For some time now, I have trawled the web and peppered other like-minded persons with questions about the best way to consolidate the many address books we all seem to have in this digital age; the usual response was… "I don't know but would love to find out!"… Well a few years back along came Apple's MobileMe which, from what it says on the tin, will do the job, but for £60 a year… In this day of Open Source I was quite frankly not interested in that as a viable option - especially because you are then tied into the Apple ecosystem for content, not just your hardware!
The search went on… and I found a great CalDAV service via the open source project Chandler Project -
http://chandlerproject.org // This fab solution provides 1 single calendar in the cloud, to which you can then subscribe all your client devices (Macs, PCs and smart-phones) and, bang, you have the same calendar across the board and any changes are echoed accordingly - genius!
The next step was to find a similar service for my contacts… email addresses everywhere, phone numbers in my mobile, landline handset etc etc… a true mess! Now how could I get all of these together in one address book? It was going to be a big effort to consolidate it all into one place but 100% worth it.
After the arrival of my new iPhone4 earlier this week, once again I found myself trawling the web in search of this mythical service and I came across Funambol (
http://www.funambol.com) - an open source Mobile cloud synch and push service, offering support for email, calendars and contacts… In essence, MobileMe minus the £60 and without being tied into the Apple ecosystem… what a find! I couldn't believe it... I signed up for the free trial and got my iPhone synching with the online Portal which controls all the data within minutes - simply by downloading the free app to my iPhone, entering 2 credentials details and following a very simple online setup.
Next step was to enable my email client (Mozilla Thunderbird) to receive and synch / publish my contacts from there back to the online portal and to my iPhone - again this was a very simple process using the wide range of plugins/addons available - more can be found here -
https://www.forge.funambol.org/download/#desktopThis again was a short setup process and soon I had all my disparate devices sharing the large number of contacts I had… Next step was to login to the portal and consolidate the list to remove any duplicates of information spread across multiple entries - a long task, but well worth it!
With the consolidation process complete, I now have a cloud synched contacts address book which all my devices can share, add to, edit and remove from whenever they want! What a find Funambol was. If you are seeking a similar solution you should check it out today as it's surely one of the best solutions out there… if not the best! //
http://www.funambol.com
P.S. You can even download the entire app and serve it on your own server if you want - now that's what I call a fab solution!
jonwallacedesign - digital design studio would like to personally thank the guys at Funambol for creating such a great tool, which has finally solved our many years of contacts mayhem!
Got a sparkling new iPhone4? Want to jazz it up with a sexy jonwallacedesign - digital design studio wallpaper?
As the sun continues to shine gloriously across the UK, we have great pleasure in taking the wraps off the brand identity work we created at the end of 2009 for Destination Milton Keynes. We are very happy to announce that the new logo designed by the team at jonwallacedesign - digital design studio has now officially been launched and is being used all over the place! It was a great project to be involved in and will certainly be one of most widely received pieces of work we have created to date. If you are interested in reading a little more about the project and how we created the new Milton Keynes City brand please follow this link to view the case study on the jonwallacedesign.com website.
It's been a busy past few months at jonwallacedesign - digital design studio and in the past week we have had the pleasure of branding / designing and building out websites for iPhone games company Neon Play (http://www.neonplay.com) and garden design company Rebecca Smith Garden Design (http://www.rsgardendesign.co.uk). Both sites feature brand design work along with website design and development. Take and peek and let us know what you think! We will be adding case studies into the jonwallacedesign - digital design website over the coming weeks. Remember if you or anyone you know needs a new brand identity / site please do pass on our details!
Back in the summer of 2009 we launched a mobile friendly version of jonwallacedesign.com (see this previous blog post http://www.jwd-blog.co.uk/2009/08/jwd-goes-mobile.html) - This was a good quick fix to allow users to easily experience jonwallacedesign - digital design studio on their mobile devices.
Things at jonwallacedesign - digital design studio are still very much on fire with lots of fab client work in the studio. We are very proud to launch the new 2010 Live Talkback website featuring a design and build refresh from the previous site created in 2009.
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