[arosa]

I just discovered a combination of services that allows for over-the-air syncing between Mac contacts and calendar and ANY Blackberry -- but this is particularly useful for the newer "high-speed" BBs that aren't really supported yet by PocketMac or Missing Sync.

I scoured the BB forums like crazy for a week trying to find a syncing solution to my BB Pearl 8120 and my Mac. I employed ALL the supposed fixes -- even had a tech guy from PockMac walk me through one -- and the bottom line is my Mac doesn't recognize my BB no matter what I do (nor my kids' PCs with DM). No recognition no syncing. So on to other solutions ...

Basically, an over-the-air sync of contacts and calendars is now possible because Google has just allowed syncing of its contacts to handhelds and other apps/services. (I don't pretend to know how this all works, but it involves something called API that I've been reading about ...)

I am basically using Google contacts and calendar as a middle man in getting my data from my Mac to my BB. It's very easy -- you just open a Gmail account, and import your contacts and calendar into Google's contacts and calendar. Then you sign up for GooSync, which will sync these contacts and calendar with your BB via a SyncML app called SyncJe.

Now, so that you don't have to manually update your contacts and calendar in Google -- there is SpanningSync, which will automatically sync your Apple iCal data and Address Book with Google calendar and contacts! Voila! This makes for automatic OTA syncing that you never have to think about again, plus all your contacts and calendar data is stored on Google's server in case your Mac or BB are ever stolen (perish the thought.)

And for all you Entourage users (like me) you can sync your Entourage data with SpanningSync like this (they don't support direct Entourage syncing yet but say they are going to):

- TO MAKE ENTOURAGE CALENDAR WORK WITH SPANNINGSYNC: After you've updated your calendar to the point you'd like to see it on your BB, open up iCal and import your Entourage calendar into it. (I do this a lot, so you need to delete the old Entourage calendar in iCal first and then re-import your updated version.) Make sure your imports are always called "Entourage" in iCal. It is this "Entourage" labeled calendar in iCal that you can set to sync with Google calendar in SpanningSync. Then manually sync in SpanningSync, or wait for the interval that you set SpanningSync to sync at.

- TO MAKE ENTOURAGE CONTACTS WORK WITH SPANNINGSYNC: This is way easier and automatic. You can go into Entourage Preferences --> Sync Services and check the box that says to sync with Address Book and .Mac.

If you only use iCal and Address Book, you can set-it-and-forget-it, because that is what SpanningSync uses to sync to Google calendar and contacts.

Okay, so you've got your Mac contacts and calendar syncing automatically to Google via SpanningSync, and then you've got your Google contacts and calendar syncing to your Blackberry via GooSync. That's it in a nutshell.

Getting GooSync up and running takes some time and effort (GooSync tech support is fast and good), and it requires the purchase of an SyncML app called SyncJe, which then has to be configured to work with GooSync's servers. It is this SyncJe app (OTA download to BB) that does the syncing on the BB.

Both the SyncJe and SpanningSync offer a free 15 day trial to see if this works for you. After that SyncJe is a $40 one-time fee and SpanningSync is $25/yr subscription or $65 for a permanent license.

GooSync operates out of the UK and is 19 GBP or $40 per year. There is a free trial for GooSync to sync your Google calendar to your BB, which allows you to see if the process works for you. And then once you pay the real prize is getting your Google contacts to sync to your BB -- Google already makes a BB app that lets you syc between its calendar and your BB. So the benefit of GooSync is getting BOTH your contacts and calendar syncing to your BB.

Every penny I paid for these services is well worth it, as we Crackberry addicts know you can't put a price on functionality with our devices. I realize this is a long and possibly confusing post, but I wanted to share this solution, which at first seemed elusive to this particular problem of new BBs not syncing with Macs. I have not seen this posted anywhere else and plan to post on another BB forum or two.

Good Luck!