Treo 700w

This week I upgraded my cell phone to the Treo 700 Smartphone as part of a technology update and plan update with Verizon Wireless. I read a number of reviews and talked to a couple of people who already own one and everyone was very positive. For the most part I have been impressed, but I have two huge problems I have not been able to resolved yet.

The Treo is a PocketPC running Windows Mobile 5 and a phone. I decided I wanted to integrate these two technologies together. I have a number of friends who have done this and have been very happy. I have been using a Palm Pilot (first the III, and then the m515) running the Palm OS. Everything on the Palm platform is seamless. Both of these have been real good machines and have saved me a lot of time managing my schedule and tasks. The two killer apps on this platform for me have been the To-Do List and a password database. I have been using PDASafe ID from Handmark for years and it works great and literally is the reason I stuck with Palm for so long. But the handwriting is on the wall with Palm moving the Treo to PocketPC.

Fortunately, I recently discovered PDASafe ID was updated and is now called SplashID available from SplashData. I upgraded today for $10, downloaded, installed, and quickly ported my data (over 300 password entries). The port to the Treo was pretty easy once I figured ActiveSync does not automatically sync the data between the app on the PC and the app on the PocketPC. This was the easy part.

The problem I am having is syncing my Outlook calendar, contacts and tasks. I figured this would be the simplest part. After all, ActiveSync is from Microsoft and Outlook is from Microsoft. The Outlook notes are syncing fine. ActiveSync is reporting support code 0x85010014. I have only found one site that discusses this problem most of the solutions tell you to upgrade to ActiveSync v4.1. I am already running this version. Should be fun figuring this out. I'll keep you posted. Maybe there is a Windows Mobile MVP out there with the answer.

The other problem I have is going to take Microsoft updating ActiveSync. Apparently no one at Microsoft thought anyone would have multiple contact folders as subfolders under the Contacts folder. I happen to have more than a dozen and no one in the main contacts folder has an email address. This is all part of a strategy developed years ago when viruses started sending out emails to everyone in the contact list. If I ever get attacked there is no one to send to. The Palm in conjunction with Chapura has been dealing with this setup for many years. So I am looking for a solution for this problem in my limited spare time. If you have a solution up your sleeve please pass it along. I am definitely not opposed to paying for software that will solve this if it is reasonable.