Mobile devices and personal info

From users:

"> Unleashed Palm pilots can pollute severely your contacts database, since PDA's are very personnal and private device. You may end up with Donald's, Daisy's, Mickey's and Pluto's names floating around the database turning name searches very awkward. Consider not installing the Palm application unless you can have a strong control on their use.... 

This is very true of mobile devices no matter how you can connect them (or I imagine, what you connect them too). If anyone has any flashes of insight I'd love to hear them; but probably over on Discuss@"

I'm a heavy user of mobile devices, having gone through 6 Palm device upgrades since 1998.  I use Chapura's Pocket Mirror Pro to sync my Treo 650 with Outlook/Exchange at my day job.  PM Pro has several nice features that make it easy to keep personal stuff personal.

The first is category exclusion.  You indicate in the conduit which categories you DON'T want to sync (handheld only or desktop only) and items in those categories will stay where they are.

The second is private items exclusion.  Items marked private will remain on the platform they were created on, and will not be synched to the other.

Here's how PM Pro works syncing with Outlook.  There are two types of sync types in HotSync: slow and fast.

Slow sync is the comprehensive one.  It happens for first-time syncs, or if there was a problem with the last fast sync attempt, or when you are syncing for the first time at a different PC (ie, you sync at home and at work; slow sync will occur at each PC for the first sync after syncing with the other box, subsequent will be fast syncs until you go to the other place).  The sync process is a five step one for each conduit:

1.  Outlook is scanned for all records and an index is built (first-time sync) or updated.
2.  The handheld is scanned for all records, and an index is also built or updated.
3.  The most important step!!  This is where the two are compared for matches and differences.  Matches are linked together, and differences are flagged for action.  The action depends on: 

a) whether an item is new, and on which platform it was created
b) whether an item is modified, and on which platform (or both).  In this case the action could be Outlook wins, or Handheld wins, or the record is duplicated on both platforms, an error is generated, and the user has to figure it out.
c) whether an item has been deleted, and if the backup/archive flag has been set
d) whether or not there is a category exclusion
e) whether or not there is a private items exclusion

4.  Changes from the handheld are synced over to Outlook (based on the previous possible actions)
5.  Changes from Outlook are synched back to the handheld.

A fast sync uses the same process and logic, except that the databases are scanned for records with a "dirty" or modified flag, and that is used to determine what needs to be synched.

The fact that OGo has a native nhsd (Network HotSync Daemon) makes it a powerful mobilizing tool for small businesses, ones that want portability but don't need OTA (Over The Air) or SyncML services.  The only things holding it back are:

a) No support for the current Palm Enhanced PIM databases (to which I've logged some informational notes into a bugzilla bug), and once that's addressed, a relinking to pilot-link 0.12.x

b) The ability to sync (or not sync) Palm categories against specific views of OGo data to which the user has appropriate permissions.  For examples:

Calendar
Sync Palm calendar category "Boss" to my bosses' OGo public calendar

Sync Palm category "Team" against a team public calendar to which I'm a member

Exclude Palm category "personal"

Tasks
Sync Palm category "Boss to Call" against tasks owned by my boss which have the category "Calls" assigned

Sync Palm category "Team" against a team public tasks folder to which I have permissions

etc, etc,...  

Hope this helps!

/Mike

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