[jonlevine]

First let me say that I am completely fed up with the "solutions" for syncing a Blackberry with a Mac. Frankly, both of them suck. I have had nothing but issues from my calendar being off, to multiple contact entries, to losing settings for custom ringtones and caller-id pictures.

After giving this issue some thought, I've come up with a solution scenario. I say scenario because, one, I don't know if it's possible (though I think it is) and two, I don't have the technical (see: scripting) expertise to do it.

There are a couple of things that, as far as I know, will be required for this to work. First, you must use Thunderbird for your contacts and calendaring (using Lightening). Two, you must have VMWare's Fusion installed and run a flavor of Windows.

Thunderbird can export your contacts and calendar as a CSV file. Blackberry DM can sync your Blackberry with a CSV file. Fusion allows you to share files and folders between the host OS (Mac) and the guest OS (Windows). See where I'm going with this?

Say you use Thunderbird for your day to day operations. You have a script that, at a set interval, exports your contacts and calendar as a CSV to a specific folder, using a specific filename. This folder is shared in your Fusion installation. You set your Desktop Manager in Windows to use the CSV to sync your Blackberry. This script will also re-import this CSV back into Thunderbird once it has been used so that the change from your Blackberry show up on the Mac side.

Now, in my head (which admittedly is the biological equivalent of a messy teenager's room), this should work. There are just a few hurdles which, unfortunately, I am not suited to tackle.

The main hurdle is the scripting. I first looked to Automator (which I love, btw), but unfortunately, there's no Thunderbird commands. Then I fired up the AppleScript editor and tried the 'Record' feature. Again, no luck. I don't know enough about AppleScript to know why this wasn't successful, but from my cursory research, I think that certain programs cannot be scripted.

So, am I nuts? Any and all opinions are appreciated and welcomed. I'd love to have something to work on while I'm biding my time until the iPhone comes out.

[jonlevine]

Didn't even realize, but that was post 100 for me. Woo hoo! Least I made it a good one.

[dgray8]

You can use Blackberry DM on a mac if you are either dual booting w/ windows....or perhaps running Virtual PC. And as a side note....as a Cingular rep doing data support for blackberries....Thunderbird isn't an app that the sync function of DM will support.

[sickchilly]

You can run BB DM on a Mac under Parallels or Fusion on an Intel Mac or reboot into Boot Camp (again on an Intel Mac). If you're on a PPC Mac, your only hope is Virtual PC (hope you are a patient person).

Parallels is very flakey. Strongly suggest Fusion or Boot Camp. I use Fusion myself with XP Pro.

Thunderbird can not sync directly. You'd have to do some convoluted import/export to Outlook or the like which is supported.

I personally only use DM under Windows for certain app installs and to upgrade OS or wipe the device and reinstall the OS.

I sync on the Mac side using MarkSpace's MissingSync for BB.