Recently the Funambol project has release version 7 of their product suite; it appears that the BlackBerry plugin actually works now with OS 4.2.2.184 - OS 4.5.0.x has not been tested by me personally, some brave soul will want to take this task on for us.

Please note the following warning:

BACK UP YOUR DEVICE DATA NOW USING THE DESKTOP SOFTWARE

1. Set up an account on ScheduleWorld. I have also tested with the my.funambol.com service as well, they both seem to work very well. I will focus on ScheduleWorld, as they seem to have a greater rate of development, faster bugfixes and more sync options for devices all over the place. I was, however, able to sync my device completely to my.funambol.com without any errors. The choice is yours.

Signup: http://www.scheduleworld.com/tg/signupHome.jsp

After signing up, go to the Preferences page and get your Username (it's a number like 123445).

Prefs: http://www.scheduleworld.com/tg/cal/preferences.jsp

2. Install the Funambol 7.0.x BlackBerry plugin ("BlackBerry PIM Plug-in"). The Funambol group provides and OTA link on their servers, but that version is at 7.0.0; instead, download the OTA files of version 7.0.7 (currently the latest):

Download page: https://www.forge.funambol.org/downl...nloads-bb.html

Unzip the files to a directory on your media card, then use the Media tool's 'Explore' mode to navigate to the JAD file and install. Many other threads on BBF cover this part if you have trouble here.

3. Configure the newly installed software for ScheduleWorld. If you are using my.funambol.com, the values are preconfigured; just enter your username/password and you're done. For ScheduleWorld use these values:

Server: http://sync.scheduleworld.com/funambol/ds
Contacts: scard
Calendar: scal
Tasks/Todo: stask
Memos/Notes: snote

Enter the user/pass as appropriate (remember to use the username value you obtained above). I also recommend for initial testing to set the Sync mode to "One Way: client -> server" while you're messing around. This can be changed later of course, but for starting out it's better to be safe than sorry.

4. Sync your device. The first time you sync it'll take forever and a day. Make sure your TCP APN is configured properly so that you won't have any problems. Watch the bits fly up to the server and get backed up.

All done! Again, you want to mess around and test things our before enabling a two-way device sync, or enabling the automatic sync to happen in the background. Funambol has traditionally always had some squirrely bugs, so tread with caution until you've verified it's actually working correctly. An ounce of prevention and all that jazz.

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Here's where it gets fun - neither of these folk's websites really let you see your Memos/Notes or the Tasks properly, and to be honest their UI leaves a lot to be desired. They both have problems displaying data and whatnot, so what we really want to do is make sure our backed up/sync'd data is really there. So, I chose to use a desktop client to also sync and verify it's working correctly. Posts on their forums indicate the bits are in their database, so it's only the webUI display of the bits which is lacking - time to test these statements out!

1. Using Outlook on Windows. About the best I can do here is point you at a web page, as I'm a linux nerd and don't use the software. It apparently works.

Funambol Outlook download: https://www.forge.funambol.org/download/

ScheduleWorld Outlook download/instructions: http://wiki.scheduleworld.com/wiki/C...Funambol_6.5.7 (they claim 7.x client is broken)

2. Using Evolution and SyncEvolution. This is for our open source linux nerdy friends, it worked without any problems on my Fedora 9 setup here, nothing special at all. The SyncEvolution team specifically states that ScheduleWorld is the #1 tested solution, so that is what helped influence my decision to use them over my.funambol.com..

2a. Install and initially configure Evolution. Just use the typical installation technique for your distro, "yum install evolution syncevolution" or "apt-get install evolution syncevolution" will probably work in most cases. For Fedora 9, a simple "yum install evolution syncevolution" is all you need to do to get the bits on your PC. Run Evolution one time to set up the software.

Tip: just skip the incoming mail server part (set to None), and set the sending email to Sendmail to get through the wizard and basically ignore these parts. I don't want to do email with this thing, just use it for Contacts/Calendar/Memo/Task backup and manipulation. Exit the software now that it's saved the basic config file settings for you.

2b. Configure SyncEvolution. At first it seems like this is rocket science, but in reality it takes 2 minutes thanks to a nice webpage. Simply follow what this chap has to say and you'll be A-OK:

Setup: http://www.estamos.de/projects/SyncM...ngStarted.html

I followed the above page to the letter - to include setting up 'LogDir'! - and it's perfect. I highly advise setting up the LogDir step - it's very cool, the backup format it will use it the industry standard VCARD/iCal format. You'll basically get a very cool backup of your data in text format as well as syncing it to Evolution - two for one deal.

2c. Start Evolution and check your data. This is what we care about -- I identified certain items that are more complex than average; for instance, find one of your Contacts with 4 or more phone numbers, 3 addresses, 5 email addresses and so on. Find a massively recurring Calendar appointment (I have a bunch of these for a certain hobby that meets mutliple times every month) and make sure that the recurrence actually comes through.

Since you can't really check your data on these service's websites, it's very important to figure out a way to use a desktop tool for data validation. There's a post on ScheduleWorld from a developer that they're releasing new web tools soon, we'll see what happens. Additionally, I've tried using Mobical.net as the sync partner but it does NOT work. The Mobical UI is robust and by far the best of the bunch, but the Funambol plugin is not compatible.

Pretty nifty, but I will not b the brave soul that tests this..

If you try this and are successful, please give us some feedback

I still haven't taken the plunge to upgrade to 4.5.0.x yet; thinking about it, but haven't done the deed -- on a certain level I really need my device to be uber stable more than I need the nifty new features. Personal decision at this point... JC is making a very convincing argument for 4.5.0.69 right now.

Can this get a sticky please???

Nice work rivvie! you are the man!!!

Can I post this on the FAQ sir?

Kris

Oh thanks for th info and sounds promising there's another new version of the client. Does this new client support wifi without uma, like how opera does where you tick an option somewhere eventhough my wifi is only yellow/partially transparent? Or have an ota so I can investigate, as I'm still lacking any full computer for... the next while at this rate.

I don't think there's anything specific -- as far as I can tell, it uses the APN (as opposed to BIS-B), no special WiFi connect string like in other applications. There's actually no network setup screen at all, only settings for the application itself.

There *is* a debug mode for logging, though - this should at least allow people to get more detailed information to help diagnose connection problems.

The OTA they have is older, it's a download ZIP right now to get the latest. Not sure why they don't have the latest version on OTA, I thought that was strange too...

I get an uncaught error on 4.5

Booo. Is this when you launch it, or try to use it after launch?

never launches

I have it setup with my 8830 and it is working - for the most part. I get an exception with my contacts - problem with adding null (though I don't have any blank contacts). It gives the error, but I can't find any missing contacts so maybe it is working just fine???

Which OS version are you using?

I change my mind, I think I just might try this out within the next few days.

Have you tried syncing your Outlook/Evolution/Thunderbird with it to look for possible problems that way? Maybe whatever the error is will show up in the desktop sync... maybe it's a certain field in one of the contacts that the sync software is bombing on? All of mine have at least first name, last name and either a phone number or email address.

Hey folks - just got a new BB Bold (9000) and am moving from my trusty Treo. It's a terrific device but syncing hasn't been smooth for me as a Linux person. I am now trying to use SyncJE to sync with my university's Oracle Calendar system, which also has linux clients so that would be a nice solution. But syncJE hangs when trying to sync calendar entries. It does fine with tasks and contacts, but when calendar is in the mix it hangs on "Initiating Sync" until I cancel or it eventually ends up with a 552 error and restarts the blackberry. If I cancel the attempt, the log shows "Could not sync: null".

This happened exactly the same way when I set up a scheduleworld account and tried to sync there, so I don't think it's got to do with my university's Oracle server. It happens both with the current release of SyncJE and the 3.0 beta. SyncJE support has been friendly but slow, so I'm turning here - any thoughts or comments? Thanks.

Just did a sync and it worked fine....device > schedule world

Then setup evolution to sync and I wound up with doubles of many of my contacts and some calendar events on schedule world and in evolution. I'm using an 8330 with 4.5.

Any thoughts?

Following OPs advice I still have my BB set to one way sync (device > server) and thank God I do. Lol. I need to solve this duplicate issue prior to making my berry sync two way. Thanks in advance for any help as I'm still learning my way around linux (Intrepid Ibex).