Database Users

[Me Begging] Windows Live Calendar Sync

Well now that there are all the various ways to sync Google Calendar with windows mobile devices, I'm convinced there must be a way to do the same with Windows Live Calendar (plus I think they both use the .ics format) Anybody who's familiar with this type of app, can you give us some direction?
Thanks!
MJB

You need to add one more option to the poll:
"No, but I would if it could sync OTA with my WinMo phone!"
B/c that is where I am at right now. Until it can OTA sync with my phone, I need to stick with Exchange for my calendar.
Ideally, WM6.1 would add support for multiple calendars and WL Calendar would add OTA sync. Syncing both a Work and Personal calendar OTA would be the hotness.

I feel you...I was implying that this solution would sync over the air. I seriously have never synced with my desktop. I use hotmail, so windows live (in its current state) can handle email and contacts over the air just fine. Now if only we could get the calendar functionality going! Thanks for the reply and hopefully this will continue to pique the interest of other readers.
MJB

I feel like I could also live with some desktop app that can sync my windows live calendar with an exchange account, then access it through direct push. I've read about a product called Calgoo http://www.calgoo.com that apparently can sync Google Calendar with an exchange server...does this sound like a possibility?
MJB

Bump? Anyone? Bueller?

This is a frustration of mine as well...one of the key components to the "Outlook" suite is calendaring, and that is the one component they have purposely left out so far. From what I have read about Microsoft's new Sync framework, I suspect that it has something to do with the launch of that new product and the impact it will have on the direction of Microsoft's mobile/disconnected computing offerings...
That said, it still doesn't address my needs today...the answer to mbial's question at the start is simply no...This has frustrated me to the point where I was going to write an application to handle this, however I ran into a wall when I discovered that the Windows Live API explicitly excludes a WL Calendar interface. So for now I am resorting to painful manual .ics exports and syncing with Outlook...no OTA yet...

MoonMan,
Despite the Windows Live API excluding a calendar interface, I don't believe all of the gCal syncing solutions explicitly rely on Google APIs. Take a look at solutions like these:
http://oggsync.com/index.php/windows-mobile-documentation/detailed-feature-chart/
or
http://www.goosync.com/
which permit full two-way syncing with no middle-man server. GCal and Windows Live Calendars aren't all that different in features or functionality, so I have to believe that this is a possibility. Keep the ideas flowing!
Best,
MJB

Here are 3 examples of open-source gCal sync solutions...anyone want to take a look at the code and see if we can repurpose these apps for Windows Live Calendar?
http://rareedge.com/gmobilesync/
http://www.ts0.com/pocketgcal/
http://iterat.ive.ly/index.php/projects/gcalendarsync
Thanks as always,
MJB

One more thing...
After scouring MSDN and dev.live.com I have learned that the Live Calendar APIs are not, in fact, available yet. This is surprising considering one of the developers stated that the API was coming soon way back in April of 07. Sucks.
MJB

Are there some new information? (Sync Windows Live Calendar would be a great feature.. if we cant sync, i dont know for what the calendar should be.)
greets blackx

Can I ask why you haven't tried using Outlook 07 for hotmail :S maybe that might solve your problems and let you sync the calendar. Don't flame me if I missed something or this is a stupid suggestion because I didn't totally comprehend the situation D:

Kraize92 said:
Can I ask why you haven't tried using Outlook 07 for hotmail :S maybe that might solve your problems and let you sync the calendar. Don't flame me if I missed something or this is a stupid suggestion because I didn't totally comprehend the situation D:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have Outlook 2003, but i dont use it.
I like to be portable (i use the http webinterface..) so i can check emails all over the world.. my calendar would be available for my messenger contacts, and i dont have to install/use more software then i really need.
(sorry, but i dont like to use outlook, its a nice program but i think web-based application would be the future..)
greets mike

The goal here is to sync over the air, not using a desktop. There has been some progress made though, as Windows Live Wave 3 is being rolled out and it's possible the Calendar APIs are now available. Also, I've been in contact with Thomas Wetzel of SynchPST. He is going to try and make the next version of SynchPST compatible with Microsoft Office Outlook Connecter, which would allow those of us with exchange accounts to use desktop outlook/exchange to have proper push of our Windows Live services (although this would require you leave outlook running on a computer at all times, it would be a big step in the right direction.) Take a look at our conversation:
Original Email:
I recently stumbled upon your product SynchPST because I am looking for a way to synchronize my Windows Live Hotmail account with my hosted exchange account. Presently your tool is able to read and sync the data file for my exchange account, however, it is unable to read the data file for Office Outlook Connecter (which is how I retrieve my hotmail into my outlook.) Is there any possibility of adding this functionality to SynchPST so it can read/sync data stores generated by the Outlook Connector? This would be HUGE for many people and I would be happy to pay a premium over your standard and professional products for this feature. Thanks in advance and I hope to hear a response from you soon.
Response:
Thank you for your reply.
I downloaded Outlook Connector and could reproduce this behavior. I will try to implement the synchronization of a Windows Live account in the next releases.
Regards
Thomas Wetzel
Wisco
Synchronize your Outlooks
www.synchpst.com
Let's hope there's some progress on this front for those of us using Windows Live services!
MJB

google Windows Live Essentials and Windows Live Sync.
or rather, check out www.liveside.net
MS is releasing a new Windows Mobile client that will utilize this client for over the air sync of contacts, mail, calendar, and more. just a heads up for everyone wondering

any progress?
its been nearly a year, is it not possible to ota sync with live calender?

It sucks. I want OTA syncing of my calendar. Its the only reason my phone even gets plugged into my computer anymore.

www.google.com/sync
http://sn1-p1.myphone.microsoft.com/mkweb/Start.po?mkt=en-US

Live Framework CTP
Well, I hadn't checked back into this in a while, but it turns out that the Live Framework Community Technology Preview (CTP) was released in mid-March and DOES have access to calendar functions. Has anyone taken a look at this?
http://dev.live.com/liveframework/
Best,
MJB

Specifications for a "Blackberry Facebook App" equivalent

After jealously observing the Facebook app on my wife's Blackberry Pearl, I am shocked that neither ShoZu, Snap2Face/Skybook nor FriendMobilizer have come close to matching the simple elegance of Facebook for Blackberry. Each of the aforementioned Windows Mobile apps, I believe, will fail to become very popular among users because they are trying to do fundamentally different things than the official Blackberry and iPhone apps.
So I'm going to attempt to specify the basic features that would make for the best "Facebook for Windows Mobile" application. The developer who carries these out will, I predict, quickly dominate the rest.
What we already have
A couple of mobile-friendly versions of the FB user interface. Whether you use http://m.facebook.com in PIE, or http://iphone.facebook.com in Opera Mobile/IrisBrowser, or indeed desktop-level Facebook in Skyfire/Opera Mini/etc., we already have great ways to passively view most of Facebook. FB apps for WM appear to have devoted most efforts to remaking their own, sometimes uglier interfaces for viewing the same information. While this introduces the possibility of offline synchronization, this is nowhere near a key functional benefit offered on Blackberry and iPhone. The trend is toward more users having data plans and ubiquitous data connections.
A way to access Facebook Chat. 3rd-party multiprotocol chat applications offer this for Windows Mobile already.
Several ways to update your status. You can do this through Facebook Mobile, SMS, etc.
A crappy way to upload mobile photos. You can send an MMS to [email protected] - not ideal and lacks the ability to place photos in specific albums, tag, etc. But it is a start.
A crappy way to receive notifications. The FB notifications feed is actually available via RSS, and several free RSS clients exist for Windows Mobile.
A really crappy way to new FB message alerts and everything else. Suppose you registered a new Gmail account devoted solely to receiving Facebook notification emails. You could register that address with your Facebook settings, set it as the address to receive email notifications and then turn on notifications for everything that happens on Facebook. After setting up this email account on your Windows Mobile device, you could receive regular alerts from Facebook on your mobile device. (Heck, with System SEVEN beta or some other service that utilizes the IMAP IDLE feature, you could essentially have "push" FB alerts).
What we don't have (but Blackberry does)
Based on the features listed at http://na.blackberry.com/eng/devices/features/social/facebook.jsp , you can see that the man feature that WM users don't have is "push"-style homescreen notifications. On the Blackberry homescreen, the number of new Facebook notifications and messages sits beside a little FB icon. It is updated immediately as new messages and notifications are received.
Thus I would propose the following specifications for a WM Facebook app (or suite of mini-apps). The Facebook Developers API should be used, not some unreliable html-parsing library.
1. New/unread FB messages and notifications on a "push" or rapid-refresh basis. This either means (a) a Today screen plugin that lists the unread message counts and points Pocket IE to the appropriate http://m.facebook.com link when tapped, (b) WM popup notifications of the same, or (c) a MAPI interface library that allows the FB Inbox and/or FB Notifications feed to be added as regular mail accounts in Pocket Outlook - letting WM take care of popups if the user so desires.
2. A photo upload and tagging tool. The user must be able to select a photo (or take one) and then choose to either add it to any existing album or create a new one, followed by the option to tag that photo.
3. Dedicated Facebook chat. If it is easy, of course.
Everything else on Facebook - contacts search, Phonebook, etc - is just as easy to access on the existing Facebook Mobile site. My instinct is that developers inevitably waste our memory with bloated software when they make "native" interfaces that just rehash the content at http://m.facebook.com/
Or am I missing something? Maybe others have thoughts. I'm no developer and I don't mean to sound demanding - I'm just trying to give developers some ideas here.

would be fine if someone would fix the iphone.facebook.com java problems

libpurple already incorporates facebook im but i dont think there is a client for windows mobile that uses it. As for uploading, you can upload pictures but not videos directly from a touch series phone (videos are uploaded to youtube). If the protection can be stripped from an ipa and the can be decrypted then I dont understand why we cant port the facebook.app. I have an iPhone 3G and an iPod Touch, both jailbroken. I'll SSH into them and grab the files for the facebook app but the rest needs to be done by someone else. Just give me sometime to find them.

1. New/unread FB messages and notifications on a "push" or rapid-refresh basis. This either means (a) a Today screen plugin that lists the unread message counts and points Pocket IE to the appropriate http://m.facebook.com link when tapped, (b) WM popup notifications of the same, or (c) a MAPI interface library that allows the FB Inbox and/or FB Notifications feed to be added as regular mail accounts in Pocket Outlook - letting WM take care of popups if the user so desires.
2. A photo upload and tagging tool. The user must be able to select a photo (or take one) and then choose to either add it to any existing album or create a new one, followed by the option to tag that photo.
3. Dedicated Facebook chat. If it is easy, of course.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wFacebook will have ALL of these things that you mentioned. A little patience is all that is needed. I started developing this only 2 weeks ago Thanks for the breakdown though, it gives me something to work towards. I hope to have facebook chat up and running in the next release. Push style notifications will come as soon as I can figure out an "always signed on" connection to facebook. Photos and tagging are very easy to do, I just haven't gotten around to implementing it.
What you have to realize is that the blackberry apps and iPhone apps are both designed by facebook. They access facebook's data directly. Facebook does not allow this in its API so we have to find workarounds. Blackberry has nothing to do with it's facebook application (as far as I know). Facebook developed and maintains it.
Also, thanks for the tip on the rss feed. I did not know this and this may help with notifications!

Give computerjunkie some time....
And all the requested features will be hopefully implemented.
Btw since you have a BB and have positive feelings regarding it's user experience and user interface it would be great if you could dedicate some time to write down some detailed specs !
Ciao
Marco

The BB app doesn't really have a "push" notification system. All apps that use notifications, like Facebook and MySpace, are simple emails. When the same email account is registered under the BB profile, and Facebook profile, it recognizes the FB notification email as the app specific notification, and gives the notification instead of the email.
But, on the app, I really don't like it much, so I don't suggest it as your "template". All it really does is give you the notifications, allow you to update your status and view your friends list. You can't view profiles or photos through the app, it opens the browser, and you have to login! Further more, the news feed only shows the notifications, like birthdays and comments.
Try something like the BB MySpace app, I love that one! You can flow through pictures and view everything in the app.

wFacebook will be like the BB myspace app. You won't have to log in to the website to see info. It will be fetched from the application itself. Also, it will have push style notifications (maybe not ALL notifications but most: Wall, Inbox, photo comment, etc.). I am looking into an always on (or as close to always on) so when the notification occurs, wFacebook automatically fetches the info THEN notifies the user so all the user has to do is start up wFacebook and check the item. Also with the semi-always on connection, wFacebook users won't have to keep logging in to facebook which right now is taking about 1.5 minutes with wFacebook because of data speeds on mobile machines.

Problem with the xda app is it requires .NET 3.5
iphone.facebok.com in Skyfire is the best solution for me.

though I think a windows mobile facebook app is much needed I have to agree the very Bloated net cf is def not the way to go. I do appreciate all you are doing as this app has potential to be very useful . thanks again for all your hard work. pleasyo code in "C"

[REQ] Sychronisation Options

I know there are a load of threads out there regarding syncing OTA but I thought I'd canvass some opinions from people to see if my current method can be imporved upon.
A little background:
I use a desktop PC running Windows 7 (build 7100) primarily but also have laptop for taking to Law School with me (also running Windows 7 build 7100).
I (obviously) also use an unbranded Touch HD.
I'm a devoted user of Outlook and it manages all my contacts, calendar appointments and tasks and neatly ties into my Onenote workbooks which I use for Law School.
The Problem
It's surprisingly difficult to keep all of the above in sync! Originally both machines were running Vista and I used my (very old) Hermes to keep the two sets of PIM in sync. This however produced quite a few confilcts over time and things like birthdays would appear repeated over and over again in my calendar.
I'm now using Google Sync to keep my calendar in sync which works well but doesn't sync the categories that entries are set with nor does it allow for attachments to sync with appointments.
For tasks and contacts synchronising I'm still plugging my phone in between the two computers but wondered if there was a more elegant solution.
I'd love to set up an exchange account but most of them are geared for corporate use only and (for example) the Microsoft Hosted Exchange requires a minimum of 5 users before you can sign up.
I'm managing with push email provided by Seven on my phone but would love to be able to have tasks and contacts pushed as well.
So, wise crowd of XDA Devs, would do people suggest? Any other options open to me? I've looked into Mail2Web but can't seem to get it to work properly, likewise Zimbra desktop but I really want to keep using Outlook (there's 5 years worth of information stashed away in my .pst file!).
Suggestions? Please?

As an attorney I know the importance of what your needing to do. Are you using gysyncit? http://www.daveswebsite.com/software/gsync/. I believe it gives you ota wireless sync for your calendar...not sure about tasks though.

Thanks for the links but it seems as though gSyncit does exactly what the offical Google version does but charges you $9.99 for the privilege?
Google licensed Activsync from Microsoft towards the start of the year rendering (IMO) all the 3rd party options a little redundant for syncing Google Calendar and Outlook.
For anyone reading this, you can find out more details over at the offical Google page.

Have you considered mail2web?
The provide an exchange server for a small monthly fee and offer outlook web access.
http://www.mail2web.com/

Better calendar app?

Is there a better calendar app than the stock one? And I don't mean just a widget like Pure Calendar, I mean an end-to-end solution like Hancent and Chompsms are to the messaging client.
In particular, on my old Palm and Nokia devices, I had calendar clients that allowed me to do something that I wanted to yesterday - make an event that reoccurs on the same day every other week.
The applications I had actually allowed further customisation where you could set a reoccuring event to occur with a user defined number of day/weeks/years between the even reoccuring again.
Are there any apps that give this level of control?

Cleargrey said:
Is there a better calendar app than the stock one? And I don't mean just a widget like Pure Calendar, I mean an end-to-end solution like Hancent and Chompsms are to the messaging client.
In particular, on my old Palm and Nokia devices, I had calendar clients that allowed me to do something that I wanted to yesterday - make an event that reoccurs on the same day every other week.
The applications I had actually allowed further customisation where you could set a reoccuring event to occur with a user defined number of day/weeks/years between the even reoccuring again.
Are there any apps that give this level of control?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's what I do............ google calender is extremely customisable. When you are creating the event, look for the Repeats link; change that to Weekly, then - in the new info which appears, 2. I do this on the website calender, not in the phone.

Tasks to a tile?

Does anybody know of any way to get the Tasks / ToDo's to a tile? The calendar app does not show them on it's tile.
***Note! I'm talking about the Outlook client Tasks which Outlook.com also supports, and several apps on Android. The Windows Phone Calendar for some reason call's these "ToDo's", even though all other MS applications call them tasks.
So I'm not interested in any independent task apps / lists, which exist (too many, don't make any more...). Point is to have the existing Outlook client and Outlook.com solution and the same tasks on many computers & devices.
I've tried probably everything from the Store and Googled a lot; no solution appears to exist?
There's also a Uservoice forum for this feature to the stock Calendar/ToDo's: https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/...to-do-items-on-the-calendar-live-tile-and-loc

I have been looking 4 something like this, but no luck. Since I do need Tasks or ToDo's in a Live Tile (just to keep me reminded), I have downloaded an app called TODO - and it does just that - pointing out several tasks for me in a live tile. No reminders, no nothing, just this. Perfect for me.