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BlackBerry 7130e: A Problem of Syncronization |
I love my BlackBerry and I've mostly learned to work with
it despite several problems. Synchronization is very imperfect—even
my old Palm III's synchronization was not perfect, but it
seemed to work much better. I am a very big user of David
Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity methods. This
means that I am a very heavy user of Outlook Tasks, Calendar,
and Contacts. Unlike my old Palm III, whose main limitation
was the number of allowable categories, the implementation
of the PIM function on my BlackBerry handheld seems like
and afterthought. It's too bad that you can't get best-in-class
PIM functionality along with the best-in-class e-mail service
that BlackBerry offers.
My setup may not be the most typical, but surely it is not
uncommon. We have a BlackBerry enterprise server at the office,
and my e-mail and PIM programs wirelessly sync with my office
computer. I sync to my home laptop via a USB connection using
the BlackBerry desktop software.
My gripes are:
1) If I move a message to a subfolder of my inbox in Outlook,
these changes are mirrored on the BlackBerry. But if I move
a message out of the Outlook inbox and onto an archive folder
on my hard drive, it remains in the BlackBerry inbox. This
is wrong. Unneeded e-mails clog the handheld inbox. The proper
state of an inbox for users of (GTD) is empty. So I either
have to delete twice or let it go.
2) The tasks application on the BlackBerry handheld stinks.
I would love to review, purge, and edit my tasks when I'm
out with just the handheld, but this is very difficult. The
problem is with categories. If I filter to a category like "At
Computer" I see my list of tasks. If I mark one as completed,
I get an empty list when I am done, saying *No Tasks*. I
then have to go back and choose again the category I was
working on. It takes a total of 4 actions to mark a task
complete and return to my list. This is no way to get things
done.
3) Synchronizing
a) If I delete a task or a contact in Outlook at the office,
it is wireless synched with the handheld. But if I then want
to sync with my home laptop, I have to turn off wireless
sync by opening and changing the option on each application.
This is a drag.
b) More importantly, if I go through my tasks list on my
home computer (which has 183 items on it right now I am sorry
to say), and delete a completed item, then re-sync with my
office computer, guess what? They are back! Adjusting the
sync settings does not help, nor does reviewing the conflicts
in this case. If 5 changes are what you want and 5 are not,
you only choices are to accept them all or reject them all.
It won't let you decide one-by-one. It would seem that the
software can't detect a deleted item, so it always overwrites
with the existing item on the other system. I have learned
to always delete items from work if I want them to get deleted
at home—the other way does not work.
c) When you shift back to wireless sync, it says some of
your changes might be lost. Which ones? What caused it? How
can I avoid it? No help at all on these questions.
There may be very good technical reasons why things don't
work very well that require users to work around the issues.
The problem is that these are not documented. It is as if
the creators are afraid of admitting the flaws. But users
can only guess at how the device/system really behaves using
trial and error as a guide. Bottom line: I love my BlackBerry
and I would not be without it, but users and potential users
should be aware of several undocumented limitations if they
want to sync at both home and the office.
p.s. If anyone can suggest other workarounds or knows the
solution to these problems, please write, and we'll add them
here.
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