Checking Account Mgmt - OTA Sync? - General Questions and Answers

I've been trying to find an app to manage my checking account. I currently don't even use the paper check register. I just try to keep a good buffer of money in my account so I don't need to keep track. This hasn't worked well and I need to start managing my money better.
Since MS Money is out of the picture, I was going to start using Quicken, but I don't see any current apps out there that will sync from a WM phone. I'd love to be able to enter a purchase on my phone and have it sync up, but I've searched and come up empty.
Here's a few apps I've looked into, all outdated:
- Pocket Quicken
- Pocket Money
- SPB Finance
Of the three, I can't even figure out if they sync with a desktop installation.
Has anyone found a comfortable, usable solution for something like this? If not, I'll just go back to the paper check register or Quicken alone.

Related

Stock ATT Fuze - Contacts Fun!

All:
I've searched a few times, and can't find an answer to what I think is a simple question... perhaps I don't know what to search for?
I'm looking for an easy way (i.e. non-outlook-installing) to manage my contacts via PC. I've just purchased the phone this week, and putting all of the contacts in by hand, while quicker than any other phone I've ever had, is rather time consuming.
Is there any way to do the following?
1. Have a small app on the PC that can work via Activesync (or otherwise?) to keep the contact information manageable.
2. A How-to on using a computer as a bluetooth keyboard to simplify putting in contacts.
I'm a few clicks away from installing the Outlook 2007 trial for this just to get the contacts loaded, but since it's a trial, I see that as a sub-prime way to manage the contacts permanently. I understand that I could move all contacts out of my old phone onto the SIM card, but having an alternative on the PC would give me the ability to add/edit in the future in a quicker manner.
Thanks in advance,
Matthew S. LaComb
figured it out
I'm such a noob -- found this site after perusing the forums:
http://blownfuze.org/
Found a link to mymobile; this app allows you to see and control the phone (must use activesync and windows)
http://blownfuze.org/files/MyMobile123_06152008.exe
Awesome!
google sync
Try Chapura
I just got my fuze two days ago - Chapura's pocket mirror should solve your problem but if you're thing about playing around with ROMS - flash first and then you won't have to re-install.
Works great with multiple folders and large databases. I've been using their products on my palms for years.
Good luck!
mlacomb said:
All:
I've searched a few times, and can't find an answer to what I think is a simple question... perhaps I don't know what to search for?
I'm looking for an easy way (i.e. non-outlook-installing) to manage my contacts via PC. I've just purchased the phone this week, and putting all of the contacts in by hand, while quicker than any other phone I've ever had, is rather time consuming.
Is there any way to do the following?
1. Have a small app on the PC that can work via Activesync (or otherwise?) to keep the contact information manageable.
2. A How-to on using a computer as a bluetooth keyboard to simplify putting in contacts.
I'm a few clicks away from installing the Outlook 2007 trial for this just to get the contacts loaded, but since it's a trial, I see that as a sub-prime way to manage the contacts permanently. I understand that I could move all contacts out of my old phone onto the SIM card, but having an alternative on the PC would give me the ability to add/edit in the future in a quicker manner.
Thanks in advance,
Matthew S. LaComb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

any way to prtevent activesync from eating contacts?

hope this is in the right place here...
so, this weekend i finally managed to sync my contacts list into oblivion. thank you very much, activesync.
what i did is, i reinstalled my desktop system, which i do more or less regularly to keep it lean. some time ago i bought outlook 2007, specifically to have a backup in case i lost my phone (touch hd) or something. now after i had setup the new installation of win7 rc and wanted to sync, it wouldn't. apparently, the last activesync partnership was in the way. so, what else to do, but end the former partnership (and please do tell me, if i'm wrong here!). i was greeted with a warning telling me "if i continue, all data synced FROM that partner source" (don't know the exact text, i interpreted this from the German text) will be deleted. i didn't see any alternative (like telling stupid activesync to keep them, just end the partnership, again please tell me when there is such an option somewhere), thought "OK, the original source for the contacts was the phone, not outlook" and continued. afterwards, my contact list was empty except for 10 contacts that wouldn't sync in the first place.
question 1 is: why the heck do they have to make these sync solutions so reliant on automatisms and eager to simply delete stuff? and then not include, or hide really good, options to prevent this? mobile center only allows to set who has priority to overwrite in case of conflict, activesync on WinMo has even less options. why can't they make them ask what exactly to do when they find discrepancies or conflicts, preferrably for each single case? frankly, i find this whole automatism business (in general, not only activesync) patronizing and dangerous if you don't pay close attention. i was wary, and still managed to delete my contacts. great!
i know, this is a rhetorical question, but i had to let off some steam...
now for more immidiate things:
is there a way to prevent this from happening via obscure options? i know i should have used something like pimbackup or at least made a copy of the pim.vol (which has its own difficulties), but you're always wiser afterwards.
speaking of the pim.vol file, is there a way to read that out by now? apparently the deleted contacts are still in there between a gazillion lines of symbols and i already rescued some, but this will take ages skimming through with a text-editor. i know someone wrote a perl script to parse the file, but that's beyond my competence.
and lastly, about those 10 contacts that were spared. those simply refused to sync towards desktop outlook. after each sync, i just got a message telling me he couldn't sync those. any ideas why, or what might be going on there? all of them have pictures, one or two phone numbers, and some have birthdays, nothing else. i think all or most of them had the pictures attributed from the album while zooming in, but i think so had others. some of the original photos are still there, some have been deleted by now, so i guess that's not the reason either.
any help would be much appreciated!
cheers,
mo
a good practice is to backup outlook on the pc
export to pst file include everything

[Review] Microsoft's MyPhone service

Rundown: great service to store your contacts and SMS messages when ROM Switching/Upgrading, or when switching phones.
Full Review: Don't know where else to put this.. I'm reviewing the MyPhone service from Microsoft because I used it to synchronize my Contacts and my SMS messages prior to upgrading my Touch Pro 2 from Windows Mobile 6.1 to WM 6.5.
Here are the results:
Before upgrading my phone, I synchronized my contacts to Outlook 2007 on Vista over ActiveSync, and synchronized my SMS messages to Outlook 2007 on Vistsa using Jeyo's Outlook Extender... I thought I was ready to rock and roll until I realized Jeyo's program wasn't sending SMS messages back to my phone as it was supposed to.
Rather than fiddle with it longer than the 30 minutes I already had, I searched for an alternative method. Enter Microsoft's MyPhone service. I logged into the service using my existing hotmail e-mail address, sent a link to my phone, downloaded the software directly to my phone, and began synchronizing. The time to upload 511 contacts and about 3200 SMS messages took about 25-30 minutes over Sprint's 3G network.
After I verified everything I needed to back up was on Microsoft's MyPhone site, I began the upgrade of my phone.
Upgrade complete, took about 10 minutes... and during that time, I was reading about adding a new phone to the MyPhone service...
So I just installed WM 6.5... Right after the upgrade completed, I sent the MyPhone service's "Add new device" link to my same phone, which is now running WM 6.5 instead of WM 6.1
Link received on phone, downloaded, installed, it asked for a restart, so i did... and... here goes...
Phone's on again... Let's see...
*taps start*
*open "My Phone"*
*taps next*
*taps accept*
*enters hotmail info*
*taps next*
*uncheck photos, videos, music, documents* (because I don't want those synchronized)
*taps next*
automatic synchronization? sounds good.. I have unlimited data..
*taps finish*
and now it says "Synchronizing"... already at 80 of 510 contacts (I found one duplicate earlier while the upgrade was completing, thanks to the built in "Find Duplicates" button on the MyPhone site you access through your PC) ... by the time I finished that sentence, it's already downloaded 325 of my contacts... We shall soon see if it kept my contact pictures and such, which would be great, although not a complete necessity... I'm most concerned about my thousands of texts... and it just completed the contacts... now texts... already at 90 of 2832 (i cleaned those up quite a bit also) now at 175... it seems to be downloading about 133 messages per minute over Sprint's 3G connection...
I'll leave it...
It's done... total time to synchronize 510 contacts and 2832 text messages took approximately 25-30 minutes over Sprint's 3G connection. This is honestly pretty bad in comparison to USB synchronization, but considering it's over 3G and can occur whenever/wherever, and was easier and more convenient than installing outlook, configuring the synchronization settings (because this is only one of dozens of PC's with ActiveSync/Mobile Device Center I've plugged this phone into), trying to figure out if I wanted to keep it synched with another PC or not, yada yada... AND it will synchronize everyday automatically, I must say I've definitely got to recommend Microsoft's MyPhone ... now, did it keep my messages in order, are my contacts still with pictures? The answer is...
Yes!! Perfect air synchronization... it took a bit longer than I thought, but MyPhone essentially synchronized all my stuff with no hassle and I can access the data from anywhere! whoo-hoo!! not only that, but my messages are all in order, and the ones that were read are still marked as read, and the ones that were unread are still marked as unread!!! I LIKE IT!! A LOT!! I can't attest to MMS messages since I didn't have any at the time I did my sync, but I'm sure I'll get one later
So, Microsoft's MyPhone gets a double-thumbs-up from me for keeping my contacts and sweet SMS messages intact PERFECTLY during a phone update, making it nearly hassle-free and fool-proof, and not costing a single red cent.
Thanks, Microsoft. Did I just say that? I need coffee... it's 6:45 in the morning. Good luck, fellow gadget lovers!
yeah, dont forget to register on msn first to let this thing working.
and dont forget to share you private data by using MyPhone with MS
I think the thing about the MyPhone service that made me happiest is the hassle-free restoration of my text messages. PIMBackup, Jeyo, and the other ones I've used are a bit of a hassle to set up, and I didn't completely feel that they were 100% what I needed. Once I logged into the MyPhone service and saw my messages being backed up on my PC in a readable format, I felt assured. That's why I prefer the MyPhone service.
I find the Myphone serve great, plus i know if i ever lose my phone, i do not lose my contacts and sms's, i can just restore everythgin to a new phone.
I set mine to sync every day at 3am.
Btw you can also set it to sync your location, pictures, storage card etc, so you have everythign backed up online.
Another big plus, is if you log into the myphone service via a PC, you can search all your sms's and view any file you uploaded via any PC.
just to warn, there's an issue of duplicates that myphone creates. For example, it does not recognise a task as the same one if you change the title, or due date etc. It recreates a duplicate. Same for calendar etc. PIM backup is still king
heineken78 said:
yeah, dont forget to register on msn first to let this thing working.
and dont forget to share you private data by using MyPhone with MS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL...good point...unfortunately tho, lets be realistic, if someone wants that info bad enough they can still get it...especially if you back it up anywhere...
POKEYTSI said:
LOL...good point...unfortunately tho, lets be realistic, if someone wants that info bad enough they can still get it...especially if you back it up anywhere...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No actually they can't get that info nowhere if you only save it on your secure PC. What they are doing with this service is effectively creating a huge worldwide database with phone numbers+names+email addresses+home/work addresses whatever and I bet they'd sell access to it to the highest bidder. Also I'm sure that the US government agencies will have access to it anyhow. This database can and will be used in order to track anyone on the planet...considering your smartphone has also a gps included and myphone includes a "gps location" premium feature "in case it gets stolen". The feature is there although you can't use it unless you play for premium...they can activate it at will though.
Don't want to sound paranoid here but think about it for a moment. The only way I would even remotely consider using such a service would be if the client utilized strong encryption (eg high bit (elliptic curve or not) DSA) so that the only thing transmitted to M$ would be the encrypted package. And I say remotely consider because all encryption schemes can be cracked with adequate "cpu time". The people utilizing such a database though would have no issue to employ supercomputer cluster farms for their "forensic" needs...
Sorry but..NO...with capital letters.
Email addresses other than MS
So... It has the option to use your existing Windows Live ID, using a hotmail, msn, live, or other. So when you select other, and type in your email thinking you will get at domain prompt at some next step, you can't go to the next step. The sign in button won't activate. If you type in your full email address in the bar, it wil allow you to use the sign in button but still won't work. I'm currently on Windows Live right now, logged in to Windows live from Opera on my phone, all using my non-MS email address. Anyone have any idea why can't I use it to log in to this one service when they clearly give you the option to do so?
Using Energy ROM (9/29), Rhodium.

[APP] Due Today Todo/Project Manager

I generally try not to post notifications about my software in other forums, but if anyone is interested, I've created a new todo/project manager for Android 1.5 and later.
If you're interested, please look here:
http://forum.lakeridgesoftware.com/showthread.php?t=16270
Thanks!
looks very nice and GTDish.
but if it doesn't sync to an online service it is pretty worthless for a lot of people.
I for example use toodledo, because I can access it from my Mac at home and from my PC at work...
good luck, anyways, it looks promising.
What if it syncs to a desktop client? Is that worth anything?
of course that helps, but it would still not solve the problem if you can not install apps on your office PC. Thats a problem a lot of folks have due to managed workplaces
So, I've been thinking about this. If I were to set up a ToodleDo sync, some of the extra fields would have to go into the task's notes. Would that be an acceptable alternative?
Very beautiful and promising. I second the need for Toodledo sync, or it will be unusable to a lot of people.
I really liked the looks of it.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
chmckay said:
So, I've been thinking about this. If I were to set up a ToodleDo sync, some of the extra fields would have to go into the task's notes. Would that be an acceptable alternative?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sure. use Toodledoo fields as far as possible, everything else goes into notes.
but what would you save in the notesfield, for example?
I think about developing a GTD app for webOS and am wondering how to do it well myself
Well, after the data is pulled out of the notes field, the remaining text would just be notes. So, those would be placed appropriately (this is when pulling from ToodleDo). When adding to ToodleDo, I would just place the notes after the extra data.
This gets to be a little complex as I have a few options for contexts which have not been added yet (though the fields exist in my database) and ToodleDo doesn't support contexts as anything other than a text string.
Then there's projects vs goals. I would probably go that route as I don't want to make anyone purchase a pro account on ToodleDo.
After doing all this research, I'm still considering using a WebDAV server sync method with a desktop client as I could guarantee that everything would sync properly.
chmckay said:
Well, after the data is pulled out of the notes field, the remaining text would just be notes. So, those would be placed appropriately (this is when pulling from ToodleDo). When adding to ToodleDo, I would just place the notes after the extra data.
This gets to be a little complex as I have a few options for contexts which have not been added yet (though the fields exist in my database) and ToodleDo doesn't support contexts as anything other than a text string.
Then there's projects vs goals. I would probably go that route as I don't want to make anyone purchase a pro account on ToodleDo.
After doing all this research, I'm still considering using a WebDAV server sync method with a desktop client as I could guarantee that everything would sync properly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The software expires today right? Any news on the paid version?
arg! I want to try it.
The biggest thing for me in an app like this is,
Hierarchy: ability to make sub-projects/subtasks (why I love todoist.com)
Widget/cal sync: needs to sync to Pure Calendar or Google Cal
Personally I would not want it to sync to ToodleDo unless the sub-project functionality this seems to have (again can't try it, beta's up) is maintained without needing a pro account of ToodleDo (which supports subtasks)
The beta expired at midnight this morning, so I'm quickly finishing a few things.
What I'm doing right now is adding a few things that make sense with the ToodleDo sync. And, I'm making a few underlying database changes that you shouldn't see if you were using a previous version. Again, this is in anticipation of the ToodleDo sync. The sync won't be available until I release it for the market.
@Hepæstus:
TaskIt has projects and subprojects. Each project and subproject can have an unlimited number of tasks. In the Today view, though, you will only see the tasks. So, when a project comes due, all of its tasks will be added to the Today view (including any subproject's tasks). When you complete the last task, it will mark the project as complete.
As for the syncing, I don't want to make people get a ToodleDo pro account, so I'm setting things up a little differently. The ToodleDo sync will be more of a hack in that the tasks will sync, but any fields unsupported by ToodleDo will be added to the notes field. Projects will be synced with ToodleDo's goals. I know it's not perfect, but I originally designed this app to be synced with a forthcoming desktop client, not an existing web service, so I have a few features that are not supported by either Remember the Milk or ToodleDo.
I forgot to mention that yes, there is a widget. Also, the update will be available later today.
Version 0.9.5 is now up. You can check it out here:
http://forum.lakeridgesoftware.com/showthread.php?t=16286
Hey chmckay, can you see the possibility of syncing with http://my.gtdify.com/ as well? I like the idea of a desktop client, but if I can access my stuff anywhere, that would be even more awesome. I'm eagerly anticipating a paid version.
I'll take a look at that site and see if they have any syncing capabilities.
Instead of using one of those thausands of webservice that offer a gtd-like project/todo-management I would really prefer a sync to my own webspace.
Combined with a simple webinterface, like the one from "Tracks" (which is the base for my.gtdify.com) or MonkeyGTD/mGSD (Tiddlywiki, a dynamic html-File mgsd.tiddlyspot.com).
That would really be great!
@spaboleo:
That was the basis of my wanting to sync to a desktop client: so that you own your data.
However, because very few people are interested in that, I'm looking into ToodleDo and Tracks. Tracks is interesting because you can host it yourself, so that's a plus.
When the desktop client is ready, TaskIt will also have WebDAV syncing so you can sync to your own server and be in full control of your own data.
Ah, ok
I thought that by "desktop client" you ment something like an installable piece of software...which in case would be okay if there is a webclient/webserver-version.
Maybe the installation could be obsolete too by using a portable client.
anyway...thank you for your effort!
sounds really promising!
Actually, I do intend to create an installable desktop client. The WebDAV sync is so that your data doesn't sync via someone else's servers.
The Tracks/GTDify and ToodleDo sync are for those who want web only.
Of course I can only speak for myself, but 70% the software I use is portable and placed on my thumbdrive (even browsers, mail-clients, IM-Tools etc.).
The other 30% include exclusivly larger suites like Office, Graphic-Programs or CAD-Tools.
Mostly an installtion is not really required if you include saved userfiles directly into the programmfolder.
For the less experienced users you could offer a installable version.
But, I would appreciate a ziped version that I can carry around on my thumbdrive, without the need to "make it portable by myself" ;D
I think I'm not the only that prefers portable software.
Best wishes

[Q] SPB Finance & Money Plus Sunset Deluxe

Does anyone know if SPB Finance syncs up with MPSD? Or any other easy to use mobile finance software that will sync with this?
Or for that matter, any other pairing of Mobile/Desktop software that sync with each other?
I have an old Money 2006, which i don't like (mainly because it requires a windows live account (ie connecting online) and i hate the idea of connecting my financial records online in any way. I was glancing at Quicken, but its 60 bucks, and while that might be a good desktop software, the lack of Mobile support turns me away from it. I know SPB worked with older versions of money in the past, but curious if its been updated of if it works as is now with the newest Money (free) version..
(MPSD is found HERE btw.)
Thanks in advance.
So i guess nobody's tried this hua?
Still looking for recommendations on this. Basically, id like to be able to enter in expenses/deposits on my phone, so i dont necessarily have to carry a receipt, then take it home, and sync it with my pc. Which i can then export into tax software when the time comes.
I know if it comes down to it, i can just keep doing what i am doing, keeping receipts and entering them all in once i get home, but i have a smart phone, i want to make it actually work and use its power for more than just texting and calling.
Suggestions?
I've no problem with Money 2007 Home & Business edition and SPB finance. Just untick all boxes in Tools/Online settings menu to prevent Money on line.
Another option is to use the latest Money sunset edition (free from microsoft) and inesoft cash organizer 2011 instead of SPB finance.

Categories

Resources