Marcin Juszkiewicz - opensync

Syncing mobile devices

2009-02-26T15:24:00+01:00

Since first week of 2009 I use Nokia E66 phone. It is nice device and is expandable with many applications due to fact that it runs Symbian (S60 3rd FP1). But as usual there is a problem with it — syncing or rather lack of it (at least under Linux).

Under MS Windows there is “Nokia PC Suite” set of applications. It is heavy and ugly — mostly because vendor had own idea how application UI should look. As usual it is unable to keep device data available in any sensible format — all it do is syncing Phone “installed PIM” (which mean MS Outlook or Lotus Notes). It does not even have VCard import/export which will work good (I had to kill application after attempt to import 32KB file with ~200 vcards in it). So basically all what I can do with it is making backups of phone contents (but for that there is also application on phone which use memory card for keeping backups).

Other option is OxyCube application. But it is too expensive so I do not even bother to check how good it is.

But how to sync under Linux? This is good question… First idea which came to my mind was OpenSync. But which version to use? Last stable (0.22) or current development one (0.38)? Their homepage says:

Releases 0.22 (and 0.2x svn branch) and before are considered stable and suitable for production. 0.3x releases introduce major architecture and API changes and are targeted for developers and testers only and may not even compile or are likely to contain severe bugs.

0.3x releases are not recommended for end users or distribution packaging.

So stable one is recommended but no one supports it as developers forgot how it worked. This is not strange thing because this release is over 2 years old now. So maybe development version should be used? No… I was told few times that it can crash, do dirty things etc. so it can not be trusted at all. And there is no plugin to get KDE4 PIM apps synced (plugin for KDE3 can be used after some tweaks).

Effect is that after firmware update my phone has all contacts restored from phone backup but lost all calendar entries…

Sony Ericsson k750i - why I like it

2006-10-29T20:08:00+01:00

After one month I can write something more about my phone.

Bad things:

It can not be in one pocket with keys — case is scratched and display got some scratches too.
FM radio sometimes mute for few seconds — not good when you go to work and there is nice song played.
Opensync can duplicate addressbook with ‘UnNamed’ entries.
No possibility to turn off sound on making photos.

Good things:

When I want to send SMS/MMS I can select from list of last recipients, select from contacts or enter number. None of my previous phones had list of last recipients.
All those animations on sending, calling are not annoying — they are simple and give proper info.
Delivery reports are linked to SMS/MMS like it should be done. When I had Nokia phone I had to think to which message I got report.
Recurrent alarm — I set it to working days at 08:00 so I do not have to use my wrist watch as alarm clock.
FM radio — it was usefull when I was on OEDEM (do you know that Berlin has 29 FM stations?)

One day I will have to check how newer version of opensync works with this phone.

New phone: Sony Ericsson K750i

2006-09-19T13:44:00+02:00

Yesterday I signed papers to extend my current mobile contract and bought Sony Ericsson k750i phone to replace my 4-years old Nokia 6310i.

Phone is nice and packed of features:

connectivity: irda, bluetooth, usb
2Mpx camera with flash leds
FM radio
media (music, video) player
java
memorystick duo slot (64M card by default)

I’m in process of moving all data from my old phone to new one — tried OpenSync today and with help of pmarat from #opensync I got Kitchensync working and transferred my KDE addressbook into phone. Later I will work on sending datas from 6310i -> home computer -> k750i, then will have to work on synchronizing 6210 with something as I have to move whole content of 6210 to 6310i (with syncing with Thunderbird in between).

And now I know that Bluetooth is nice technology — few clicks in Konqueror and I have access to all files inside of phone.