Hardly. I use them constantly, and have been for some time now. Twitchy,
yes, broken, no. However, there are issues with both Sync Services and
E'rage that you have to deal with. Hopefully the 12.0.1 update will fix some
of these.
The Caveats:
Not every application deals with the same data in the same way. This is both
good and bad, but keep that in mind, because it means Sync Services will
always be imperfect on some level.
Multiday tasks are a problem on the Sync Services end. This is a known issue
from Apple. As to when it gets fixed, who knows, but since this has been a
problem since Mac OS X 10.4, we'll assume it's not a simple fix. Things that
are truly simple fixes tend to get, well, fixed.
Because Address Book assumes iChat, and E'rage assumes Messenger, don't
assume that setting chat IDs in one carries over. It doesn't. This means
that people who only exist as iChat buddies will show up in E'rage as
entries with a name and nothing else. That's not "broken" in the technical
sense, but in the human sense it's lame. I completely agree that E'rage not
talking to the iChat presence frameworks in Mac OS X, and pretending that
iChat doesn't exist is really, really lame. However, that doesn't change the
reality of the current situation. If you are going to manage iChat buddies,
ONLY do that in Address Book.
Another Address Book <=> E'rage issue are middle names. Entourage knows
about them, but can't display them. Address Book knows about them and can
display them. This can and does cause a lot of frustration, because it's
kinda dumb, but again, it is what it is for now.
iCal items with categories can get duplicated. Not all the time, and you
can eventually, with some patience, make it stop. But it can take a bit to
get it sorted out.
I can't speak to the fixes in 12.0.1, but thus far, using sync services with
Exchange accounts == teh suck. Since I keep my contacts separate, that
aspect doesn't bother me. For events, I just drage them from my exchange
calendar to my local, and then they get put into sync services, and make it
onto my iPhone et al. A manual process, but it has thus far been quite
reliable.
When you start, pick a "source" and a "destination". Regardless of which
direction, for the initial sync, "Source" ALWAYS overwrites "destination".
In my case, for notes, E'rage was the source. Contacts, Address Book was the
source, since I never use Messenger. For calendaring, E'rage was the source.
The initial syncs can take a long time, and a lot of CPU. Be patient.
When you have calendaring conflicts, my algorithm is first, let iCal always
win. If you still have conflicts, then let Entourage win. If Sync Services
is one of the options, then Sync Services trumps either. So the order of
operations: Sync Services => iCal => Entourage.
For contact conflicts, I actually found it easier to just edit the problem
conflicts in either AB or E'rage and then let that win.
The procedures:
1) Enable syncing one item at a time. My path was notes, then calendaring,
then contacts. I enabled notes sync, then waited for a day or two. Any
duplicates, I took care of, and made sure things had calmed down. I then
enabled calendar / task syncing, and again, waited, took care of conflicts..
The same thing for contacts. Do backup your data before enableing a sync.
Really. I'm not kidding. Back up.
2) Sometimes, either Microsoft or Apple's syncing loses its pretty little
mind and won't do anything. I find starting Address Book and/or iCal while
E'rage is running can help here.
3) .Mac is an ADDITIONAL fun time here. Which I won't get into, this is long
enough.
4) Keep in mind that *again* not everything deals with the same data in the
same way. Just because an item has the same name in different applications,
that doesn't mean that it works the same.
So, yes, Sync Services is not as good as it can or should be, but it is in
fact usable, and long term, will solve FAR more problems than application -
specific conduits ever will. Looking at all of this, it looks like a lot,
but in practice, it wasn't nearly as involved as it looks. Proceed
cautiously, with good backups, (if you have 2008, do a DB rebuild, all you
lose is time and bad data, and starting with both sides as clean as possible
is a HUGE help), and sync services works rather well.
