Addressbook sync service available for testing - Page 6

COUME · 20 Dec 2010, 05:52 PM

Thanks a lot for this great tool Jeremy - It worked fine using my main password.

I will play with it further and try to spot any potential issues.

Some issues I spotted:
- When you have entered the company and position of a contact in FB. The company field is synced but not the position field.
- the birthday field does not get synced
- The address (snail mail address for home or work) does not get synced.

N.B.: I emailed the FM support to ask the creation of a "Home email" and a "Work email" field

Thanks
Ludo

truenova · 28 Dec 2010, 11:43 AM

I tried using this and I don't know if I am doing it wrong but I cannot seem to login using my fastmail login. I tried my email address and password.

nighthawk700 · 29 Dec 2010, 09:37 AM

I finally got around to doing this. (have a sick kid at home, so have been staying home with her, gave me free time to play).

For the most part it went well. The only thing I lost, that I noticed anyway, is the nickname. I didn't use too many of them, so shouldn't be too hard to replicate. And some of the email addresses have a new "default email" for the person (when they have more than one email address). Another not too difficult thing to look for and correct. But besides now being able to sync, I've also done a good clean up of my address book(s). Some people I had three different entries on one system, and a few in the other! Now they are (almost) all consolidated back to one entry per person, synced between the two systems. Thanks!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

OK, I think I have a solution for you. Please take backups first in case this doesn't work.

To Sync when you already have GMail and FM contacts:

Download your FM addressbook (probably vCard / Mac OS X format would be best)
Upload that file to GMail contacts
Use GMail's "Duplicates" command to merge all your contacts together
Delete all your FM contacts
On the sync service screen, clear all sync state (if you've ever used it before)
Sync!

It would be great if you could try this, and let us know how it turns out. It doesn't matter whether it's FM or GMail that's empty to start - it's just important to realise that on the first sync all contacts are copied in each direction, without attempting to merge duplicates.

carra · 11 Jan 2011, 10:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

Coume: Alternate passwords are not supported by FastMail's API, so we can't do anything about that.

Carra: "Remove all sync state" clears from the system the list of which items are currently in each addressbook. If you click this, then sync again, you'll get lots of dupes! However, if you clear one of your addressbooks and want to start syncing from scratch (to overcome some problem), you can use this.

Jeremy, a silly question: why does sync go in one direction FM--->Gmail--->Mobile only?

I mean, if I change a contact in FM Addressbook it syncs in the other two addressbooks.

If I change a contact in my Mobile, it syncs with Gmail only!

Jeremy Howard · 13 Jan 2011, 02:14 PM

Not a silly question at all - but unfortunately not one I know the answer to! It certainly should work (it works for me!)...

If you modify directly in GMail, does it sync to FM?

wsb · 14 Jan 2011, 11:38 AM

Worked just fine for me.

Arjen · 3 Mar 2011, 10:49 PM

Since I now own an Android phone, and have a FastMail account, I also wanted to sync my contacts between FM and GMail. I imported all my contacts into GMail, then imported my phone's contacts there and merged them, then deleted my whole FastMail address book, then synced. It worked mostly fine, only two issues so far:

- I had two contacts with a custom phone number label in GMail (so custom text, other than home/work/mobile/etc.) - those contacts were not imported into FM at all! I solved this by using one of the default labels for one and creating a new contact for the other one. After resyncing, these contacts were correctly loaded into the FM address book, but it would be nice if it would work with the custom labels - if possible.

- I had a few contacts that were synced into FM that I didn't see in my GMail address book. One of them was an IM (Google Talk) contact that is listed in the chat buddy list in GMail but is not in my address book, the others were probably recently used addresses (?) - not sure. Anyway these also do show up when I make a CSV export from GMail, so it's probably a GMail issue.

Thanks a lot for this service! I will put it on automatic syncing and will report if I find further problems.

carra · 22 Mar 2011, 09:41 PM

Reporting back: Now works for me. It was just a matter of time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeremy Howard

Not a silly question at all - but unfortunately not one I know the answer to! It certainly should work (it works for me!)...

If you modify directly in GMail, does it sync to FM?

Goldstein · 26 Mar 2011, 03:54 AM

..I really appreciate 'creativity' of people around here.
But honestly, I would expect FastMail as premium email supplier to incorporate professional sync services (f.e. EAS) per standard. Personaly, I don't want to create a cost free Google mail account (taking additional steps) in order to sync my premium FastMail account adress book with my PDA. I can't understand this...

sundr · 26 Mar 2011, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goldstein

..I really appreciate 'creativity' of people around here.
But honestly, I would expect FastMail as premium email supplier to incorporate professional sync services (f.e. EAS) per standard. Personaly, I don't want to create a cost free Google mail account (taking additional steps) in order to sync my premium FastMail account adress book with my PDA. I can't understand this...

I don't understand this EAS hype. iPhone, Android and WP7 all support LDAP syncing. It's only oneway sync (from FM to your device) but that's how most people do it anyway. Instead of the good old calendar better use rememberthemilk.com which has apps for Android and iPhone. FastMail in connection with Remember The Milk outdoes Gmail or Windows Live EAS in any way.

rblon · 26 Mar 2011, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sundr

I don't understand this EAS hype. iPhone, Android and WP7 all support LDAP syncing.

Can you use on the iPhone/iPad FastMail ldap with SSL nowadays? In the past you couldn't (and for me that means it is a no go).

EAS would also make push on the iPhone possible, a small feature that some people care about...

sundr · 26 Mar 2011, 06:15 PM

I don't know if the LDAP works with SSL. For push you can simply use IMAP Idle, which I'm sure it supports.

rblon · 26 Mar 2011, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sundr

I don't know if the LDAP works with SSL. For push you can simply use IMAP Idle, which I'm sure it supports.

So if LDAP with SSL on the iPhone works is unknown. In the past it didn't.
iOS doesn't support IMAP IDLE. See many other threads on this forum.

sundr · 26 Mar 2011, 06:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rblon

So if LDAP with SSL on the iPhone works is unknown. In the past it didn't.
iOS doesn't support IMAP IDLE.

Whoa lame

rblon · 26 Mar 2011, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sundr

Whoa lame

indeed, a professional email service that doesn't support push on iOS....

Regarding the addressbook, I always feel an email address book is somewhat different than an addressbook on the phone, with the latter being more restrictive. From that point of view I am happy to use a Google account for the addressbook on my phone (and the calendar) and have the email addresses in FastMail. But indeed, if the FastMail address book would be available in the Mail app (using LDAP with SSL) then that be would be a good solution.

20 Dec 2010, 05:52 PM	#76
COUME Master of the @ Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Twickenham, UK Posts: 1,306	Thanks a lot for this great tool Jeremy - It worked fine using my main password. I will play with it further and try to spot any potential issues. Some issues I spotted: - When you have entered the company and position of a contact in FB. The company field is synced but not the position field. - the birthday field does not get synced - The address (snail mail address for home or work) does not get synced. N.B.: I emailed the FM support to ask the creation of a "Home email" and a "Work email" field Thanks Ludo

28 Dec 2010, 11:43 AM	#77
truenova Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 1	I tried using this and I don't know if I am doing it wrong but I cannot seem to login using my fastmail login. I tried my email address and password.

13 Jan 2011, 02:14 PM	#80
Jeremy Howard Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 11,501	Not a silly question at all - but unfortunately not one I know the answer to! It certainly should work (it works for me!)... If you modify directly in GMail, does it sync to FM?

14 Jan 2011, 11:38 AM	#81
wsb Member Join Date: Dec 2010 Posts: 42	Worked just fine for me.

3 Mar 2011, 10:49 PM	#82
Arjen Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 13	Since I now own an Android phone, and have a FastMail account, I also wanted to sync my contacts between FM and GMail. I imported all my contacts into GMail, then imported my phone's contacts there and merged them, then deleted my whole FastMail address book, then synced. It worked mostly fine, only two issues so far: - I had two contacts with a custom phone number label in GMail (so custom text, other than home/work/mobile/etc.) - those contacts were not imported into FM at all! I solved this by using one of the default labels for one and creating a new contact for the other one. After resyncing, these contacts were correctly loaded into the FM address book, but it would be nice if it would work with the custom labels - if possible. - I had a few contacts that were synced into FM that I didn't see in my GMail address book. One of them was an IM (Google Talk) contact that is listed in the chat buddy list in GMail but is not in my address book, the others were probably recently used addresses (?) - not sure. Anyway these also do show up when I make a CSV export from GMail, so it's probably a GMail issue. Thanks a lot for this service! I will put it on automatic syncing and will report if I find further problems.

26 Mar 2011, 03:54 AM	#84
Goldstein Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: UK Posts: 104	..I really appreciate 'creativity' of people around here. But honestly, I would expect FastMail as premium email supplier to incorporate professional sync services (f.e. EAS) per standard. Personaly, I don't want to create a cost free Google mail account (taking additional steps) in order to sync my premium FastMail account adress book with my PDA. I can't understand this...

26 Mar 2011, 06:15 PM	#87
sundr Member Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 48	I don't know if the LDAP works with SSL. For push you can simply use IMAP Idle, which I'm sure it supports.