bifröst

Nokia’s PC Suite is really a nice software - if you use Windows and Outlook. But you have to find alternatives if you change one of these parameters. Maybe you run thunderbird as mailing client, so you can use tools like MobileMaster. And maybe you run linux as OS, so you can use tools like… wait… that’s the question!
Theres an XML-based format called SyncML which can be used to sync clients with a server application. The default sync client on Nokia mobiles is such a client, so why not use it? A connector for thunderbird’s addressbook and sunbird/lightning calendar is also available. So what kind of server should be used? I tried the OS version of funambol but swichted to their free online service at my.funambol.com quickly. There you can setup a push mail service for your symbian mobile phone. I didn’t try it because I have an IMAP client on my phone. You can sent a config message to your mobile which includes all the data for the sync profile. With my Nokia E51 syncing the addressbook worked fine via WiFi. One problem isn’t solved yet: some numbers aren’t replaced with the person’s name in the message inbox, although the are linked with the person in the addressbook (and I don’t have duplicates!). Let’s see if I can fix it via PC Suite when I start Windows next time.
I don’t sync the lightning calendar via funambol because you have to select which calendar you want to sync in the addon. One point is: it’s not handy to switch to the extensions config for 4 different calendars. And secondly all appointments send to the online service will be resend to the “other” calendar, which means I have duplicate entries in every calendar. I am using a google calendar connector within lightning and have some private calendars, share some calendars and use calendars shared by other persons (with writing access), so this sucks hard… I’ve found some tools for my mobile, but the don’t have all the features I need yet. One of it is open source - I want to talk about it next time.

Mozilla’s Thunderbird was updated to version 2.0.0.9 two days ago and I realized that my (self-installed) TB was still 2.0.0.6. So I started my mail client with root permissions, cause the “update thunderbird” was grey as standard user (still don’t know how to fix it, I’ve installed it manually for trying the new TB2 features).
The first problem: I got a virgin application… All my mails… GONE!!!! I don’t know why, but I got a more or less empty prefs.js, but after replacing it was an (older) security copy, everything was fine again.
And today? I found a bug that I did not notice as a bug yet. I searched for an email, I sent to myself some hours ago (from work) and I didnt find it in the inbox. But I had some duplicate entries (3 mails were shown twice). One of the new TB2 features revealed the miracle: One of these “duplicates” was my “missing” mail. I found it in a virtual folder which shows the newest mails of all of my (imap) inboxes (The are lots of possibilities to configure those kind of folders). And how to fix it? I did not find a solution yet, but a workaround: I just moved one mail to another folder, opened this folder an moved the file back: yeah, splitted again… both mails are back.