same wireless network and do the sync manually :(

4. Contacts: having a Mac, I think you basically have two options for syncing your contacts. One is using google contacts and selecting the “sync with google contacts” from iTunes or Address Book. The other option is to buy a MobileMe account! While the first option is free, the second is 79$ / year.
Syncing your address book with Google Contacts now works much better than in the past, but still I think there are some issues like duplicates or wrong first and last names in your contacts. Also the type of info you can sync is restricted to  Google contacts.
Obviously using MobileMe I did not find any of these issues: all contacts’ infos are perfectly synced (including photos) and it also works in near real-time.

5. E-mails: even though it is probably unnecessary to mention, email sync is very easy today using IMAP.
Configuring your accounts with IMAP you can have all your emails synced in real-time with all your clients. One suggestion: forward all your email accounts to a Gmail account. IMAP on Gmail works great with Apple Mail or any other client. In this way you will have an advanced catch-all account which you can read from your Mac, iPhone, iPad, having all in sync!

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