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Advertisements Aside, myFUNAMBOL Makes Syncing Easy

Earlier, Lisa talked about Funambol's addition of non-intrusive advertisements to their myFUNAMBOL portal, at least for a few phone models.Being the somewhat reluctant owner of a new Blackberry, and a Linux user, I had heard of Funambol. I knew it was open source software, and I knew that Funambol was one of a few applications that had reasonable success syncing BlackberryOS, and a few other platforms, with Linux.

MyFUNAMBOL portal has a few hiccups to iron out (it is still in beta), but it seems to be truly useful. The operating system used on the desktop could become a non-issue for many.

Funambol kindly supplies synchronization server packages for both Windows and Linux, as well as client applications for Blackberry devices, iPods, and Windows Mobile and Smartphone devices. The server installation instructions would have certainly gotten my Linux box syncing with my lone Blackberry, but it seemed too much effort for a single device.

Saved by Portals and Plugins

Something about this sync method feels inelegant and awkward, until I think about how I use my desktop. I swap out and try different Linux distributions frequently, and maintain /home on a separate partition. Any syncing application I might use on a distribution would likely not be found in "regular" repositories, and would require work to reinstall and reconfigure with each changed system.

In light of that, the myFUNAMBOL portal in conjunction with a few plugins seems nearly poetic. My configuration works simply like this: I have the Blackberry clients for email and contact/calendar/task synchronization installed on my phone (and again, Funambol supports more than Blackberry devices). I created an account on myFUNAMBOL, and configured the applications on my Blackberry with my user name and password.

There are a number of mail clients and PIMs (cross-platform) that Funambol can accommodate. There is, of course, Outlook, but the open mail clients are represented as well, with a Thunderbird sync plugin, and Evolution syncing capabilities. The mail sync clients are configured in the same manner as the device.

The chain of events from there is fairly obvious. With more contacts in Thunderbird, syncing it with myFUNAMBOL, and subsequently syncing with the Blackberry, I managed to get my information off my Linux desktop, and on to my smartphone with very little time investment (and no USB cables).

That isn't to say there aren't a few issues. At this point, the my.funambol.com portal is not using SSL encrypted connections. The reason it is not currently offered apparently has to do with phones that are unable to sync with this protocol in place. Funambol intends on offering the ability to choose between encrypted and unencrypted connections in the future.

The other issue I encountered was my Curve's inability to sync its calendar with the myFUNAMBOL portal. A quick search confirmed that I am not the only one in this situation, but as of yet, there aren't many details on the underlying cause of the problem.

These issues aside, myFUNAMBOL is a truly useful service. It can facilitate syncing between platforms that wouldn't normally be able to do so -- Funambol's open code is bridging the gaps between the open and the proprietary, and even the proprietary to proprietary chasms.

• thunderbird
• open source
• linux
• Outlook
• Funambol
• evolution
• myfunambol
• smartphone
• blackberry
• review
• portal
• sync
• synchronization

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