Month: November 2010

more on BlackBerry syncing

After some finagling today, I figured out that I could keep using Missing Sync for my calendars if I just created a single dummy calendar on my Mac in iCal. It syncs my “real” calendars as read-only now, but I’m OK with that.

I’m still not sure what I’m going to do for my next phone, but if I was interested in Android, I’d be looking at the Droid Pro or maybe the Samsung Continuum.

syncing BlackBerry and Mac

I’ve been using Missing Sync with my BlackBerry Storm, just to sync my contacts and calendar from my Mac. I’ve had problems with it, on and off, but it’s mostly worked OK. Since I’ve switched to the new MobileMe Calendar though, the calendar sync doesn’t work anymore. Mark/Space has a KB entry acknowledging this, but there’s no indication that they’re planning to fix the problem.

I’m eligible for a “new every two” discount from Verizon soon, and I’m wondering if I should stick with BlackBerry. If Verizon really does get the iPhone, that would really simplify the sync situation for me. On the other hand, if I switch to an Android device, that’ll make it more complicated. I’ve been playing around with options for syncing iCal and Address Book on the Mac with Google contacts and calendars. It turns out to be really easy to sync the address book with Google — the option is right there in the preference screen. There’s no such option in iCal, but it seems like I ought to be able to subscribe to a MobileMe calendar in Google calendar, though I apparently would have to make the calendar public to do that.

I’m wondering if Spanning Sync would be worth looking into. It’s kind of expensive for what it does though. And I occasionally think I should switch over to using the calendar that comes with my Backpack account. I could use that as the source, and subscribe to it in iCal and Google.

Meanwhile, I’ve ordered my usual Moleskine calendar for 2011.

Doctor Strange

I just finished reading Doctor Strange: The Oath, by Brian K. Vaughn and Marcos Martin. I stopped buying comics about a year ago, but I still have a big pile of unread books. This mini-series was published back in 2006, so that’s how far behind I am. This is a good standalone story. It’s respectful to the characters involved, which I appreciate. The art is quite good too — a little reminiscent of Ditko, and maybe even a bit of Kirby in places. Nice and clean, and not flashy, except when it needs to be.

There’s an article on CBR where Vaughn discusses his approach to Strange and his goals for the series. If you think you might be interested in picking this up as a trade, go read it. It’ll give you a good idea of whether or not this series would be your cup of tea.