Helf! Techno Turmoil

[Spike]

Currently I have a Windows 7 PC, a Mac Air laptop, an iPhone 4S and a Samsung Tablet 10.1. Needless to say, none of these devices really synchronise or talk each other in an easy or efficient way. I'm sure my life and work would much more technically efficient if I had the same OS all round so that all devices would happily chat and sync together. But I can't decide whether to go all Apple (which would mean dumping my fairly expensive Dell desktop PC), all Windows (which means a new Windows phone, laptop and possibly tablet, or go all Android except for the PC.

Going Windows seems sensible as my entire history of work documents sits in Windows Office format. My son (an IT techie and gadgeteer) reckons his Windows mobile phone is the dog's danglies and would sync beautifully and seamlessly with my Dell PC. But if I went the Windows route, I'd need to buy a Windows laptop and, if there is such a thing, a Windows based tablet as well as the phone.

If that all sounds confusing, it's because I'm confused. Has anyone else faced this dilemma and what did you do?

[expat yorkshire]

Why don't you just move to the cloud? Use dropbox or google docs or windows live for you files and they can then be accessed on all your devices .

you can also sync all your contacts to google contacts

[baloo]

Agree with epy, Google apps is your friends.

We sync Windows 7 (desktop and laptop), iPad, iPhone contacts, email and calendar via Google (gmail). If your own domain, like www.spikeinsingapore.com, you can move your entire email/contacts/calendar to gmail. I cant recommend doing that highly enough.

When it comes to documents, what documents do you really need on all devices ? Do you need to edit on all, or just view on some ? Work out what you need to do where and an answer will appear.

PDF is also a very easy way to view documents on any device from anywhere.

[Spike]

Google sounds like an idea to solve the problem. I'm just a bit nervous of double syncing data, e.g. I sync my iPhone calendar and contacts with Outlook and then sync Outlook with Google and back again. Then there's syncing the Android tab with Google. I'm concerned that devices may get confused as to which is the latest data and I lose a critical appointment off my Calendar. Any suggestions as to a protocol that will prevent that happening?

[baloo]

Google sounds like an idea to solve the problem. I'm just a bit nervous of double syncing data, e.g. I sync my iPhone calendar and contacts with Outlook and then sync Outlook with Google and back again. Then there's syncing the Android tab with Google. I'm concerned that devices may get confused as to which is the latest data and I lose a critical appointment off my Calendar. Any suggestions as to a protocol that will prevent that happening?

That *can* happen.

There are two ways of doing this to stay safe. Regularly take a backup of your contacts in case everything screws up. This is what I do but it's been a while since I lost anything.

The other safer option, if you can do it, is to assign one of the Calendars/Contacts as a master. i.e. every new apt goes into the same calendar every time, same with contacts. Then you just one way sync and every device pulls from the master and nothing pushes up to the master so you eliminate any wayward deletions.

It can be restrictive though.

[Kooky]

I've recently gone completely Googley. Both Hotmail and Outlook have been transferred over and, by the wonders of technology that I don't understand and don't need to, whatever I do to one device automatically makes its way to the other one in seconds. V impressed.

[slinky]

Mr. S has been using Dropbox to sync all his computers and he's liking it. iCloud isn't quite where Dropbox is yet according to him, but it's likely headed in that direction.