Tao’s Blog

It’s not convenient to have too many PDAs. For example, for quite some time, I was keeping multiple copies of address books. On my Tungsten E, I have one, on my Tungsten T2, I have another, on my Windows Mobile GPS device, I have a third one, then, I have an online Yahoo address book. Of course, I have at lease one for each computers I own. I have six computers in my home.

After a while, it became a nightmare to keep the address books synchronized. Having too many address books is just like having too many watches, you can no longer find the right information you need.

On my Windows computers, I use Palm Desktop to keep track of my address books, and on my Macintoshes, I use the Address Book software, which is part of the Mac OS X system.

BTW, there are two ways to back up Mac OS X Address Book:

First, go to Home -> Library -> Application Support Folder, copy the entire Address Book folder to backup disk, or

Go to File -> Backup address book, save a copy of the back up file to the back up volume.

Recently, I decided to forgo all these multiple copies and hassle of the address books. Instead, I use the most straightforward and simple way to manage my contact information. Here is my method:

Instead of using a comprehensive database to keep track of my contact information, I separate email addresses from telephone numbers. I will keep all my telephone numbers on my cell phone, and keep all my email addresses to my Gmail account. No need to save email addresses on the cell phone.

Now all I need to do is to keep my cell phone phonebook current, and my Gmail contact up-to-date. Forget those multiple address books and PDAs.

From time to time, I will back up my cell phone phonebook, save a copy to a single PDA, and upload another copy to Yahoo address book. No need to spend much time on the copying, once a couple of months is more than enough.

The purpose of having a PDA and a Yahoo Address Book copy is for emergency situations. My cell phone may break, and I may forget to carry my cell phone with me. In these situations, if I have Internet access, I can have my numbers online, or if I happen to carry my PDA, I can have the number even when I’m offline. But these situations will be very rarely. So, in general, I don’t need to worry those possibilities too much. As long as I do the backups every quarter, it will be good enough.

I don’t need to include email addresses on my PDA and Yahoo Address Book. Gmail is enough.

The best way to back up my Motorola SLVR L7 cell phone is to use an online service named GSMSync.net. You can synchronize the cell phone with this web site, and you can export a copy of the address book to a vcf, or vCard format file.

Here is the procedures to set up GSMSync.net on my Motorola SLVR L7 cell phone:

Name: sync.gsmsync.net
User Name and Password
Data path: phone book, con
Datebook cal

There is a similar online application to synchronize the cell phone calendar with Google Calendar, the name is GooSync. I tried it out, it’s OK, but not very suitable for me.

To use those online services, the cell phone must have a working WAP service.

A related topic is to use Gmail on my cell phone. To use Gmail Java applet on the cell phone, I need to set up a Web session, must be named as Java Session:

home page: http://wap.myvoicestream.com
Service Type: WAP
Proxy 1: 216.155.165.50
216.155.165.50
Port 1: 9201 9201

Service type 2 HTTP
Proxy 2 216.155.165.50
216.155.165.50
Port 8080 8080

DNS 000.000.000.000
Boh DNS 1 and 2,

Speed 9600, type Modem
Same for Line 2

GRPS APN wap.voicestream..com
wap.voicestream.com

A sunny summer morning, I think that’s August 12, I was sitting inside my car, listening to WNYC, a story about a software book caught my attention. It’s a non-fiction book, documenting the development of a software project. At that moment, I jotted down a quick note on my cell phone, and planned to go back to this topic to learn more about this book.

Unfortunately, later I discovered my cell phone note was too short, too cryptic to provide me enough information to track down this book. First, I did not write down the radio program’s name. I thought it was either On the Media or Studio 360, totally ignored the venerable Morning Edition. Also, I did not writing down the book title. Without the right information, it is almost impossible to track the book. I spent quite some fruitless time at Studio 360 and On the Media’s web sites, and you can only image my frustration.

Fortunately, my note on my cell phone has a time stamp. It’s August 12, so I went to the radio station’s web site to check the broadcasting schedule. I realized I should also check the Morning Edition’s web site archive. Bingo, here I discovered the story.

The book title is Dreaming in Code, author is Scott Rosenberg. This title is duly added to my reading list.