When I started using the iPhone, I started using Apple's me.com service to synchronize contacts between my iPhone, iPod and Gmail, but was very disappointed, it's slow and unreliable. What is more, it doesn't work with Google calendars.

While there are some solutions for the Mac to sync with Google Calendars, it took me a while to find a solution which works under Windows. After a bit of Googling, I found www.nuevasync.com which emulates Microsoft Exchange and lets you wirelessly synch Google Contacts and Calendars with iPhone and iPods .

While the registration site is a bit slow and clunky, once you get it up and running, it works like a dream. Enter an appointment in my iPhone and it shows up on my PC within minutes, ditto the other way around. Brilliant. And it's cheap: free.

The procedure for setting it up is pretty straightforward, just make sure you start with the right contacts and appointments on Google when you set it up, because the iPhone software will wipe everything before downloading Google's contact and calendar information.

There is a good description about the install at The iLife

Presumably, Apple has decided on Optus as its local partner for the iPhone, a natural fit in the light of their long relationship. Of course Telstra has a real shortage of interesting handsets, due to their decision to adopt an unusual 3 Generation network configuration, not supported by mainstream handsets.

As far as any company sticking to its knitting is concerned, I've been waiting for a Telstra Broadband connection in our new office for the past month. And its mobile broadband network went down in our local area for over 24 hours and they couldn't tell me when it would get back up. We gave up and worked from home.

While Sun clearly has a policy, many companies still haven't thought through the consequences of having employees with their own "voice". At the other extreme, I admire the hands-off policy with which Microsoft deals with this issue. Many Microsofties have their own blogs without "adult supervision". The overall effect is to make Microsoft look more human and "plugged-in" to opinion leaders.

I have always thought that adding blogging to a Content Management System was superfluous, with excellent low cost blogging tools around, why bother? And in any case, corporate blogs are easily suspected of astroturfing. So now that I work for Ektron, a vendor which has a blogging tool integrated with its CMS... I just started a CMS400 based blog.

Hold your derisive laughter please, I started the blog on Ektron's intranet. It lets me "tell the inside story" of Ektron's new office down here, and gives me a voice around the office of a company which is at the other side of the world. And the setup costs were close to nothing, the security and privacy are managed by the "host system" and it has seamless integration with other Intranet based sub-systems.

While I continue to be an independent director of ConverterTechnology Inc, most of my time will be spent in the role of Managing Directior of Ektron Pty Ltd. I expect to continue to occasionally post on this weblog, with a focus on subjects relevant to those who buiild and maintain websites for a living. Mind you, the opinions expressed here are strictly my own and do not necessarily reflect Ektron's views.

[Pity the website does such a poor job with screen fonts in Firefox]

The graphic shows one of the findings of a survey, held by Sitepoint ( an online resource for developers) and Ektron (a well known mid market commercial CMS vendor). Over 36 % of developers prefer to eat their own dog food. Only 10% use commercial systems.

Why?

• It can't be cost - there are quite a few free, open source systems.
• It can't be features - there are some very capable commercial systems out there.
• Is it because in-house systems are superior ?
• Do web developers prefer maintaining their own code?
• What do their customers ask for?

In IT, failure is a common experience, and as an industry we have a poor reputation. Whatever the reason for this failure, it was most likely just one link in the chain. The website works fine, the automated buoys are riding the waves measuring the height. To keep things going needs a close integration between systems, often mediated by mere mortals. Responding to a failure within an hour but letting the problem "go through to the keeper" doesn't help anyone. Having a public website means that your agility and customer focus is on public view 24hrs per day, even on long weekends. A reason to look at our own efforts and whether they stand up to scrutiny, rather than just a reason to complain...

By the way, if you expect a pdf download when you request the "free booklet" from Tedopres, the company mentioned in the TCW post, you'll be disappointed. All I got after giving them all my contact information was an email promising that they'll get back to me. A dumb move of their part. I could not find any privacy information on their site either ( I should have looked for that earlier) and the result is an unhappy prospective customer (me). Giving me instant access to the booklet and following up with a sales call later would have been a much more productive move on their part.

Later: James Robertson pointed me to this paper by Susan Harkus and Tomoko Gondow about writing for translation, food for thought!

"With Apollo, Adobe hopes to provide a third alternative that provides the same cross-platform capabilities of a web browser, but with a richer set of features -- such as the ability to work when the computer is not connected to the Internet."

Flash didn't fulfil Macromedia's ambition as an interactive application platform within the browser, because Ajax won the hearts and minds of the HTML/Javascript crowd. I wonder if they'll have more success on the Desktop against the .NET etc crowd? And whether the future is on the Desktop or within the Browser?

A couple of weeks ago, it gave the air to Jaron Lanier, that entertaining self-publicist. He is no longer obessed with Virtual Reality, but is now a critic of the collective wisdom of crowds. Listen to it here (mp3) or, for Jonathon, here is the transcript.

Wikipedia consistently manages to attract a broad range of critics across the spectrum of the litarary and traditional publishing elites, while ever getting much use. There must be a message there somewhere...