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 0×85010014. 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.
Interesting timing. I’ve been searching (on and off) for a new cell phone for a few weeks. I’ve currently got Sprint, which I’ve been pretty happy with. However, my phone was completely useless during a trip outside the US (since it doesn’t support GSM). Very frustrating. That got me thinking about a quad-band phone. The major downside with Sprint is that they don’t do GSM. So they don’t have very many phones that support it. I found two; after a lot of searching. One of them was the Treo 650 (and now the 700). I keep comparing the coverage maps and Sprint still seems to do a better job, at least here in the States.
If I stay with Sprint, I can buy a more “normal” cellphone, or I can get something like the Treo. I’m not a big fan of really tiny cell phones, but I also don’t want a big honkin’ huge one either (which makes me a bit nervous with the Treo). I also keep thinking if I bought a PocketPC, I’d probably want the “biggest and the best”, with all the bells and whistles. I wonder if I’ll be happy with the Treo.
No answers, only more questions…
Were you ever able to figure out the errors with ActiveSync? I’ve been struggling with the same issue for over a month now. We may have just figured it out though…
Yes, see this post: http://rickschummer.com/blog/2006/03/treo-700-and-activesync.html