[plug] phone synchronisation

[James Bromberger]

Hi Greg,

I have Thunderbird, with the Lightning Plugin, and the Google Celendar
provider. Hence my calendar is actually a Google calendar, which there
by works with my Thunderbird, and natively with my Android phone. I read
my mail via IMAP from my server using Thunderbird on the desktop, and
the native IMAP client in the Android. The contacts list in the phone is
synchronised to my (not very used) GMail account.

Android is very much a "cloud phone"; most/all services work neatly with
online sync, not so much with personal workstation sync - through I've
not tried.

I think turning the question around is perhaps easier - can you get
Thunderbird to sync from the same cloud data providers that Android
would support? With calendaring (Lightning), the answer is pretty much
"yes". YMMV. Happy to discuss/show on Tuesday (next week) at the AGM.

  James

On 4/01/2011 4:39 PM, home at oranges.id.au wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> I'm thinking about experimenting with some sort of handheld device
> (which is also a phone), and synchronising it with some computer. I am
> a phone luddite, so I'm looking for ideas.
>
> I have a preference for all things Free, but functional may trump Free
> if it must. I am happy to spend a few dollars to get Free, but of
> course would be delighted to download a free copy of a phone (: I'm
> with Telstra, and coping with NextG would be a bonus but not required
> - GSM is fine.
>
> Should I be (avoiding) looking at an Android based phone? Will it
> synchronise with my Thunderbird Lightning calendar in some fashion?
> I'm not utterly committed to Thunderbird, but It Works.
>
> Synchronisation with my Gentoo machine is probably the most attractive
> option - it physically has Bluetooth but I have no idea how good is
> the support thereof. USB is good. Sync with WinXP would be a bonus.
>
> I'll stop before I waffle. Any thoughts?
>
> Cheers,
> Greg.
>
>