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View Full Version : DIY BES for 1


Taliesan
04-21-2009, 04:33 PM
Greetings,

This might be a solved problem but I couldn't find instructions online anywhere.

I am an independent consultant whose mobile carrier wanted to charge me $15 /more/ per month for 5 gigs /less/ of service in order to use a BES. So I've used freeware to recreate the basic functionality of a BES for 1 person and I thought I'd share.

The end result of this will be the ability to access your e-mail, calendar, and contacts from Outlook, Gmail, and your Blackberry, and to have all of them sync automatically and wirelessly.

What you need:
- A Blackberry
- A desktop computer you can leave running
- Microsoft Outlook on the desktop
- A Gmail account

What I did:

1.) Set up a Gmail account to serve as the central hub for all the communication.

2.) Redirected all of my e-mail addresses to forward / alias to the Gmail account so they'd all be in the one place.

3.) Set up IMAP access to my Gmail account from Outlook on my desktop. This lets me use Outlook to access my e-mail when I'm at my desk.
mail dot google dot com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=75725

4.) On my work desktop, which I have on all the time, set up Google Calendar Sync to sync my calendar between Outlook and Gmail.
www dot google dot com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=89955

5.) Also on my work desktop, set up the Soocial.com plug-in for Outlook to sync my contacts between Outlook and Gmail.
www dot soocial dot .com

6.) Set up my Gmail account as a regular e-mail account on my BB.

7.) Installed Google Mobile on my BB to sync my calendar and my contacts from Gmail to my BB.
www dot google dot com/mobile/default/sync.html

Insta-freeware BES for 1.

Hope this helps!

Tal.

Taliesan
04-21-2009, 04:34 PM
This is my first post so I've had to play with the URLs. Perhaps someone with the rights can repost them in clickable format.

Cheers,

Tal.

dc/dc
04-21-2009, 04:40 PM
This sounds like a great little setup, but it is not a replacement for BES.

BES does so much more than just sync your e-mail, calendar, and contacts. Also, most people do not use Gmail for their business e-mail.

Thanks for sharing though!

Taliesan
04-21-2009, 04:50 PM
BES does so much more than just sync your e-mail, calendar, and contacts. Also, most people do not use Gmail for their business e-mail.

Not a perfect solve, true. I have it set up to maintain the domain of my various biz e-mail addresses. I very rarely use the Gmail interface. Mostly it's just the communications channel for all the syncing.

Cheers,

Tal.

fthombb
04-21-2009, 08:28 PM
This sounds like a great little setup, but it is not a replacement for BES.

BES does so much more than just sync your e-mail, calendar, and contacts. Also, most people do not use Gmail for their business e-mail.

Thanks for sharing though!

Heart was-a-jumpin when I spotted the title of this! only to be shaprly let down, no offence!
This is pretty much the exact same set up that I have (im a BIS user) and though it remains true that syncin all cal/con/mail with one mailbox would be great i.e BES - the ONLY function of BES that I really REALLY want is the optioin to separate emails into folders on the device.........
I dont mean where it gets delivered to a specific folder, just the option to add whatever folders I want and move them into those folders if I choose to...
Anyone know of a solution to this (preferably one that integrates with the native msg app as opposed to an add on standalone app)?

TIA

FT