I used to own a BlackBerry…back when I worked for a company that had a BlackBerry Server. With the BlackBerry Server, I would get real-time delivery of my behind-the-firewall email, and could use the SSH client to login to my behind-the-firewall servers. When I left corporate life to pursue open source full-time in 2005 (first as a consultant, and now as an industry analyst), the first thing I did was go out and buy a Sidekick. The Sidekick is made by Danger and is often referred to by its carrier-neutral name of the Hiptop. In the United State, T-Mobile is the only carrier that carries this phone. In July 2006, T-Mobile is releasing the Sidekick III - although it’s not a very major improvement over the current model, unfortunately. Yes, it has Bluetooth, a music player, and is 20% smaller, but the screen resolution and quality hasn’t improved, it doesn’t support Wi-Fi, and it still locks you into to buying applications from T-Mobile instead of opening up the built-in Java support for loading third-party applications directly. I’m still trying to decide whether I am going to upgrade or not.
So, why abandon the BlackBerry for the Sidekick? Well, first of all, without the BlackBerry Server, the BlackBerry is somewhat crippled. I could have signed up for mail hosting with a company like MailStreet which offers a hosted BlackBerry server, sure, but there were other reasons for the change, as well. Instant messaging is one such reason - support on the BlackBerry is poor, and this is one of the strengths of the Sidekick.
Another reason for going with the Sidekick was the release of Missing Sync for hiptop by Mark/Space. As a Mac user, I was dependent on this piece of software to synchronize my address book and calendar between my computer and my Sidekick - a Mac synch client is only available from Mark/Space. The BlackBerry already had a Mac synch client, and the release of Missing Sync for hiptop by Mark/Space put the two on equal footing. I have been using the synch product from Mark/Space now for over a year.
For some reason, synch stopped working towards the beginning of 2006, and I have no idea why. I didn’t upgrade the software. My guess is that T-Mobile made change with its synch server. Let me explain. Unlike most synch programs that connect a phone or a PDA to a computer directly through a USB cable or in some cases via Bluetooth, the synch software I am using synchronizes the calendar and address book on my Mac directly with a T-Mobile server over the Internet, which then copies the data out to my Sidekick over the mobile network. I have no idea why it is this way, but I suspect that Danger wasn’t willing to give Mark/Space the API for USB connectivity.
I simply haven’t had the time to fix the synch software this year and this has crippled me. I have missed a number of meetings (and birthdays!) because my Sidekick didn’t remind me. After missing a company meeting yesterday, I had enough. I did some digging on the forums and blogs, and discovered other people were having the same problem. Through a number of helpful hints posted by others, observing the log file (/Users/yourusername/Library/Logs/MissingSync for hiptop.log), and a fair amount of trial and error, I am back in business! I am posting this blog entry for the other users of Missing Sync for hiptop.
Here is what I did…I can’t make any authoritative claims that all of these steps are required, but I am sharing the steps I went through to make it work:
1) I removed all spaces and punctuation from first and last names in Address Book. I did this because I noticed that the application seemed to hang at these records in the log file.
2) I removed all entries marked as companies (most of these were old, anyway). I did this because the company records were all generating synch errors in the log file.
3) I re-added the companies I needed, insuring that each company entry had an associated contact first and last name (I used “Some Guy” for those that did not have a contact name). I tried just updating the company records, but this didn’t work. I had to do a delete and recreate, for some reason. Considering the number of old records I have in Address Book, it wouldn’t surprise me if the internal data format has changed and only a new record uses the new data format required for the synch process to function properly.
4) I went into iCal under Advanced Preferences and set all calendars to automatically delete old entries after 365 days. I did this because it was trying to synch 3,000+ calendar records from up to five years ago. It would hang - surprise, surprise!
5) In Missing Synch for hiptop, I set the Preferences to not synch any of my subscribed calendars from sources that kept historical calendar entries past 365 days. I did this for the same reason I listed above - since you can’t control the entry deletion on subscribed calendars, all you can do is turn them off for synch.
6) In Missing Synch for hiptop, I changed the synch to always overwrite the Sidekick on every synch. I think this is a much safer rule for anyone not planning to add new entries from their Sidekick - I don’t. I’ve had too many bad experiences with synchs deleting my master data due to bugs, and a one-way copy is a much safer plan. To expose this preference, hold the option key down when going to the Missing synch for hiptop main menu item in Mac OS X and selecting Debug options (it only appears when holding down the option key).
I hope this works for you. Please help me streamline these instructions if I am over-complicating the process. Post a comment with your experiences.
UPDATE 1: 06/21/06 - I ran into a new problem when enabling another local calendar. You may get an error like this:
Main Application: NSInvalidArgumentException [ISyncConcreteSession clientAcceptedChangesForRecordWithIdentifier:formattedRecord:newRecordIdentifier:]: you can’t change the record identifier from com.apple.syncservices:BE1F8536-A97C-416C-8C95-B87EA1B93E2C to E1444: it is already associated with a different record.
Main Application: Synchronization Complete!
Main Application: The calendar sync was unsuccessful
If this happens to you, you need to isolate the specific calendar that has the error and then attempt (somehow) to isolate the corrupt entry and delete it. Otherwise, calendar synch will fail. Good luck!
UPDATE 2: 07/03/06 - I was successful in getting my new T-Mobile Sidekick 3 to work with Missing Sync for hiptop.
UPDATE 3: 08/08/06 - I have given up on using Missing Sync for hiptop for calendar data, due to a “corrupt” entry in my work calendar. This stops calendar synch from completing. I have no way to track down the corrupt entry, so I’ve had to disable calenar synch, relying on Missing Synch for hiptop for contact data only. The workaround? Use the free AppleScript called iCal to Sidekick, which will convert your iCal entries to Outlook format. Then, login to My T-Mobile and import them from the Desktop Interface. It’s a two-step process but this is the only way I have found to make this work. Make sure you disable calendar synch in Missing Synch for hiptop before doing this.
UPDATE 4: 08/11/06 - My workaround is not working the way I want it to - calendar entries with long notes are getting turned into multiple entries. This is too much hassle and I am going to actually sell my Sidekick 3 and get a phone that is supported in iSync. I need sync on my phone more than I need the features of the Sidekick 3. I placed an order for the Sony Ericsson K790a, which is shipping in a few weeks. Although the K790a is not yet officially supported by Apple in iSync 2.3, you can download a 3rd party plugin for less than $3 at Feisar.
I’m still waiting to be accepted into the United Nations.
