[msalmank]

Hi All!

I'm a newbie in the Blackberry world, having finally gotten my hands on a Bold 9900, and i'm loving it so far. My biggest concern right now is that my company does not use Blackberry Exchange Server... so though I am able to use my Exchange email account over BIS, i am unable to synchronize my contacts and calendar with my Blackberry. The biggest hassle is that our company doesn't use Outlook either - but a custom program for emails, so i can't set up the device to sync with Outlook!

I searched around and found AstraSync - an app that promises to provide me the functionality that i so desperately need! and though I found various threads concerning the application in question, not much satisfaction was gained from the ones that i did read.

Any of you use AstraSync for your needs? I don't need it to sync my email but just calendar and contacts...

There's also this 7-day trial for that app that i decided to make use of. But after i had installed and configured, it somehow ended up not only getting my appointments from exchange but also synced back up to it as new appointments from the device thus resulting in there being duplicates of the appointments! And so i ended up removing the application after that.

Can anyone confirm if this app is an appropriate one? I'm sure it was just a configuration thing that resulted in my appointments being duplicated, but have you ever had that happen to you with this app?

Feel free to chime in with alternative applications as well!

Regards.
Salman Khalid.

[Trialsman]

Hello, Salman.

What custom email program does your workplace use?

I see that AstraSync uses Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. That is why it costs $49 per year. And you are forced to use their custom email client on your BB.

This week I'm going to offer a beta test of my own sync service. It might work for you depending on what mail program you use. It's being discussed in the thread "BB PIM sync service beta testing needed". If you want to try my service...

But it all depends on what email client you use.

Trialsman

[msalmank]

Hello, Salman.

What custom email program does your workplace use?

I see that AstraSync uses Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. That is why it costs $49 per year. And you are forced to use their custom email client on your BB.

This week I'm going to offer a beta test of my own sync service. It might work for you depending on what mail program you use. It's being discussed in the thread "BB PIM sync service beta testing needed". If you want to try my service...

But it all depends on what email client you use.

Trialsman

Interesting! I'm a senior developer at Tradepoint 360 where we offer a ERP solution among other things, and thus use Tradepoint Enterprise for our emails as well. I am not restricted from using Outlook, but the advantage of using emails within our software is that it gets tracked against customers, can be linked to projects, tasks, etc. and thus i'd only be using Outlook for syncing to the cell phone which doesn't really make sense. If only Outlook offered the capability of syncing only appointments and such and not emails!

Anyways... One thing i liked about Astra Sync is that it "does" not force you to use its email client. When i configured my account in it, it let me check off email and only tell it to sync Tasks and Calendar... which was good 'coz i like how my email works over BIS on the BB.

I don't believe your software would be able to interface with our client application, but if it does work directly with Exchange? I'll check out your other thread...

Regards.
Salman Khalid.

[Trialsman]

Interesting! I'm a senior developer at Tradepoint 360 where we offer a ERP solution among other things, and thus use Tradepoint Enterprise for our emails as well. I am not restricted from using Outlook, but the advantage of using emails within our software is that it gets tracked against customers, can be linked to projects, tasks, etc. and thus i'd only be using Outlook for syncing to the cell phone which doesn't really make sense. If only Outlook offered the capability of syncing only appointments and such and not emails!

Anyways... One thing i liked about Astra Sync is that it "does" not force you to use its email client. When i configured my account in it, it let me check off email and only tell it to sync Tasks and Calendar... which was good 'coz i like how my email works over BIS on the BB.

I don't believe your software would be able to interface with our client application, but if it does work directly with Exchange? I'll check out your other thread...

Regards.
Salman Khalid.

Silly me... What was I thinking? I am not even offering Email sync, as I agree with you that I like the way my BB works already.

I have a computer running MS Outlook, with no email accounts set up, and I am syncing: Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes.

I have another computer running Thunderbird w/ Lightning Calendar and I am syncing: Contacts, Calendars, Tasks (no Notes because there is no support in Thunderbird yet).

Works great on both. Sounds like it will do what you need. The beta test opens this week.

Trialsman

[msalmank]

Silly me... What was I thinking? I am not even offering Email sync, as I agree with you that I like the way my BB works already.

I have a computer running MS Outlook, with no email accounts set up, and I am syncing: Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes.

I have another computer running Thunderbird w/ Lightning Calendar and I am syncing: Contacts, Calendars, Tasks (no Notes because there is no support in Thunderbird yet).

Works great on both. Sounds like it will do what you need. The beta test opens this week.

Trialsman

lol!! Oh well, but you can't blame me for thinking that...! There are so many apps out there but really hard to find good ones. But for sure... me looking forward for the beta test to open up for your app!