Last February, I described losing half my iPhone contacts after an iTunes sync. Even though I tried the Filadex Web-based contact manager, I don't like the fact that the information is stored unencrypted on Web servers.
More importantly, my iPhone always has my most up-to-date telephone and address contact list, while Gmail knows more about my e-mail correspondents than the iPhone does, and Google Calendar is my primary scheduler. Just to complicate matters, I spend most of my workdays (and some weekends, unfortunately) in Outlook.
I need to export my Google Calendar and Gmail addresses to Outlook and my iPhone, and move my iPhone telephone numbers and physical addresses to Gmail and Outlook. Simple, right? Well, it turned out to be not too difficult or time-consuming, although the result was a bit messy.
Sync Google Calendar with calendars in Outlook and the iPhone
Who knew Google Calendar and Outlook could play so nice? The aptly named Google Calendar Sync does the trick with just a few clicks and a minimum of thumb-twiddling. The program works with Outlook 2003 and 2007 on XP and Vista PCs, though it doesn't support 64-bit XP, according to Google.
After you download and install the program, you enter your Google ID and password and choose one of three options: sync from and to Google Calendar and Outlook; sync from Google Calendar to Outlook; or sync from Outlook to Google Calendar. The default sync time is 120 minutes, and the minimum setting is 10 minutes; there's no mention of a maximum setting. The sync begins after you click Save.
Choose two-way or one-way sync between Outlook and Google Calendar in the Google Calendar Sync utility.
(Credit: Google)Up-and-down arrows on the Google Calendar icon in the notification area indicate a sync in progress; hover over it to see the percent complete or the time of the last sync.
The program converted my relatively simple Google Calendar to Outlook 2007 with surprising accuracy. In fact, the two calendars appeared and acted very much alike. Keep in mind, I didn't transfer any tricky repeating appointments, invitations, or time-zone changes. But for my meager calendar needs, the sync was fast and comprehensive.
To sync your Google Calendar and Gmail contacts with an iPhone, simply use the phone to create a Google Sync account. Instructions for OS version 2.2 and 3.0 are on the Google Mobile Help site.
Unfortunately, Google Sync is limited in the fields it supports and doesn't let you exclude entries or deal with duplicates. These and other of the program's limitations are described on the Google Sync Help page.
Move your iPhone contacts to Gmail and Outlook, or vice-versa
Use iTunes to export your iPhone contacts to Outlook--and Gmail, if you choose not to go the Google Sync route described above. Plug your iPhone into your PC, choose the device in iTunes' left pane, and select the Info tab. Pick either Outlook or Google Contacts in the "Sync contacts from" drop-down menu. (Yahoo Address Book and Windows Address Book are the other options.) For Outlook, you can choose which groups to sync. For Gmail, you enter your user ID and password.
Your only sync options are to merge or replace the entries iTunes identifies as duplicates, and to choose between two entries pegged as conflicts. The resulting sync was full of double entries, but I would much rather deal with manually merging the dupes than losing the information either entry contains.
iTunes' sync with Google Contacts provides few options for dealing with duplicate entries.
(Credit: Apple)I'll probably spend another hour or so cleaning up the extra entries created by the contact sync, but that's much less time than I'd spend trying to replace the info.
CrossLoop is a smooth, free, and lightweight screen- and file-sharing program, formerly available only for Windows users. Earlier this month, a Mac beta version debuted offering the same features. Besides extending the feature set to Macs, the PC and Mac versions can talk to each other and share across platforms.
For those unfamiliar with the program, which uses 128-bit encryption, you're given a unique and random 12-digit access code each time you start the program. You can then share your username and code to allow somebody else to access your computer, or input another user's info to access his computer. Guests can use any app and save files on your computer, as if they were sitting in front of the machines. No router configuration is required, either. CrossLoop bases its business model on connecting freelancing tech support with those in need of assistance. It doesn't support multiple users, so it's not a good platform for group presentations.
In testing the Mac beta with CrossLoop co-founder Mrinal Desai, I noticed a virtually identical experience to the stable PC version. There were some resolution and image quality issues, which Desai assured me had more to do with bandwidth than the program itself. Although CrossLoop defaults to autodetect your pipeline, you can force it to use faster connection speeds, resulting in lower resolution, or slower speeds for higher quality images.
Although I didn't encounter any bugs when testing the beta on my own, Desai pointed out to me one major problem: dragging and dropping files to share causes CrossLoop Mac to crash. Browsing directly to the files through the program to share them causes no problems.
If you've used CrossLoop for Mac or Windows, please share your opinions in the comments below.
Back in July 2008, torrent tracker The Pirate Bay announced plans to encrypt the Internet. That hasn't happened yet, but they plan to offer a VPN tunneling service to the public starting April 1.
Dubbing the service IPREDator after the controversial Swedish Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) that takes effect the same day. IPRED's main goal is to make it easier for copyright holders to acquire the personal data of suspected illegal file sharers.
By offering a VPN service that doesn't log its traffic, IPREDator is simultaneously setting itself apart from other Web-based VPN services and offering what looks like a way to legally evade IPRED. Without logs, users will be able to exchange data without worrying about a subpoena revealing to whom the data packets were going, or what their contents were.
Other details about the new VPN service are thin, except that users will be asked to pay a small premium, approximately $6.77 or 5 euros, for the service. It's also not clear if the service will be compatible with other non-file sharing uses, or if it will try to compete with other encrypted tunneling services like LogMeIn or GoToMyPC.
The current beta is free and can be signed up for at the IPREDator site, although it's taking only 500 testers. If anybody does get a chance to use the beta service, please post about it below.
Amidst the crowd of peer-to-peer file-sharing options comes an attempt to return file-sharing to its utilitarian roots and away from legal quagmires by emphasizing file-publishing. Free and open-source, LittleShoot is the brainchild of Adam Fisk, a LimeWire developer who wants LittleShoot to be "like Google for files instead of Web pages."
LittleShoot manages torrents as well as scouring the Web for most major file formats.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Where most P2P programs are standalone clients, LittleShoot is a browser plug-in like QuickTime or Shockwave that should work with all major browsers. It utilizes an AJAX-based interface at LittleShoot.org to search, publish, and download files. Once you've downloaded and installed the plug-in, it will take you to the LittleShoot.org search page unless you opt out. From there, entering any search term will return results with hits from YouTube, IsoHunt, Flickr, Yahoo, and LimeWire. A SafeSearch option attempts to restrict inappropriate content.
The most recent version introduces torrent-handling abilities. Check out any torrent site, download the torrent, and LittleShoot will automatically start downloading it. LittleShoot lacks advanced features like throttling, but for a basic set-it-and-forget-it torrent client, it's not too shabby. Helpful links on the side make it easy to Twitter or Facebook the torrent, and a drop-down menu gives you access to dozens more sharing options.
Non-torrent files found by LittleShoot will open in a new window, but can't be downloaded directly.
Unfortunately, the publishing option wasn't working when I tested it. When you click "Browse," you can search your hard drive for files to share. Once you've chosen a file, you can tag it--however, the JPG and WMV files I tried to upload didn't work. Even with these drawbacks, LittleShoot looks like an interesting attempt to demystify file-sharing by making it more accessible than it's been so far.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Last month there was a fair amount of buzz about how iPhone apps don't have much of a shelf life. According to a recent article at TechCrunch, the average free iPhone app is used for less than 30 days before it sits inactive on the desktop or is deleted by the user.
I guess I fit in with the average iPhone user to a certain extent. I have deleted apps that I thought were pretty cool in the beginning, but no longer catch my interest. But it might be different for me because I review apps, so I need to continue to make space on my iPhone every week. On the other hand, there are some apps on my iPhone that I go back to again and again, yet I can see how people would get sick of certain gimmicky apps. I would be interested to know whether your experience lines up with the TechCrunch article so let me know in the comments.
This week's apps include a handy cloud storage utility and a classic arcade type of top-down shooter.
Navigating through your files on ZumoDrive couldn't be easier.
(Credit: CNET)ZumoDrive (free) works in tandem with a downloadable desktop client (Mac or Windows) to let you easily move and use files between your desktop, your laptop, and your iPhone. Simply install the free iPhone client and install the software appropriate to your OS. From there, your ZumoDrive will show up like another hard drive where you can easily drag files that show up almost immediately on other devices. What makes ZumoDrive exceptionally cool is that it automatically understands not to store the big files on your iPhone, but gives you access to those files from the cloud. This means that you can have your entire 30GB music collection (or any other folder of files) accessible from your iPhone. It's important to note that the free version only allows you 1GB of space to work with, but you can sign up for several different monthly plans if you need more space. I think many users will be able to get by with the free version.
Grab bonuses as you blow away planes and tanks to get the high score.
(Credit: CNET)Sky Force Reloaded is an excellent shoot-'em-up arcade game in the vein of top-down, 2D classics like 1943 and Xevious (Wikipedia links to games). Any child of the '80s and '90s who plays Sky Force Reloaded will remember hitting the fire button repeatedly at the arcade, as throngs of bad guys flew in every direction while bullets seemed to come from everywhere. Sky Force Reloaded captures the action from these classic games on your iPhone with satisfying touch-screen movement and eight levels of bad guys to blow away. You get three ships to choose from that balance armor and maneuverability to let you decide what kind of mix will work best for the onslaught. Like any good arcade game throwback, Sky Force Reloaded gives you an almost impossible boss at the end of each level to keep you coming back for more.
While there's no replacement for the joystick when it comes to control in these type of games, Sky Force Reloaded manages to make the touch-screen controls work quite well. You'll also be able to pick up better weapons, save countless humans, and gather medals for points. What more could you ask for in an arcade game?
What do you think? What's the shelf life for your iPhone apps? Do you have use for a cloud computing app like ZumoDrive? How far can you get on Sky Force at the hardest difficulty level? Let me know in the comments!
LimeWire 5.0 allows users to share files with friends on any Jabber-compatible system, as well as to have search results incorporate files from the LimeWire store.
(Credit: Lime Wire)LAS VEGAS--Get ready for the collision of social networking and peer-to-peer file sharing.
With the beta release of LimeWire 5.0 (download for Windows| Mac), which was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show here, the popular P2P service is incorporating a social element that will enable people using Jabber-compatible services like Gmail to share files with friends on their buddy lists. Lime Wire calls this a "personal sharing network."
The idea, said Lime Wire CEO George Searle, is to add trusted context to user searches for content, given that people are more likely to want--and feel comfortable with--content from people they know.
Additionally, Searle explained that the new social features of LimeWire--which has 70 million monthly unique users and more than 5 billion queries a month--will enable people to choose whether to make files available to the public at large, or just to their friends and family.
In many ways, this is much like many other content-sharing systems. But to Searle, adding a social component to LimeWire means making what is already an extremely popular service more personal to many users.
Essentially, the way the new feature works is that users will be able to decide whether to make files--photographs, for example--available to anyone on LimeWire, or just to people on their buddy lists. Similarly, users will be able to search for files from their friends. And this will take advantage of a sharing system that tens of millions of people already use, something that Lime Wire hopes will encourage many on the service to adopt the social elements.
Searle said he hopes that the social feature will allow users to trust the sources of the content they share across the system in a way that's not really possible when sharing with strangers.
Evernote, a tool Rafe Needleman and I both use regularly to take notes and archive scanned documents, put out a new and useful feature early Wednesday. Now, when attaching a file to a note it will be available everywhere else once it's been synced. If a change is made to that file, those changes get updated in all other locations shortly thereafter, mimicking the behavior of creating and syncing text notes on the service.
While not being an official hard drive in the cloud, this step brings Evernote a little closer. You still have to attach your files to a note to get it into Evernote's servers, which is a far cry from a direct file uploader (which is still possible by sending files to your special Evernote e-mail address). Files are also capped to just 25MB per note, limiting you from attaching large video files.
To help sell the new feature, which is available to both free and paying premium members, Evernote is currently restricting the types of files free users are able to sync to images (including .INK), audio files, and PDFs. Premium users get support for "any" file type, which includes things like Microsoft Office documents and video files which fall under the 25MB cap.
On a side note, if you haven't tried this service out, you really should. Over Thanksgiving break I used it to archive several boxes of childhood photographs and knickknacks using this scanning method, and it was actually a lot of fun. Everything I scanned can be viewed from the service's iPhone app, or on the Web through its Web viewer where it can be published for others to see.
Users of the desktop applications for Windows and Mac will need to upgrade to make use of the new attachment feature.
Users of Evernote's desktop applications will need to update to get the new file attachment feature.
(Credit: CNET Networks)Part community and mostly file sharing, DC++ occupies an unusual niche in the P2P game. Unlike torrents, which are direct peer connections, or centralized networks like LimeWire, DC++ manages connections to hubs. Most hubs are built around an interest, such as science fiction or movies. From there, you can chat and share files with other peers who are connected to the same hub.
However, many hubs place restrictions on connections to ensure that users are devoting their attention to the hub. The number of hubs you can connect to depends on how many Upload share slots you give, and you rarely can connect to more than four or five hubs without violating the rules of at least one of them. That results in your connection to that hub being lost. Also, many hubs have a minimum share requirement, often 1GB or 5GB.
Connecting is rather simple, but not necessarily intuitive. Create a nickname and set your share directory and the number of upload slots you'd like to give. There's a built-in public hub directory list to help people find communities they're interested in, which is searchable by keyword. Commands, such as registering your nickname with the hub so nobody else can use it, are entered into the main chat window.
There are a lot of mouse-over labels to help you understand what's going on, and since many of the communities are relatively small, people tend to be friendly in offering guidance. Hubs often employ a Help command to assist users in the rules and how-tos. Great for sharing files and chatting, DC++ has carved out a small but well-connected niche, and you can find most files you're looking for--as long as you're in the right hub.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has released an open-source, cross-platform program designed to track your packets and determine if your ISP is throttling your connection to torrents, VoIP, and other legal, high-bandwidth consuming communications. Called "Switzerland" and licensed under the GPL, it's very much in an alpha state and is only a command-line tool at the moment. Also, you're going to have to compile it yourself--that's not the most challenging task, but this isn't a simple self-extracting app.
According to the EFF, Switzerland works by spotting IP packets that have been forged or modified between clients, informing you of the change, and providing you copies of the modified packets. "The software uses a semi-P2P, server-and-many-clients architecture. Whenever the clients send packets to each other, the server will attempt to determine if any of them were dropped, forged, or modified," says the Switzerland Web site.
As far as usage goes, the EFF says that Switzerland is compatible with NAT firewalls, although some NAT firewalls may have to be disabled to test the ISP in front of it, because of the modifications that some firewalls make to packets.
I do wonder at the logic of the name, though. Referencing the "neutral" country is cute, but what's going to happen when somebody tries to find the program through a search engine? Googling "Switzerland" returns 234 million results, give or take.
Anyway, Switzerland is not the first packet-testing program around. What is special about it, though, is that unlike, for example, the plug-in for the Vuze/Azureus torrent client, Switzerland isn't tied to any host program. The open-source license, combined with the backing of a visible group like the EFF and the building awareness in both politicians and the general public of what Net Neutrality is about, could have serious ramifications for combating false promises of Net Neutrality from ISPs like Comcast.
LimeWire has spent a long time at the top of our Most Popular list for good reason--it's easy to use and gets the results people want. Though there is a certain amount of controversy surrounding file sharing, there are plenty of legal files that you can get through LimeWire. Once downloaded, you can even preview audio files with LimeWire's included media player.
Check out this First Look with Jason Parker from Download.com to get the lowdown on this extremely popular app for Mac.
