Google just came out with a new sync system for Google Calendar. That’s pretty good. It will sync your calendar in Outlook up with your online calendar on Google.
But if you have Plaxo I don’t see what this brings you. Plaxo syncs with more systems, not just Outlook and Google (I use Plaxo on my Mac too, so my iPhone’s calendar is always sync’ed up with my Google Calendar and Outlook.
What do you think? Why aren’t you syncing your calendars?
Scobleizer 
Man, scobe, I don’t know. I like plaxo too, but it still feels like a wannabe app, despite how well it works and how much I like Pulse.
I sync my Apple Cal with Plaxo and my work Exchange with Plaxo, and no complaints. But I find myself forgetting about Plaxo, whereas I don’t forget about Google as it silently syncs my Blackberry’s bookmarks, calendar, etc. I like Plaxo more, but I sort of trust Google more. I don’t know if that makes sense.
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Man, scobe, I don’t know. I like plaxo too, but it still feels like a wannabe app, despite how well it works and how much I like Pulse.
I sync my Apple Cal with Plaxo and my work Exchange with Plaxo, and no complaints. But I find myself forgetting about Plaxo, whereas I don’t forget about Google as it silently syncs my Blackberry’s bookmarks, calendar, etc. I like Plaxo more, but I sort of trust Google more. I don’t know if that makes sense.
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Plaxo doesn’t do 2 way sync with google calender does it.
And when is there going to be support for Lotus notes. Is my firm the only one still using notes for email and calender??
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Plaxo doesn’t do 2 way sync with google calender does it.
And when is there going to be support for Lotus notes. Is my firm the only one still using notes for email and calender??
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Yes, Plaxo does two-way sync. At least it does on my machine.
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Yes, Plaxo does two-way sync. At least it does on my machine.
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None of the 3rd party syncing software seems particularly appealing to me. They either look like cruft or else they’re commercial.
I’m not sure I understand why Google decided to spend time on a platform specific (Windows in this case) software solution, when they could spent the development time on enabling CalDav instead.
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None of the 3rd party syncing software seems particularly appealing to me. They either look like cruft or else they’re commercial.
I’m not sure I understand why Google decided to spend time on a platform specific (Windows in this case) software solution, when they could spent the development time on enabling CalDav instead.
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Absolutely, I’ve been dying for google to come out with an app like this one and I hope that their recently released contacts api leads to synchronization of that data too.
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Absolutely, I’ve been dying for google to come out with an app like this one and I hope that their recently released contacts api leads to synchronization of that data too.
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Just moved to a Mac, so I’m still trying to move my data 🙂 The syncing on Mac is going to be an issue i see now (I didn’t expect it before). I use goosync to sync gCal to my SE M600i, but I don’t have anything to sync contacts to Mac (Isync doesn’t work with m600i). Maybe I’ll have to try Plaxo. Any other options for syncing calendar and contacts between mobile-google-mac?
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Just moved to a Mac, so I’m still trying to move my data 🙂 The syncing on Mac is going to be an issue i see now (I didn’t expect it before). I use goosync to sync gCal to my SE M600i, but I don’t have anything to sync contacts to Mac (Isync doesn’t work with m600i). Maybe I’ll have to try Plaxo. Any other options for syncing calendar and contacts between mobile-google-mac?
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I’ve been trying out Plaxo for a few days but there are some major and significant problems with the Outlook sync. The two that are of most concern to me relate to recurring appointments. I have a number of weekly and monthly appointments which occasionally occur at a different time or different location or which I make a note on the Outlook appointment. In this situation Outlook just asks me whether I am changing just that occurence and if I am has no trouble. None of these variations are picked up by Plaxo.
The other worrying thing I found looking through what Plaxo had compared to Outlook was that any recurring appointments that carried on after the clocks had changed were all timed an hour later!
If your calendar is all one off events I’m sure Plaxo is just fine. Any sort of regular appointments – forget it.
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I’ve been trying out Plaxo for a few days but there are some major and significant problems with the Outlook sync. The two that are of most concern to me relate to recurring appointments. I have a number of weekly and monthly appointments which occasionally occur at a different time or different location or which I make a note on the Outlook appointment. In this situation Outlook just asks me whether I am changing just that occurence and if I am has no trouble. None of these variations are picked up by Plaxo.
The other worrying thing I found looking through what Plaxo had compared to Outlook was that any recurring appointments that carried on after the clocks had changed were all timed an hour later!
If your calendar is all one off events I’m sure Plaxo is just fine. Any sort of regular appointments – forget it.
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Great news. I’ve been hoping this would happen. I’ll definately be installing it.
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Great news. I’ve been hoping this would happen. I’ll definately be installing it.
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Outlook 2007 is opening the calendar to the word with calendars subscription and calendars exportation (with limitations for TODOs). I do follow what @paulgrave is saying about Caldav. Why don’t they investigate more in this direction.
Apple opens his new Calendar Server to the public http://trac.calendarserver.org/projects/calendarserver, but nobody seems to have discuss/embrace this new tool and protocol very much. It is so complicated to find a webdav server for such a purpose. And it so easy to set up. Why nobody is proposing such a service except Google (export) and .mac (2-ways).
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Outlook 2007 is opening the calendar to the word with calendars subscription and calendars exportation (with limitations for TODOs). I do follow what @paulgrave is saying about Caldav. Why don’t they investigate more in this direction.
Apple opens his new Calendar Server to the public http://trac.calendarserver.org/projects/calendarserver, but nobody seems to have discuss/embrace this new tool and protocol very much. It is so complicated to find a webdav server for such a purpose. And it so easy to set up. Why nobody is proposing such a service except Google (export) and .mac (2-ways).
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I use Outlook in the office on a Windows PC, iCal on my MacBookPro and iMac at home and I also have a Blackberry.
I’ve tried a few different apps over the last few years for keeping all these in sync without much success – including Plaxo.
I’m going to give the new Google app a go, because right now I only have confidence in the data kept in the Blackberry and Outlook.
I have to say I agree with Isaac Szymanczyk’s earlier comment that there is an issue of trust here and right now Google wins, hence why I’m willing to give it a try.
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I use Outlook in the office on a Windows PC, iCal on my MacBookPro and iMac at home and I also have a Blackberry.
I’ve tried a few different apps over the last few years for keeping all these in sync without much success – including Plaxo.
I’m going to give the new Google app a go, because right now I only have confidence in the data kept in the Blackberry and Outlook.
I have to say I agree with Isaac Szymanczyk’s earlier comment that there is an issue of trust here and right now Google wins, hence why I’m willing to give it a try.
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I’ll have to check out Plaxo but I’m not really sure I want to bet against Google.
I’m fairly comfortable that Google will fashion their own “Exchange Killer” within the next year.
Already I am syncing my Google Calendar and Email to my Blackberry with no Exchange (Google makes a calendar sync for Blackberry that works well). It’s only a (short) matter of time before this suite of tools is rounded out with contact, notes and tasks sync as well.
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I’ll have to check out Plaxo but I’m not really sure I want to bet against Google.
I’m fairly comfortable that Google will fashion their own “Exchange Killer” within the next year.
Already I am syncing my Google Calendar and Email to my Blackberry with no Exchange (Google makes a calendar sync for Blackberry that works well). It’s only a (short) matter of time before this suite of tools is rounded out with contact, notes and tasks sync as well.
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I’d prefer it if I could sync directly between gcal or plaxo directly with my phone without having to go through Outlook or other syncml proxies. Sure would make it easier to automate things.
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I’d prefer it if I could sync directly between gcal or plaxo directly with my phone without having to go through Outlook or other syncml proxies. Sure would make it easier to automate things.
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Plaxo only syncs to one google cal, which is a significant limitation.
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Plaxo only syncs to one google cal, which is a significant limitation.
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Perhaps one feature it would offer would be syncing multiple google calendars (calendar folders). Plaxo only seems to want to sync the first of mine.
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Perhaps one feature it would offer would be syncing multiple google calendars (calendar folders). Plaxo only seems to want to sync the first of mine.
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hey scobelizer do u use n95 to capture videos i heard u once say n95 sucks but now n958gb is much better that iphone in many ways and supports flash, but still nokia software sucks and does not work well on windows vista, tell me how do you transfer ur n95 videos from phone to laptop as usb connection also does work proper on vista
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hey scobelizer do u use n95 to capture videos i heard u once say n95 sucks but now n958gb is much better that iphone in many ways and supports flash, but still nokia software sucks and does not work well on windows vista, tell me how do you transfer ur n95 videos from phone to laptop as usb connection also does work proper on vista
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My place of work blocks Plaxo access from the corporate LAN. Gotta use something else.
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My place of work blocks Plaxo access from the corporate LAN. Gotta use something else.
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Plaxo is nice, but it creates a lot of duplicates for no apparent reason.
This offering by Google is pretty good, although they need to get support of secondary calendars in there pretty quickly.
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Plaxo is nice, but it creates a lot of duplicates for no apparent reason.
This offering by Google is pretty good, although they need to get support of secondary calendars in there pretty quickly.
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I’ve had lots of trouble with Plaxo. It completely screwed up my addressbook & iCal calendars a few times. I finally got rid of it. I’d rather just subscribe to my Google calendars in iCal.
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I’ve had lots of trouble with Plaxo. It completely screwed up my addressbook & iCal calendars a few times. I finally got rid of it. I’d rather just subscribe to my Google calendars in iCal.
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It’s probably just me, but I’m not sure I’d ‘trust’ either Google or Plaxo at this point. But if push came to shove and I had to pick one, it would be Google. Plaxo has way too much accumulated evil to get over.
YMMV.
I’m personally holding out hope for today’s iPhone SDK announcements – lot’s of rumors about Exchange integration, which might address a lot of these syncing problems.
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It’s probably just me, but I’m not sure I’d ‘trust’ either Google or Plaxo at this point. But if push came to shove and I had to pick one, it would be Google. Plaxo has way too much accumulated evil to get over.
YMMV.
I’m personally holding out hope for today’s iPhone SDK announcements – lot’s of rumors about Exchange integration, which might address a lot of these syncing problems.
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Plaxo does not support two way sync with Google contacts. It might with the calendar, but not the contacts. Plaxo even has a disclaimer stating it’s only one way.
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Plaxo does not support two way sync with Google contacts. It might with the calendar, but not the contacts. Plaxo even has a disclaimer stating it’s only one way.
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Plaxo – although the sync between Google and Outlook Calendar does have its issues.
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Plaxo – although the sync between Google and Outlook Calendar does have its issues.
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Robert – agreed mots more could be done in the area. Have a look at what WideLens can do (a Bungee Connect reference app).
http://alexbarnett.net/blog/archive/2008/03/05/sync-google-calendar-with-outlook-and-more-with-widelens.aspx
You can do all that syncing plus more – and the app is free to all Bungee Connect devs: source code user BSD type license, so they can make / shape as they like.
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Robert – agreed mots more could be done in the area. Have a look at what WideLens can do (a Bungee Connect reference app).
http://alexbarnett.net/blog/archive/2008/03/05/sync-google-calendar-with-outlook-and-more-with-widelens.aspx
You can do all that syncing plus more – and the app is free to all Bungee Connect devs: source code user BSD type license, so they can make / shape as they like.
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The problem with Plaxo syncing is, in order to get a lot of the cooler features and multiple syncpoints, you have to pay the yearly fee. This is a major turn off.
Also Plaxo still suffers from their early days as a spam-a-lot service and many folks are scared to get an account and give them money.
And finally, I’ll second several of the various problems that others have already stated with Plaxo calendar syncing. I too have experienced a couple of them myself.
With Google having released Contact management APIs yesterday, I’d be happy to have my calendar and contact data sync with Google, Outlook, and my BlackBerry. Getting rid of Plaxo altogether.
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The problem with Plaxo syncing is, in order to get a lot of the cooler features and multiple syncpoints, you have to pay the yearly fee. This is a major turn off.
Also Plaxo still suffers from their early days as a spam-a-lot service and many folks are scared to get an account and give them money.
And finally, I’ll second several of the various problems that others have already stated with Plaxo calendar syncing. I too have experienced a couple of them myself.
With Google having released Contact management APIs yesterday, I’d be happy to have my calendar and contact data sync with Google, Outlook, and my BlackBerry. Getting rid of Plaxo altogether.
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The biggest problem I have with Plaxo is that it does NOT sync with the Google Apps version of GMail… so I am really happy that Google have bought out their sync solution …. Now all I have to do is work out why my calendar is full of duplicate entries!
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The biggest problem I have with Plaxo is that it does NOT sync with the Google Apps version of GMail… so I am really happy that Google have bought out their sync solution …. Now all I have to do is work out why my calendar is full of duplicate entries!
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Does Plaxo allow you to sync specific calendar folders? For confidentiality purposes it is against our company policy to sync our default calendar with our personal calendars (Google, Hotmail, whatever). As such, I keep a second calendar folder in Outlook with all of my personal events and save events as .ics files to move into Google Calendar. I didn’t see this option in the new Google sync, so until that comes out it really isn’t much use.
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Does Plaxo allow you to sync specific calendar folders? For confidentiality purposes it is against our company policy to sync our default calendar with our personal calendars (Google, Hotmail, whatever). As such, I keep a second calendar folder in Outlook with all of my personal events and save events as .ics files to move into Google Calendar. I didn’t see this option in the new Google sync, so until that comes out it really isn’t much use.
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I have the same Plaxo issues as Richard. It syncs up my outlook, but reaccouring and updated appointment are always problems. If one meeting in a series of reacourning appointments gets canceled, Plaxo does not update correctly. It’s a pain. I’ll give the new Google tool a try and see if it does a better job at it.
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Robert
My approach is to always use Google Calendar as the “input” and then subscribe to it from iCal on my various Macs (which then syncs it with my iPhone). Even on my iPhone Google’s mobile optimised Calendar page is fine for simple input.
Yes I lose the ability to enter data into my diary on the very few occasions when non of my divices such as Laptop, or iPhone have no connection.
However I’m saved Sync Conflict Hell!
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Robert
My approach is to always use Google Calendar as the “input” and then subscribe to it from iCal on my various Macs (which then syncs it with my iPhone). Even on my iPhone Google’s mobile optimised Calendar page is fine for simple input.
Yes I lose the ability to enter data into my diary on the very few occasions when non of my divices such as Laptop, or iPhone have no connection.
However I’m saved Sync Conflict Hell!
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I have the same Plaxo issues as Richard. It syncs up my outlook, but reaccouring and updated appointment are always problems. If one meeting in a series of reacourning appointments gets canceled, Plaxo does not update correctly. It’s a pain. I’ll give the new Google tool a try and see if it does a better job at it.
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I use 30Boxes. If there is a sync for it with Outlook, I am unaware of it. But why do I need that anyhow? 30Boxes is available to me whenever I am at a computer.
Simple and works for me.
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I use 30Boxes. If there is a sync for it with Outlook, I am unaware of it. But why do I need that anyhow? 30Boxes is available to me whenever I am at a computer.
Simple and works for me.
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My question is…why bother using multiple calendars?!? I have trouble enough keeping up with one! 🙂
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My question is…why bother using multiple calendars?!? I have trouble enough keeping up with one! 🙂
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BuSync is by far the simplest and easiest way to do bi-directional synchronization between iCal and gCal.
http://www.busymac.com/
Unlike SpanningSync which has so many problems…
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BuSync is by far the simplest and easiest way to do bi-directional synchronization between iCal and gCal.
http://www.busymac.com/
Unlike SpanningSync which has so many problems…
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I gave up on the iPhone and went back to Blackberry because I needed some way to manage my calendar. Being on the mac in a company that uses Exchange and outlook (like most med-large corporate environments) is a pain. The new Panther mail app does a little better job of managing calendar items but its not realistic to think you can use it in real life.. Replying to invites, generating events and tracking participants, managing multiple time zones, delegating to an admin.. this is the stuff outlook and exchange do really well.. Entourage handles this pretty well too but putting MS apps on your mac is like putting coke in single malt whiskey. You just don’t do it.. And this calendar situation is the universal pain point for mac users at work.. so why on earth doesn’t apple fix it? come on.. give me seamless iCal integration and the ability to reply to outlook invites.. then sync it to my iphone over the air.. what is so freaking hard about that? Until apple wakes up, I am back on the corporate dweeb device.. ughhh..
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I gave up on the iPhone and went back to Blackberry because I needed some way to manage my calendar. Being on the mac in a company that uses Exchange and outlook (like most med-large corporate environments) is a pain. The new Panther mail app does a little better job of managing calendar items but its not realistic to think you can use it in real life.. Replying to invites, generating events and tracking participants, managing multiple time zones, delegating to an admin.. this is the stuff outlook and exchange do really well.. Entourage handles this pretty well too but putting MS apps on your mac is like putting coke in single malt whiskey. You just don’t do it.. And this calendar situation is the universal pain point for mac users at work.. so why on earth doesn’t apple fix it? come on.. give me seamless iCal integration and the ability to reply to outlook invites.. then sync it to my iphone over the air.. what is so freaking hard about that? Until apple wakes up, I am back on the corporate dweeb device.. ughhh..
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Is this FastCompany’s strategy for placing ads on your blog? Testimonials from the Scoble?
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Is this FastCompany’s strategy for placing ads on your blog? Testimonials from the Scoble?
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Agreed with Bob.
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Agreed with Bob.
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i haven’t synced my calendars because most of my time is spent at my desk at work, where i have to keep my work schedule apart from everything else. so i simply leave google calendar running in a tab in firefox.
i love the sync-ability of plaxo though, i did sync at home and i haven’t missed an appointment since. i’ll have to try out google’s new sync on a separate machine to see the difference
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i haven’t synced my calendars because most of my time is spent at my desk at work, where i have to keep my work schedule apart from everything else. so i simply leave google calendar running in a tab in firefox.
i love the sync-ability of plaxo though, i did sync at home and i haven’t missed an appointment since. i’ll have to try out google’s new sync on a separate machine to see the difference
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The problem with synchronization is that they don’t work as advertised. Maturity-wise, we’re just not there yet despite what Plaxo, Yahoo, etc. are saying. I can’t tell you how many times I had to de-duplicate my calendar entries because Desktop Outlook, Plaxo, Yahoo Calendar and Pocket Outlook just won’t play nice.
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The problem with synchronization is that they don’t work as advertised. Maturity-wise, we’re just not there yet despite what Plaxo, Yahoo, etc. are saying. I can’t tell you how many times I had to de-duplicate my calendar entries because Desktop Outlook, Plaxo, Yahoo Calendar and Pocket Outlook just won’t play nice.
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It’s a trust thing. I doubt Plaxo will exist in 5 years. I expect Google will be around far longer.
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It’s a trust thing. I doubt Plaxo will exist in 5 years. I expect Google will be around far longer.
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Plaxo can sync to many more services. This results in much more to maintain, and many more things that can go wrong. When you’re working with important stuff, this risk is not good. Keep it simple
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Plaxo can sync to many more services. This results in much more to maintain, and many more things that can go wrong. When you’re working with important stuff, this risk is not good. Keep it simple
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I agree with Andre in #35 I like the idea of the services and how they sell them but damn I hate removing dupes!
Great site by the way. I guess I’m not in the loop anymore as this is my first visit! But I’ll be back…
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I agree with Andre in #35 I like the idea of the services and how they sell them but damn I hate removing dupes!
Great site by the way. I guess I’m not in the loop anymore as this is my first visit! But I’ll be back…
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I’ll add my bad experience with Plaxo. It deleted a bunch of random contacts and I still haven’t recovered. I am a paying customer, but their support is the most frustrating kind of awful. It takes them 4 days to come back with a copy/pasted response that blames the user.
I actually liked the Plaxo functionality, but I would not trust my data to it.
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I’ll add my bad experience with Plaxo. It deleted a bunch of random contacts and I still haven’t recovered. I am a paying customer, but their support is the most frustrating kind of awful. It takes them 4 days to come back with a copy/pasted response that blames the user.
I actually liked the Plaxo functionality, but I would not trust my data to it.
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Robert, I know I’m a little late to this post, but to me Plaxo feels like an adware/spyware app. Oh, I’m sure it’s not but it just feels like one. I really felt nervous when I setup an account awhile back.
I use Spanning Sync myself, and it works great sync’ing my Google Calendar with my iCal events and visa-versa. Granted it costs money, but I think I would rather pay the money for something that feels safe rather than something that feels dangerous.
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Robert, I know I’m a little late to this post, but to me Plaxo feels like an adware/spyware app. Oh, I’m sure it’s not but it just feels like one. I really felt nervous when I setup an account awhile back.
I use Spanning Sync myself, and it works great sync’ing my Google Calendar with my iCal events and visa-versa. Granted it costs money, but I think I would rather pay the money for something that feels safe rather than something that feels dangerous.
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thank you for this…kept going back and looking at it, wasting time!
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thank you for this…kept going back and looking at it, wasting time!
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Robert, Thank you for this post. I’ve been searching for a solution to sync my calendars between work and home, PC and Mac. Plaxo has been working very well since I installed it after reading your post.
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Robert, Thank you for this post. I’ve been searching for a solution to sync my calendars between work and home, PC and Mac. Plaxo has been working very well since I installed it after reading your post.
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I have set my Google calendar to sync my Outlook with my BlackBerry. It works great with one small problem… I am getting duplicates BIG TIME!!! HELP PLEASE!!!!! THANKS
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I have set my Google calendar to sync my Outlook with my BlackBerry. It works great with one small problem… I am getting duplicates BIG TIME!!! HELP PLEASE!!!!! THANKS
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Plaxo calendar sync between iCal and Google Calendar is nice.
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Plaxo calendar sync between iCal and Google Calendar is nice.
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Well I read thru all this and was surprised that no one mentioned the security aspect of using these sync programs with exchange/outlook. Whats the downside to using plaxo or google when it comes to securing your systems?
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Well I read thru all this and was surprised that no one mentioned the security aspect of using these sync programs with exchange/outlook. Whats the downside to using plaxo or google when it comes to securing your systems?
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Help. I have an imac and use ical on it. I now have a blackberry. I also have plaxo which I have liked but……I now have tons of duplicates on my ical and on my blackberry. The latter since I downloaded the google sync to my bb because plaxo won’t talk to my bb. Any help will be appreciated…..I’m ready to print out calendars, delete them all and start from scratch. 😦
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Help. I have an imac and use ical on it. I now have a blackberry. I also have plaxo which I have liked but……I now have tons of duplicates on my ical and on my blackberry. The latter since I downloaded the google sync to my bb because plaxo won’t talk to my bb. Any help will be appreciated…..I’m ready to print out calendars, delete them all and start from scratch. 😦
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