Yahoo Autosync (Intellisync) no longer working

Yahoo Autosync seems to be another of those services that Yahoo paid for during the boom times, but seem to have forgotten about long ago (like Yahoo Desktop Search). As with YDS, it was possible to find old installers lying around, and the service itself still worked, but it now seems to be having problems.

I depend on YDS for syncing the Yahoo Mail/Calendar account that my partner and I share, with a secondary Outlook calendar (my primary one being my main work Exchange account). That way, I can easily view what both I, and we, are up to, and copy across appointments so that my partner knows which flights I’m taking, etc. etc.

However, Yahoo Sync now reports “Connection to Yahoo Server was lost”, and the log file shows:

LOG_ERROR 2009:07:24_17:33:44 File: XMLHelper.cpp (line 95)
Error while parsing response from server:junk after document element at line 1
LOG_ERROR 2009:07:24_17:34:03 File: ErrorMessage.cpp (line 191)
0012DEA4

Not good!

So I’m now up Relationship Creek without an calendar sync paddle. How long before I miss an appointment, and end up on the rocks? I can get by with my iPhone, which does great sync with Yahoos’ beta CalDAV servers, but then the entry’s in one or the other – iPhone doesn’t support copy/pasting an entry so that it’s in BOTH.

Orb App for the iPhone review

I’ve used Orb since v1 on the PC, and love it. I just dump my movies, videos, photos, music on my hard disc as normal, and then they’re available over the web if I so choose.

From the reviews, I was expecting nothing to work. But it does! I run the app, log in (only needed first time), and browse around my media looking for something to play.

The free version only shows you 3 items in any folder. Well, if you want, you could just have a max 3 items in any directory, and then you can watch everything using the free version. £5.99 isn’t worth rearranging your entire hard disc though, and the webcam still needs the paid version.

Once you hit play – then it plays! Now… Orb traditionally uses a web browser, and indeed you can just go to the iPhone Orb site and browse your collection through Safari. The only problem is, the Orb team have turned off transcoding to MP4 or whatever the native iPhone format is. So if your media is stored in iPhone format – you can just use the web client, and don’t need this app. But if you want your PC to transcode the media on the fly, you have to use this app to receive it. Maybe it’s how they raise funds to pay for the encoder on your PC.

Anyway… I tried playing 6 movies, and they all worked. Tried skipping position (which Orb on PC often used to fail on) – that worked. Stutter on one video, but another was fine. Overall, I’m pretty impressed.

Regards comments on quality and stuttering: I think that could be your slow DSL uplink speed. That’s always been the limiter for me, and it always goes via the Internet, even if you’re using it at home.

As for the TV card… Well, mine’s never worked with v2 of Orb server. I think that’s my old, dodgy tv card.

So… If you’re already an Orb user, then this iPhone version seems to work pretty well. If you’re new to Orb… Well, as a whole it can just be flakey, so try the free version, and if you don’t like it, try another product.

Footnote: OK, on my demo for the snapshots, the screen stayed fized after one skip while the audio continued. It’s not perfect… But it’s OK. However, I would note that almost no updates have happened in the past year. I suspect Orb are just scraping along, so perhaps look elsewhere for an app from a new, fresh company, if there is one.

Syncing iPhone with SyncML – Funambol rocks!

Ok, so here’s the scenario.

I have two phones. One is my new iPhone. The other is an old SonyEricsson K610i. I’m using the iPhone for data, email, and exchange sync, and the K610i for voice.

So how do I sync the contacts between these, and keep them up to date?

Well… I was hoping to use Yahoo – my mail Webmail account is Yahoo, I use Yahoo Desktop sync for syncing a shared calendar in another account with a second Outlook calendar. But because I need to keep that, I couldn’t also use the app to sync a second account.

So I found Funambol. First, I went to the website and set up an account. By doing this, it sent an SMS to my mobile (the dumb K610i) with all the SyncML settings needed to connect and sync – even username/password. I accepted this, only changing the data account used, and removing the calendar sync.

I installed the iPhone app, and with a single run, it immediately sent my entire address book up to their servers.

Then I hit sync on the K610i, and it immediately downloaded the same 560 contacts!

All looks fine. The K610i has a few entries at the top with “No name”, but that’s because they have a company name, but no Full Name. Something most phones handle, but not this old one.

So – mobile cross-device contact sync in 10 minutes. And if I receive a new contact, I can just hit sync on both. Fantastic!