Keeping track of birthdays & anniversaries in the Pre?

**ultimate_ed** · 05/29/2009, 08:50 AM

Alright, I've all but settled on the Pre + Sprint after about 10 years with Verizon.

I've been reading through the various "prepping for Pre" threads and following advice, particularly with regard to getting my Gmail house in order.

I had been using my Outlook at work as my somewhat central PIM, but I'm cleaning that up and moving to Google for my personal use, which is what the Pre will be for.

One thing that I have in Outlook is a bunch of annual recurring events for birthdays and anniversaries. This goes back to my old Dell Axim days and a PIM that I used that would use the location field of the appointment to store the year of birth. It would then show me how old the person was turning when viewed on my Axim.

What I'm trying to wrap my head around now with the Pre and it's gmail syncing. Is there a better way with the Pre for me to get reminders for birthdays and anniversaries of my contacts? I can certainly set up those recurring appointments again in the Google calendar, but if there's some slicker way to get there by having the birthday/anniversary data directly in my contact info and having Google Calendar/Pre automatically give me reminders, I'd love to know.

Thanks.

**Caitlyn McKenzie** · 05/29/2009, 08:52 AM

Google Calendar has a program that lets you sync your main Outlook calendar with Google Calendar.

Getting started with Google Calendar Sync - Google Calendar Help

Keep in mind this will only work with your primary, default calendar, and no other calendar. It's the best system I've come up with.

As far as contact syncing, the only way I know is to have that information is to have it in Google Contacts or Facebook (or Exchange Activesync).

**dbpaddler** · 05/29/2009, 08:55 AM

yet another step backwards/workaround and something that was built into Palm Desktop.

**camiller** · 05/29/2009, 09:14 AM

Page 19 of the leaked manual.

Transfer Data From Your Computer to Your New Phone

If you previously synchronized data from a Palm smartphone�such as contacts or calendar events�with a desktop organizer such as Palm Desktop� software by ACCESS or Microsoft Outlook�, Address Book, or iCal, you can do a one-way transfer of that data from the desktop organizer to your Pre phone.

From that point you choose if you want the phone or an online account(google, EAS, etc.) to be where the data lives. If you choose to make the phone the location of the data it will get backed up to your palm profile. (page 20)

**Grim** · 05/29/2009, 09:23 AM

Chapura Pocket Mirror will sync Calendar and Contacts via WiFi with Outlook.

http://www.chapura.com/pm_pre.php

**TreoRock** · 05/29/2009, 09:55 AM

Will the Pre and Google calendar sync multiple calendars for the same google account. I have a work and personal calendar in google.

**Laxidasical** · 05/29/2009, 10:01 AM

CompanionLink for Google will sync your Outlook's Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks with Google. They are working on software that will eventually sync directly to the Pre. If you purchase CompanionLink for Google now the Pre sync will be free when it's released.

**dwhitman** · 05/29/2009, 10:03 AM

Originally Posted by Treolo

Will the Pre and Google calendar sync multiple calendars for the same google account. I have a work and personal calendar in google.

Yes, we saw that done in the original Pre demo at CES. He had multiple google calendars layered on his Pre calendar.

I've got 3 calendars on my Google account, and have 2 shared in from my wife, plus the google weather calendar. Don't expect any problems linking all that into my Pre.

**gabbott** · 05/29/2009, 10:49 AM

Just setup a specific bday calendar in google.

**redbirdie** · 05/29/2009, 11:00 AM

Originally Posted by gabbott

Just setup a specific bday calendar in google.

I'm following this and looking for "Preparing for the Pre" stuff too.
Last week I began migrating all my contacts to a new Google account.
Yesterday I played around with Google calendar for the first time and I'm pleasantly surprised at it's capabilities.

Just to clarify, do you mean to a separate Google calendar just for birthdays, anniversaries etc? (sorry, I'm still learning)

**dbpaddler** · 05/29/2009, 11:07 AM

it means google contacts is lame and you have to set up a recurring appt in a calendar to be able to be reminded of it every year. It doesn't need to be in a separate calendar. It can be in any calendar you choose or you can create a separate calendar strictly for b-days, anniversaries and other recurring dates.

I just think having to do that is lame.

**jhoff80** · 05/29/2009, 11:24 AM

Google Contacts (as well as the Pre) has a field for birthdays. I find it hard to believe that the Pre wouldn't give you notification a few days before when Treos have always done this.

**camiller** · 05/29/2009, 11:26 AM

Anyone know if the contacts on the phone itself have a birthday/anniversary field and if so does it propagate that to the phones calendar(like the current palm OS contacts do)? If so I think I would consider letting the phone be the location of record for my contacts rather than "the cloud".

**camiller** · 05/29/2009, 11:28 AM

Originally Posted by jhoff80

Google Contacts (as well as the Pre) has a field for birthdays. I find it hard to believe that the Pre wouldn't give you notification a few days before when Treos have always done this.

Looking at the google contact info for my wife and I see no birthdate field.

Edit: nevermind, if you go to contacts from gmail there is no birthdate field, if you go to the google contacts page directly there is one.

**jayzun** · 05/29/2009, 11:30 AM

Originally Posted by camiller

Looking at the google contact info for my wife and I see no birthdate field.

There is definitely a birthday field, you have to hit Edit. It wasn't there until about 2 weeks ago. I would guess that in about a month or so, that field will cross populate with google calendar to provide notifications.

**camiller** · 05/29/2009, 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by jayzun

There is definitely a birthday field, you have to hit Edit. It wasn't there until about 2 weeks ago. I would guess that in about a month or so, that field will cross populate with google calendar to provide notifications.

I did find it, eventually. But it does not show up in the contacts from gmail, you have to go to the separate contacts page.

**wynand32** · 05/29/2009, 01:22 PM

Originally Posted by Grim

Chapura Pocket Mirror will sync Calendar and Contacts via WiFi with Outlook.

Chapura - PocketMirror

That's very cool! Love seeing information on upcoming apps finally being released.

**dwhitman** · 05/29/2009, 01:37 PM

Originally Posted by camiller

I did find it, eventually. But it does not show up in the contacts from gmail, you have to go to the separate contacts page.

Hmm. What's the url for the separate contacts page? The only way I know to get at the contacts on my google account is using the link on the gmail page.

Edit: answered above question using (wait for it...) a Google Search.

https://mail.google.com/mail/contacts/ui/ContactManager

But I don't see a birthday field in my contacts, even on that page. Sometimes google rolls out new features gradually; maybe i just don't have it yet.

**Eguy** · 05/29/2009, 01:42 PM

I will be using EventGuide in Classic.

Megasoft2000 - EventGuide

**dbpaddler** · 05/29/2009, 01:45 PM

it's kind of dumb that you can be in calendar and there's no direct link at the top to contacts yet calendar seems to be at the top of every page.

But you were overthinking the contacts link. www.google.com/contacts works just fine, especially if you don't use gmail.

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