Goosync syncs your cellphone with Google Calendar

Goosync has made me the happiest man in the world today. The happiest! Really! How happy am I? Well, for the first time in my life, I've put an image at the centre of my blogpost! That's how happy I am.

The DREAM of synchronizing my cellphone with Google Calendar has almost been forgotten until today. I tried various ways of doing it, using the iCal specification, using various MAPI hacks with Outlook, sharing here and sharing there, and all of these either don't work or work with so much resource overhead, or have serious deficiencies.

FORGET ALL THAT NOW!

GOOSYNC ENABLES YOU TO SYNC YOUR CELLPHONE OVER THE AIR WITH GOOGLE CALENDAR!

Here's how it does it.

1. Register at Goosync.
2. Enter the normal crap, and then, they will want your google password. If you're afraid, do this.... make another google account (new google account), just for this, empty of everything, and share this new google account calendar with your normal google account or google hosted account. Then share your google hosted or normal google account with this new google account's calendar. So now it reads and writes both ways. This way, you'll protect your normal google account and any hacker who gets the new google account password is only limited to seeing your calendar, so that limits the damage. [Edit: Shared events don't seem to update anymore. Also, you can use your google hosted account by entering myname@domain.com at the username under Google Credentials.]
   
3. Goosync will send you a SMS message with autoconfiguration code. Enter the password Goosync gives you and Accept the changes it contains.
4. Then go to your cellphone's remote sync function, and run the goosync code, and you're synched both ways via GPRS, 3G GPRS or any damn internet connection your phone has.
   

Now this fulfils my dream in more ways than I anticipated. Now I can sync without my computer. I don't need the cable and all the problems which come with USB synchronization.

Now, Google, please go buy Goosync. They've earned it. Just 5 million bucks. They've made me happier than you have. Goosync, I love you. I love you. I love you.

Google Calendar now supports SMS in Singapore

Google Calendar now supports SMS in Singapore and other countries! This is lovely! SMS notifications of events etc. FREE OF CHARGE.

This has been a long long awaited feature, now I'm investigating how the other Google services can use my cellphone. Stay tuned.

JAJAH - free phone to phone, anywhere, any phone

Just take a look at http://jajah.com

Finally, phone to phone conversations, potentially free, between any phone anywhere in the world. All you have to do is to register your phone numbers at Jajah, access a web page, key in your call receipient's phone number, and press call. Phone to phone VOIP, simply!

`Potentially free' is because it's only free if your receipient's phone number is also registered with Jajah. But this isn't an issue. You could simply register your `computer blind' friends with Jajah using other email addresses under your name, and their numbers are registered, not strictly correctly, but sufficient to make free calls to them.

And you can SMS too, through the browser, but at US$0.045 per SMS, even between registered users, I think there're cheaper solutions elsewhere.

So, what if you're out without a computer? Shouldn't be a problem, if your mobile phone has a web browser. I faced issues though, accessing the Jajah webpage gave me parsing errors on my Sony Ericsson M600 phone browser (Opera 8.6). Will be looking for a solution.

In the meantime, just call away.

Update: The thing is that Jajah checks your IP, determines the network location, then fixes your country code. So this limits you to some extent if you try to register for people outside your country. Some countries (specifically Malaysia) have a problem - they can't register. Perhaps Jajah withdrew support for Malaysia.

For the lucky ones in free countries, my M600 is working now, with Opera Mini 2.0, downloadable from http://mini.opera.com

Time has come for Phones to kick Point and Shoot butt

I always chose phones based on functionality, and my present phone is a Nokia Communicator 9500.

It's the last of the line though. My new phones will be based on megapixel count. The time has come that a good 3.2 megapixel autofocus handphone with a Xenon flash will kick Point and Shoot butt - the Sony Ericsoon K800i - which even comes with an image stabilizer (whether it's digital or optical remains to be seen, but .... ain't that important to me).