Screenshots of Soocial and (top) MobileMe

You have to send an important e-mail from office only to find that the e-mail address is in your home PC. It is not even in your smart mobile phone or on your Yahoo or Gmail account.

Most people have different sets of contacts on their cell phone, on their company e-mail, and a totally different set on the home PC or the webmail they use. This leads to a lot of confusion and waste of time.

The solution to this is synchronisation, one of the most under-utilised functions of any mobile phone or computer. That means keeping files, phone numbers and e-mail addresses on separate devices like your mobile phone and PCs up to date with each other. This also serves as a backup if any of your devices fails.

I have a Mac at home, a PC at work, and an iPhone. I keep them all in sync with Apple’s MobileMe. My e-mails, contacts, bookmarks and calendar stay the same wherever I check them, no matter what device I use. Any change I make on any of the devices is reflected on all of them, thanks to this concept of “cloud computing” where data are stored on the Internet.

For this luxury I pay Rs 4,500 a year. There is a 60-day trial period. I suggest that you give it a try. You get your own e-mail address with 10 GB of storage for mails. Then you get another 10 GB on iDisk. Here you can set up your own website, share pictures and documents with your friends and also give them permission to upload pictures to your gallery or edit your documents.

MobileMe (www.me.com) works with Windows PCs as well as with Mac. Setting up MobileMe to sync with your PC is simple. Ensure you have the latest version of iTunes and then install the MobileMe Control Panel. Download this from http://support.apple.com/downloads/MobileMe_Control_Panel_1_2__for_Windows_&locale=en_AP. Sign in with your MobileMe member name and password and all your settings are right there.

Carrier backup

All cellphone users should keep a backup of their contacts, at least on the computer. Some do it with the software that comes with the phone, while others don’t do it at all. That is stupid. You don’t want to lose your contacts if your phone is lost. Isn’t it a nightmare if you have to key in 600 plus contacts on a new phone?

There are other paid options to keep a backup. All mobile phone carriers, Airtel, Vodafone or Cellone, have a phone backup service. Charges may vary. Cellone’s backup service costs around Rs 30 a month. To enrol for the Cellone backup you’ll have to send an SMS SUB to 56989. For Airtel and Vodafone call the customer service and enquire about their backup options.

Free service

For those of you who may not want to pay for a synchronisation service, I was on the lookout for a free one. I stumbled upon Soocial, a web service that keeps your address books on all your PCs, the webmail services that you use and the contacts on your cellphone in one place.

Setting up an account is easy. Sign up as a new user. You’ll be sent a confirmation e-mail to verify your address. You can log in after the verification.

Next, follow these steps. Make sure GPRS is enabled on your mobile phone. There is an option Add Phone. Choose the phone model and your country. You’ll get stuck here. India is not on the list. Don’t get hassled. Just find Synchronisation in the settings of your phone and fill it up manually. Most phones have this setting. If you cannot find it look for SyncML. Create a new account and call it Soocial. Then do the following:

1. Server: sync.soocial.com

2. Username: your Soocial username

3. Password: your Soocial password

4. Port: 80

5. Set to include contacts synchronisation

Other fields don’t matter, but make sure your phone’s Internet connection is working properly.

Next add Gmail followed by Outlook and if you own a Mac add that too. Now all your contacts are in one place. Any change anywhere will be reflected throughout your other devices — for free.

Send in your computer-related problems to askdoss@abpmail.com. The solutions will appear soon.

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