Longer than usual post:
I’ve just spent an irritating 48 hours trying to figure out how to sync my Calendar and Contacts/Address Book data between my Mac and my BlackBerry. When I was on the Miami University BES server, I used Entourage to do this. But Cincinnati Bell’s advice was to use PocketMac to sync my Apple iCal and Address Book data to the BB.
I found PocketMac to be of no use on my current Mac, an older iBook G3 running 10.4.11. I installed and Uninstalled it several times, following BlackBerry’s advice to the letter, but I never got it to open right. And it seems to have corrupted my .Mac settings to boot. Judging from a Google search, I’m not alone in this frustration.
Why would Apple and RIM push such a piece of junk forward? I suppose Apple has no interest in helping a competitor to its iPhone. But why wouldn’t RIM do better helping out a non-negligible base of Mac-loving BlackBerry users?
I finally found the solution, thanks to one frustrated poster on BB’s message board: scrap the Apple programs and use Google Calendar and Contacts. Just:
- save the data from both iCal and Address Book
- set up the corresponding Google Calendar and Google Contacts
- upload your data
- add Google Sync to your BlackBerry
- do initial syncs (takes a while)
I ran into one problem with Google Contacts. I’d forgotten that I had previously set it up long ago. It added my new uploads, most of which were duplicates of existing names. I could see their existence via the record count but they didn’t appear on screen. Google Sync worked fine for my Calendar but Contacts crashed. I signed out, Quit Firefox and opened Safari. Safari showed the duplicates, so I selected and Deleted them all. Problem solved.
Another irritant: PocketMac is “free” on the PocketMac site — but they charge a fee for downloads! It’s truly free on the RIM/Blackberry site, though. PocketMac does have a semi-cool Mac-like theme for a couple of bucks extra if you download (above).
I may forget about iCal and Address Book. I could Export the Google data and import it back to the Apple apps, but that may be more trouble than it’s worth.
I may cross-post this on the Help Desk blog.
cleve callison’s blog 
You know, technology is a wonderful thing, but there are moments when all the various proprietary bits of software and hardware collude to thwart our attempts at organizing our lives.
Right now I’m trying to determine to what cell phone and system I wish to use for coordinating my contacts, events, tasks, to-do lists, etc. I’m looking to settle on a system that will work for many years into the future (Apple’s iPhone and iTunes come to mind), but there are so many choices and options.
It’s really more of a headache than it may be worth.
Some days I think it’s time to return to a very basic cell phone, fire up my old Palm Zire 31 PDA and call it a day.