I recently picked up a netbook – the Samsung NC10. As much as I love it, it threw a giant wrench in how I keep my calendars and contacts synchronized (the nerve!). In the pre-netbook days, I had my PC and my Windows Mobile device. Since I don’t use an Exchange server, I just tethered my phone to my PC and had cabled syncing. Easy. But now I have three devices to synchronize, and on top of that, I decided I don’t like cables. What’s a geek to do?

Solution (after much digging): Windows Live Mesh, Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Nueva Sync Google Sync for Windows Mobile and a couple connectors.

I’ll take you through each device to show what sync application(s) I’m using, I’ll explain why everyone – geek and non-geek alike – should check out Microsoft Live Mesh, and how Microsoft dashed my hopes for using the newly-relaunched Live services to sync calendar and contacts across three Microsoft platforms. (Yes, I’m slightly bitter.)

Calendar and Contact Syncing

File Syncing

Three words: Microsoft Live Mesh. Yes – it’s still in beta – but it works like a dream. Each device (including Windows Mobile) requires a small piece of software which runs quietly in the background. Once installed, just right-click on a folder you want to share across the devices, select “Add folder to Live Mesh…” and from then on, every time you change the contents of the folder – by modifying, adding or deleting files – those updates will be made across all devices. I can even sync my phone’s picture folder, so new photos are automatically (and wirelessly!) available to my PC and netbook.

Equally as useful as device synchronization is Live Mesh’s “desktop in the cloud.” Login to Live Mesh from any Internet-connected machine and access the synced folders. This is extremely useful for me when I’m at school and need to print documents in the computer lab. I no longer need to remember to copy my docs over to my USB stick before I leave home; because I have my school-related folders automatically synced to Live Mesh, the latest versions of all of my documents will be waiting for me wherever and whenever I need to access them.

Why Not Microsoft for Calendar and Contact Syncing?

These are three Windows-based devices that need to be synchronized. You would think Microsoft would have a way to do this. Apple has it with Mobile Me. Google has it with Android and Google Calendar. I thought, “With the new Microsoft Live relaunch, surely there will be a way to use Live as the cloud service that syncs my three devices!” Nope. Wrong. Here’s why Live fails:

• Live Calendar does not sync with Outlook Mobile’s calendar
• Live Calendar does not sync with Outlook calendar. The folks at Live make it sound like it does, but it doesn’t. The Outlook Connector simply makes the Live Calendar visible as a second calendar within Outlook, just as you would view any ordinary iCal calendar.

I hope that Microsoft will soon figure out if it wants Windows Mobile to play in the consumer space. If it does, maybe – just maybe – it will offer a user-friendly way to synchronize calendar and contacts across multiple Windows devices.

If you’ve found a different (or better) way to keep your devices in sync, or if you completely disagree with something I’ve written, please leave a comment! We geeks love to learn new things.