Cross Sync iCal – Exchange – iPhone (Replacing MobileMe)

It all started when I wanted to sync the Outlook Exchange server at work, with my iPod Touch. And then I realized that it did not allow cross syncing on my iCal! So it was either iPod Exchange or iPod iCal.

How annoying!

And I also learnt that the way to do that was with MobileMe. So, I pay 79EUR/year for MobileMe, and I get like cross-syncing due to the over-the-air syncing or something which syncs everything from email, calendar, photos and more online disk space.

Anyway, I gave it a shot, and went in for the FREE 60-day trial. Because well, I like free stuff. I took out my Credit Card, and started MobileMe.

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It didn’t change my life. I didn’t want to spend 79EUR/year to sync my contacts.

Plus the disk space was too little as well.

And I’m just a cheapskate.
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So I ventured into finding alternatives and I decided to use all the free alternatives.

1. Mail: Gmail is the best web-based (and now Offline with Gears) email ever. And this coming 1st April 2009, it is Gmail’s 5th anniversary. I heard we’re going to have some surprises, like European localization and who knows, more space? Or maybe it will have excellent vertalen facilities so that nobody has to listen to my bad Nederlands in my emails ever again. For the record, I’ve used Gmail for a VERY long time, had those invites.

2. Calendar: Google Calendar will sync this up for you, and save the 79EUR/year. Google Calendar would just have to be the center, so download the Google Calendar Sync on your PC (Which uses Outlook I assume). Ignore the one-way setup and click on the two-way syncing option because you want whatever you updated on your outlook to be present on your Google Calendar and vice versa. Next install Calaboration on your Mac. Similarly click on the two-way syncing as well. With this, Google Calendar will be the centralized area to sync things together – just needs a little setup. Such that your Exchange will sync with the Google Calendar which will sync with your iCal! It works, at least for me!

3. Photos: I use Picasa and Flickr. Picasa gives you 1GB of online space, so upload your photos in the small way just for sharing the friends. Flickr gives you 100MB of online space a month, so upload once a month. Unless you are a photographer or something you shouldn’t be looking for free photo stuff anyway. For the record, I used to use Smugmug for the past four years. I canceled it, but its another story.

4. Storage: iDrive is FREE for the online storage for 2GB. However, they do give ten more if you add everyone in your contact list and give it to them. So yes I think I annoyed a whole lot of people this way, but I have 12GB of free space.

So yes, this is the way I did it. Its annoying to set up? Well, yeah. But hey, everything is free! (And my calendars are syncing)