DejaDesktop`s DejaPIM and DejaLink

[newsbot]

[LINK: http://www.dejadesktop.com] DejaDesktop, Inc. just announced [LINK:
http://www.dejadesktop.com/products.html] DejaPIM and DejaLink. DejaPIM is
a personal information management (PIM) suite of applications for the
Nokia 770, composed of Contacts, Calendar, Notes, and Tasks. DejaLink on
the other hand is probably the first commercial application for the Maemo
platform that provides two-way IP based synchronization between Microsoft
Outlook and DejaPIM. The service costs $9.95/month, with a 14-day free
trial.

Future modifications for DejaPIM include:

? Improve web connection states on both handheld and PC to quietly handle
disconnect and partially connected states.
? French, Spanish, G...Read the full article. (http://www.internettablettalk.com/content/view/158)

[niko]

... and your Microsoft Outlook data will begin transferring to the web. ...

Not what I would like to do with my data. Or do I misunderstand something?

[andymulhearn]

Not what I would like to do with my data. Or do I misunderstand something?

No, I don't think you do.

There are a number of companies that offer this kind of service to the Pocket PC world where remote synching to an exchange server is one option for users. This just sounds like more of the same.

Having said that, I'm not convinced by this approach to be honest and I'd want to know more about their position re:


security/privacy/Encryption
disposal of my data if I cancel the service
how the UK Data protection act sees this. After all it's not my names and addresses that get stored on someone's server.


But, and it's a big but, this could be a pretty useful service I think for those that use Outlook on a regular basis. As an Apple user that's not really me but if they did the same with a iSync solution I might be tempted.

[NokNok770]

I'm not going to buy a PIM software that I have to pay monthly fees just to sync. That is ridiculous. Frankly I don't need all those stuff so I guess I don't see the need to pay for it.

[myet01]

If you go to the site, it says that there are two parts. The desktop (the part with the PIM software) part which is free. and the web part (the portion that syncs your outlook) that costs $9.95 a month a 14 day free trial. So, my assumption is you could download it, use the PIM and choose not to use the sync part thus having a PIM local to the 770? Here is an exact excerpt I copied from their web site.

Tony

****************************

"DejaDesktop provides Contact, Calendar, Tasks, and Notes applications that run on the Nokia 770, and also IP-based synchronization to Microsoft Outlook.

With DejaDesktop, your Outlook Contacts and Calendar synchronized to the 770, and any changes you make while on the device are synchronized to Outlook. DejaDesktop uses the built-in IP connection, so there is no need to connect the device to your computer. DejaDesktop is provided free of charge, and the hosted IP-based sync is only $9.95 per month! You can try our sync service FREE for 14 days. "

[Reggie]

I'm not going to buy a PIM software that I have to pay monthly fees just to sync. That is ridiculous. Frankly I don't need all those stuff so I guess I don't see the need to pay for it.
It is geared towards business people. It's not regular syncing. It's syncing when you are on the road or when when you are out of the state/country.

Some other companies who provide this service:
Good Technology (http://www.good.com/)
Intellisync (http://www.intellisync.com/)

[myet01]

Just checked their website again and the point here is, "If you just want a PIM without sync capabilities" you can download it and have fun.

Tony

[Reggie]

Currently, if you want good PIM apps (that doesn't sync), go with the GPE-suite from Kernel Concepts.

[Moby]

Anybody done a comparison between this one and the GPE-suite. Gonna install one of them soon, so would like an idea of which one is more slick/stable/useful. Thanks

[Mike Cane]

Currently, if you want good PIM apps (that doesn't sync), go with the GPE-suite from Kernel Concepts.

Ha! That's a laugh! See my blog later today when I post from the 770 my, uh, adventures with GPE-Calendar from last night!

[Hedgecore]

Todo is great for me, I never have anything to do being that it won't launch. (I reflashed and tried that first, installing the libs in order... nothing. I gave up)

[thoughtfix]

I'm going to review this tomorrow. From the initial inspection, it looks like it's going to be perfect and lovely until someone comes up with one that doesn't cost anything to sync... then it'll tank.

[MACDADDY]

Currently, if you want good PIM apps (that doesn't sync), go with the GPE-suite from Kernel Concepts.

After a brief -- and I mean brief -- comparison, I think that GPE has more features than Calendar app (day view, week view, month view), whereas the deja app does not. However, I noticed a major difference between the apps with respect to memory and cpu usage. The deja app seemed to use less memory and cpu. I will update with more info as I use the apps.

[Mike Cane]

Todo is great for me, I never have anything to do being that it won't launch. (I reflashed and tried that first, installing the libs in order... nothing. I gave up)

@ desktop

Contrary to my experience. It launches. But I haven't put anything in it, not even manually, yet. Will try and report back. See "blog" later today.

[myet01]

Will it install and run on the MMC card?

Tony

[Anton]

I installed the PIM and started to play with it. I noticed a few things that were not correct like no vCard import and missing views in the calendar. On their website they have an email of support@companionlink.com and if you put in the subject line "Suggestion 770" it actually will be read!

I sent an email and within about two hours I had an actual personalized reply that responded to all of my suggestions individually. That is such a HUGE improvement over the automated replies. Just so you know he stated that vCards will be added to the list and that the calendar views will be added by mid Febuary. The only bummer is no Mac support but who knows in the future.

I love a company that responds like that and will continue to support this application as long as they keep up the good work and improve it.

[myet01]

What about the rest of the applications, how are they working? Also, how about installing on the MMC card, can you?

Tony

[gnuite]

Anybody done a comparison between this one and the GPE-suite. Gonna install one of them soon, so would like an idea of which one is more slick/stable/useful. Thanks

I've used both the GPE suite and the DejaPIM "suite". I put "suite" in quotes in the latter because it is not really a suite so much as a single application.

GPE's PIM comes in three programs - GPE-Calendar, GPE-Todo, and GPE-Contacts.

GPE-Contacts works almost stably, but it has trouble importing vCards unless they are of a particular format (unrecognized fields have to be stripped out), and I can't seem to get categories to work at all. It has a decent organization, including real-time substring searching, but it gets slow as the number of contacts approaches hundreds.

GPE-Todo works pretty fine - actually, it worked best of all of the GPE apps. It never crashed, categories worked (I think), and there were plenty of fields to fill out. Alarms are available for selection in the UI, but they don't actually work.

GPE-Calendar is a wreck. From what I can tell, they're still trying to get the bugs ironed out. Like the other GPE apps, there are plenty of fields to use when describing an appointment, except that there is no "Location" field, which is disappointing (no pun intended). And whatever you do, don't try to set an alarm, because every time I tried, it crashed the program and corrupted the GPE-Calendar database to the point of having to remove the Calendar database entirely and start all over. And trying to export appointments to vCard works fine, but it fails when trying to import the same file, so backing up your appointments that way is a no-go. You can still backup the ~/.gpe/calendar file, though, so backup in that sense is possible. Overall, I was very disappointed in GPE-Calendar's current state, and I hope they get the bugs worked out quickly, because I really want to use the GPE suite, especially since it's open source.

That said, I am now testing out DejaPIM, which I've discovered is very different.

First of all, it's one application, which is nice if you plan on using more than one of the sub-apps (Contacts, Calendar, Todo, and Notes). Whereas in GPE, each application has its own icon in the window list, in Deja, one icon controls them all, which is good in that you can leave the application open and not clutter your window list (or hog your memory).

Secondly, DejaPIM feels a lot more Nokia 770-ish - for example, the date and time selection widgets are the same as the ones you use in the Date/Time control panel (for better or for worse...). This is likely because the application is designed explicity for the Nokia's Hildon UI, unlike GPE.

Deja does use less memory and is generally more responsive, but this is probably because there are fewer features. For example, you can't specify a recurring appointment like you can in GPE-Calendar, and the "summary" pages for the sub-apps are very simplistic (e.g. no graphical representation of appointments, all contacts are simply displayed in a single list without search capability, although categories work fine across the entire application).

You can specify Alarms, but they don't actually alarm on the Nokia 770 - I think they only set up alarms on your Outlook machine.

One major disappointment in Deja is the lack of importing/exporting. GPE's importing and exporting (when it worked) was very useful, but there is no such beast in Deja. You pretty much HAVE to use the Outlook synchronization if you want any form of import/export. You can backup the data files (they're in the ~/apps/deja folder, which can be symlinked or backed up to an MMC at your discretion).

On that note, I don't even use Outlook, so I don't plan on ever paying for the synchronization. I just want a PIM that is useful on my Nokia 770, so that I can replace my Palm-based Clie (which I don't synchronize with my desktop for any reason other than backup purposes).

In summary, GPE is more featureful, but at the cost of memory and bugs. Deja has fewer features, but is more stable. I'll be using Deja until GPE-Calendar and GPE-Contacts get their bugs ironed out, which I hope is quick, because I need my recurring appointments.

[j.pickens]

Well,
I tried Deja, and it has some problems.
Yes, it found my Outlook files on the internet, and syncronized.
By the way, I set it to be one-way, PC=>770 just to be safe.
What I really needed this for was to put my contact list onto the 770.
And it did so, but the list is kaflooey.
All my contacts are Business, but they listed in a haphazard order, only when listing All as the option. Business Only left nothing listed.
Now, could be the way I entered the contacts, but both my PC outlook and PocketPC Contacts listed them alphabetically.
Deja listed them weirdly, and there is no way to browse by first letter, etc, so you have to scroll through the full list to find them.
Not good.
And when I went to do anything else, the only way to switch between some menus was to hit the X close gadget, and the entire program closed.

Now, I'm happy I have all the contacts on my 770, but this program needs major work if I'm going to pay $10 per month.

[thoughtfix]

Thanks for the awesome side-by-side, gnuite.
Can we ask Nokia to port the Nokia desktop suite AND the Nokia Wayfinder interfaces to the 770? Please? Please?

[eye.surgeon]

Why not just use Yahoo! calendar and Yahoo email? It's all web based so you can access the same database whether on your PC or using your 770. That's what I do. I paid the small yearly fee so there is no advertising in my email or calendar views at all.

Mind you, I am using the Yahoo! email beta which is about 100 times better than the regular Yahoo! email.

I hope this product does well, though, some people are tied to Outlook, and the more apps for the 770 the better.

[Mike Cane]

Mind you, I am using the Yahoo! email beta which is about 100 times better than the regular Yahoo! email.

Is that AJAX or what? Runs fine in Opera?

edited to add:

Just caught up. I see someone else blew up GPE-Cal by trying an alarm too. Ah, the 1.00 adventure continues!

[Hedgecore]

I seem to remember the GPE PIM site saying that alarm functionality wasn't working yet. *shrug*

DejaPIM is sweet. I think this is the first 770 specific app I've seen, and it hasn't misbehaved or crashed once. I think there's a high honus on porting apps and leaving them unfinished. (Ever poke around the cell properties menu in Gnumeric, or checked out connection properties in GAIM?)

I like having all my PIM apps under one common executable given that their functionality is simple (and my Extras menu is going to need an Extras menu of it's own soon). Sure some functionality is missing, but there's loads already included and I'm sure as it grows it will only get better.

Also it was satisfying uninstalling GPE-Calendar and it's 8 billion deps.

[gnuite]

While it's nice that DejaPIM is stable, it really is missing some necessary functionality. It is only a beta, though, and fortunately, it looks like some of that needed functionality is on the way:


Future Modifications

We have worked hard to bring this product to market in a short time. We are continuing to work to complete the product to our normal quality standards. Here is a quick list of our prioritized updates:

* Improve web connection states on both handheld and PC to quietly handle disconnect and partially connected states.
* French, Spanish, German support throughout.
* Add graphical day view and week view to calendar.
* Add support for changing recurring patterns in calendar (they are currently displayed, but the edit screen does not show those fields to edit).

If you have another suggestion or priority, please email support@companionlink.com with “suggestion 770” in the title.


So, graphical calendar views are coming, and support for recurring meetings will be improved.

I'm going to email them a few more suggestions/questions - perhaps if enough of us suggest something, they will actually listen?

[thoughtfix]

The suggestion I just sent:
SUBJ: Suggestion 770

I have a good suggestion for the Nokia 770 platform.

Release it into an "open beta" until the feature set is ironed out. Do not limit the trial to 15 days.
Once the full feature set is released, announce it and post the upgrade. After that, give 7 days for major bugs to be detected. If there are none and the release is "finalized" and then start the 15 day free clock.

Also, offer a lifetime subscription or "personal server" option where people can buy "once." $10/mo over a short period of time is the difference between a cheap phone and a Smartphone that synchronizes with Outlook locally without subscription fees.

Thanks!
---Daniel G.
770 blog: http://thoughtfix.blogspot.com

[Moby]

I guess the contacts section is gonna have competition soon, as when the VOIP apps are included there will be a contacts app to manage your numbers. I just hope its upto the job.

[Travlr45]

When I attempted to download DejaPIM, I got a message that the software could harm the tablet permanently (or something along that line). Is this just a standard safety message or was I about to screw up the 770? I aborted the download until I hear from you guys.

Bob in Houston

[thoughtfix]

When I attempted to download DejaPIM, I got a message that the software could harm the tablet permanently (or something along that line).

Every .deb package does this. It's Nokia's standard warning.
I think it should be removed. :p

[thoughtfix]

Oh - I installed DejaPIM tonight. I'll give it a week of constant use and see how I like it.

[mrp]

I tried dejapim. Was not able to get pim to show my test appointments. Does one have to sync with pc to be able to use deja locally?
I flashed again with latest firmware, did not restore settings, installed dejapim again, no difference. No appointments nor contact information in the list.
My 770 is in maintenance mode. Had no luck (prior to reflashing) with gpe-suite eather

[Miho]

I tried dejapim. Was not able to get pim to show my test appointments. Does one have to sync with pc to be able to use deja locally?


You need to use english (usa) settings in 770. -> control panel -> language/region

[theeaglehaslanded]

The programme (DEJAPIM) is slow and,buggy, keeps crashing and it doesn't sync the,notes and tasks!

[Mike Cane]

Live via 770:

Someone mentioned DP not showing appts. The test one I did yesterday showed up. But one I tried just now didn't. Tried creating using both icons. Weird. Guess this will go to the Cornfield with GPE.

[gnuite]

I sent the DejaDesktop folks an email a few days ago with some comments, and today I got a response from Wayland Bruns, CEO/CTO, CompanionLink Software, Inc.

Some things of note:

1. Contact filters and/or search capability is "on the current development schedule for the next 14 days."
2. They have had "more than one [request] for vCard/vCal [support] and will be implementing that soon."
3. "Calendar Alarm support is on the schedule for the next 5-7 days. We dropped it at the last minute because the hardware clock has some oddness that caused them to be wierd. We'll implement a software clock if needed, but [if we do,] alarms wont ring unless DejaPIM is running. That would not be good. Look for Alarms to ring by Friday."

So working Alarms are on the way! I actually wouldn't mind if DejaPIM had to be running (unless that implies that the device must be in a non-standby mode), since I keep it running all the time anyway (the app itself doesn't use much memory).

Rock on, DejaDevelopers.

[mrp]

You need to use english (usa) settings in 770. -> control panel -> language/region

Darn. Was it that simple and I reflashed and all...

[Travlr45]

OK. Dumb question. How do you start DejaPIM after you download it? :confused:

Bob in Houston

[Reggie]

Go to Extras->DejaPIM

[Travlr45]

Never mind. I found it.

Bob in Houston :cool:

[myet01]

New version as of 01/10/06.