Re: [Evolution] Problem viewing calendars on multiple machines

[Chris G <cl isbd net>]

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 11:30:14AM -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-03-11 at 09:25 +0000, Chris G wrote:
> > the idea that you need a 'server' and separate clients makes it all so
> > unnecessarily complicated for the situation that 99% of users want -
> > synchronization of desktop and PDA (or laptop in the OP's case).
> >
> > It's also made complicated by the need to convert to and from various
> > formats of calendar/contact file with the inevitable issue of things
> > which are available in on format and not in other formats.
>
> That's why SyncML was invented.
It's trying to do the impossible though.  If, for example, one end has
task categories that don't exist at the other end there's nothing that
SyncMl can do to sort it out.


> > I've been struggling with this for a while, I have a Nokia E71 which I
> > woudl like to synchronize with a simple desktop calendar/tasks program
> > and (independently maybe) with a desktop address book.  As far as I
> > can tell there is *nothing* out there that fulfils this requirement.
> >
> > There are several huge (mostly positively baroque) groupware suites
> > that will synchronize with my phone but they're all trying to be more
> > Outlook than Outlook, far too complex and large for my humble needs.
>
> Agreed. I have the same needs and don't want to fight these things
> either. That's why I use my.funambol.com for my phone. ScheduleWorld is
> another option.
But that's 'baroque' in its own way, why should it be necessary to
send all your data out to somewhere which may or may not store it
exactly right and then copy it all the way back again with similar
possible incompatibilities.


> > It is possible to synchronize my E71 with Evolution, using the
> > Evolution syncMl add-on plus a syncMl server but it's messy and either
> > needs a server 'out there' or you install Funambol which again is
> > *huge* (164Mb for a syncMl server, what it's all for?)
>
> Or use one that's already set up. See above.
That's the server "out there" that I referred to, I do have a
ScheduleWorld account and it (mostly) works but there are
incompatibilities with categories and I get *loads* of duplicate
contacts.

> > I'm about to investigate what I can due using WebDav, it seems to me
> > that's the right approach, share a single chunk of data between all
> > applications rather than trying to 'synchronize' different lumps of data.
>
> A distinction without a difference. Unless you expect all your devices
> to be permanently online and use some kind of locking protocol, you
> still get to synchronize and resolve clashes.
It's *totally* different because everyone is using the same file/data
format and thus you can't get incompatibilities.  There are still
(possibly) clashes where two ends have updated the same item but there
are not any incompatibility problems where the two ends simply store
things in different ways.

-- 
Chris Green