Sync basics between iMac, Mac Air & iPhone

[Dok_Jan]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: pop

Hi,
I'm not a confident mac (or pc!) user at all - recently switched from PC. I have an iMac at home, a Macbook Air at my 2nd home and an iPhone.

I use only Entourage for email and calendar (never iCal/MacMail/Address Book etc). All this jargon about .mac and MobileMe is very confusing.

All I want to do is sync my emails, contacts and meetings between the 3 devices. I'm spending a lot of money on software and support and I'm still nowhere.

Your help, in simple terms with clear instructions, would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Dr. Jan Botha
South Africa

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi,

Hi, I'm not a confident mac (or pc!) user at all - recently switched
from PC. I have an iMac at home, a Macbook Air at my 2nd home and an
iPhone.

I use only Entourage for email and calendar (never iCal/MacMail/Address
Book etc). All this jargon about .mac and MobileMe is very confusing.

Well let me try to explain a few notions:
- .Mac got renamed into MobileMe not long ago. It's essencially the same
thing. It's a service Apple sells that provides you with online storage
(iDisk), a website and the possibility to sync some data accross
computers (and here we are focussing on contacts and calendar events).
MobileMe syncs the System address book and calendar from a centralized
database called the Truth database. iCal and the System address book
simply display the data from the Truth.
- SyncServices are a service on MacOS X allowing you to sync data from
various applications with the Truth. You can use it for instance to keep
your Entourage data in sync with the system address book and iCal.

Now... I'm telling you all that for a reason.
See below:

All I want to do is sync my emails, contacts and meetings between the 3
devices. I'm spending a lot of money on software and support and I'm
still nowhere.

The iPhone uses iTunes to sync. iTunes will sync with the Truth.
You therefore need to make sure Entourage will sync to the Truth too...
To do that, you have to enable SyncService syncing in the Entourage
preferences.

Syncing with the second Mac is a little more challenging.
You can either use MobileMe (but you have to pay for it) to let the two
Mac talk to each other and keeping the Truth in sync on the two
machines. SyncServices will alow you to get the data in Entourage as
well. Be aware though that SyncService support is buggy....

The other option is to use an Exchange e-mail account. These accounts
are a bit different from the regular ones (IMAP and POP) in the sense
that in addition to allowing you to keep your e-mails on the server and
check them fro multiple machines (like IMAP), it also allows you to sync
calendar and address book through the Exchange server.


Corentin

 

[Toni]

I, too, am new to this. My problem is:
- I delete a contact from Entourage but it does not delete from address book, which in turn does not delete from iphone.
Am I forgetting something?

 

[Aykan MISIRLIOGLU Istanbul/Turkey]

Hello,

Actually I have same problem between MobileMe and Entourage mails. I can't sync Entourage mails with MobileMe. Only MobileMe sync mails with Apple's default mail application Mail.app.

Do you have any idea for that?

Thank you

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I, too, am new to this. My problem is: - I delete a contact from
Entourage but it does not delete from address book, which in turn does
not delete from iphone. Am I forgetting something?

Nope, but you might want to wait a little while. The Sync isn't always
immediate,

Corentin

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Actually I have same problem between MobileMe and Entourage mails. I
can't sync Entourage mails with MobileMe. Only MobileMe sync mails with
Apple's default mail application Mail.app.

Syncing mail is quite different.
You must have forgotten something in the settings for your MobileMe
account. These accounts ae plain and simple IMAP accounts and it
shouldn't be a problem. Double-check your account settings,

Corentin

 

[Kerry]

Syncing mail is quite different.
You must have forgotten something in the settings for your MobileMe
account. These accounts ae plain and simple IMAP accounts and it
shouldn't be a problem. Double-check your account settings,

Corentin
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I'll just add a couple of things. I had .Mac and found it too
expensive for what I got. You don't need Mobileme for what you're
trying to do. I'd suggest Gmail, set it as IMAP (not pop) for mail and
your mail will be in sync on all clients (just ensure that everything
is set up as IMAP). .Mac is also IMAP so there's no need to sync mail
to your AIR using Mobileme. As soon as you open mail, it will just
sync with the IMAP system and all mail on any client in any folder
will be identical.

In terms of Calendar and Addressbook, just use your iPhone to sync
that between devices. When working with one system, sync it to the
iPhone. When working with another system, sync the iPhone with that.
Any changes in the first system will get sync'd to the iPhone and then
to the next system. Any changes in the next system will get sync'd to
the iPhone and then back to the first system. You might get sync
conflicts, but just resolve them in terms of which is the correct (not
a big deal).

I do this all the time with Gmail, my Palm TX and BLACKBERRY Curve (I
use Missing Sync for the Blackberry and Misssing Sync for the Palm). I
keep everything in sync this way.

The only problem actually has nothing to do with what I described but
has to do with Entourage 08. They have a sync services issue which can
cause your data to get pretty messed up. I use a workaround and have
since Feb 08 to ensure this doesn't happen. There is no imminent fix
on this so you might, if you're not a long term Entourage or Outlook
user, use the Apple apps, if they're powerful enough for you, as there
are no sync issues - period.

OK good luck.