S60Tips.com

This may be my last posting before I go for vacation. Sorry for no posting at all in the last few days. I have been very busy finishing all my tasks before ?disappear? for two weeks

Today?s topic is ?synchronization?. It is about synchronization of everything, including contacts, images, music, videos and documents. How do we synchronize them between our PC (main computer) and S60 devices (mobile devices)? Note that the discussion below focuses on PC (Windows) only. For Mac users, please start looking at iSync.

Contacts Synchronization

• PC Suite. I am pretty sure most of you are using PC Suite. It allows us to synchronize contacts between our devices and PC, mainly Microsoft Outlook. It doesn?t support Thunderbird yet.
• Nokia Synchronization for Thunderbird. It is supposed to allow us synchronizing contacts from Thunderbird to Nokia phones. Unfortunately, I couldn?t manage to make it work.

Images/Videos Synchronization

Please check my previous postings:

• Managing Your Images/Videos using Nokia Lifeblog.
• Managing Your Images/Videos using Nokia Image Store.

Music Synchronization

Please check my previous postings:

• Synchronizing Music Files and Podcast from iTunes to S60 Phones.
• Synchronizing MP3 Files form Windows Media Player to S60 Phones.

Files/Folders Synchronization

Imagine that you have a bunch of files on the PC that you want to ?carry? on your S60 devices, for example Word or Excel documents. Later, you may update the files, either on the PC or S60 devices, how do we synchronize them?

• SyncBack. It is my favorite application to synchronize files and/or folders. Best of all, it is free.
  Basically, you have to connect your S60 device to a PC in ?Mass Storage? mode. It means that you can only use it on newer S60 devices because older devices don?t have this mode.
• Allway Sync ?n? Go. Another free application to synchronize your S60 device to your PC as “Mass Storage” mode.

Compatible devices: S60 2nd, 3rd, Nokia Nseries, Nokia Eseries

Update (14-Sep-2007): The latest PC Suite also supports files/folders synchronization. Please check my posting, http://www.s60tips.com/2007/07/21/file-synchronization-using-nokia-pc-suite-684/.

The DST (Daylight Saving Time) update does not affect some of you. It only affects mostly for people who live in the US/Canada or people who are traveling to this area this Sunday. Thanks to Kevin who has pointed this out on his blog.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, here is the explanation about DST from Wikipedia:

Daylight saving time (DST), also known as summer time in British English, is the convention of advancing clocks so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour in late winter or early spring and are adjusted backward in autumn.

This year’s DST problem comes when President George Bush decided to change the DST time from first Sunday of April to the second Sunday of March in some parts of the US.

On August 8, 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act changed the time change dates for Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. Beginning in 2007, DST will begin on the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November.

If you will be affected by this change, I recommend downloading an update for your S60 devices. I think this update should have been included in the latest firmware upgrade via Nokia Software Updater too.

Anyway, here is the list of download links to DST update for some S60 phones: N71, N73, N80, N80 Internet Edition, N91, N91 8GB, N92, and N93. I am not sure what older phone users, such as Nokia 7610 and 6600, should do. There is no support of Nokia Software Updater and no separate installation file (.sis) for them.

Compatible devices: S60 1st, 2nd, 3rd Edition, Nokia Nseries, Nokia Eseries.

A couple of weeks ago, I have discussed how to synchronized music files from Windows Media Player to some latest N-Series phones, such as Nokia N91 and N80. Today, I will show you how to synchronize from Apple’s iTunes in Windows operating system to your S60 phones.

Before we continue, I have to give pre-warning that you cannot synchronize protected files downloaded from iTunes Music Store. Why? This is because all S60 phones does not support Apple’s FairPlay DRM system. What can we synchronize then? You can still synchronized non-protected files, such as MP3 files, and your PodCasts subscription.

What do we need to synchronize music files and podcasts from iTunes to S60 phones?

• First we need S60 phones that can be connected to the PC as USB mass storage. Most of the newer S60 phones, such as Nokia N71, N80 and N91, can be connected as USB mass storage. You can check whether you phone support mass storage or not very easily. Plug-in your phone to the PC. If you see a dialog that has “Mass Storage” option (or “Data Transfer” in some other phones), then your phone is on the list…

• You need also a large memory card, such as 1 GB or 2 GB. Of course, nothing prevents you to use small memory card.
• Next you need Apple’s iTunes. I assume that you must have iTunes installed on your PC now because you are reading this blog….
• The last thing is the most important one, i.e. iTunes Agent. It is an open source project that enables us to synchronize any USB mass storage device with iTunes.

Click here to download iTunes Agent

Now let’s start:

• Connect your S60 phone to the PC as USB mass storage.
• Run iTunes Agent. You should be able to see iTunes icon in Windows task bar (near clock).
• Open Windows Explorer and create a new file in the root folder of your memory card. Choose a unique name, for example “iTunes_N73″. This file will be used by iTunes Agent to recognize your S60 phone. You can choose any name.
• Now we have to configure iTunes Agent so that it recognizes your S60 phone. Right click iTunes Agent in the Windows task bar and select Preferences menu.

• Click New button to create a new device.

  • In the Name box, enter any name that you want.

  • In the Synchronize pattern box, choose the directory structure you want to have, i.e. iTunes, Artist Folder or Flat.

  • In the Music folder box, choose the directory you want to store your files. Note that the previous contents of your folder will be deleted during synchronization. So, make sure that you don’t have important files in that folder.

  • In the Recognize by folder/file box, enter the unique file name that you have created in the previous step. In my example, it is “iTunes_N73″.

  • In the Associate with playlist box, enter the playlist that you want to synchronize with your S60 phone. In the example here, I use the same name as my device name, which is “Nokia N73″. You can, of course, create your own playlist from iTunes and change it again later from this dialog.

• Now you are ready to synchronize. Copy your music files or podcasts to your playlist. As I said earlier, you can copy your files to any playlist you want. Just remember to change the preference in the iTunes Agent.

• To start synchronization, right click iTunes Agent and then select Synchronize devices menu.

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