keeping your life in sync with blackberry, GTD, os x and exchange

I see lots of posts on the net around how to manage your life using blackberry and OS x - specially if you have Microsoft Exchange in your office. I thought I should pitch in with my "perfect" setup.

My requirements were:

• Should work natively with OS X (no parallels etc for me)
  
• Should work with Microsoft Exchange. In particular, calendar syncing and free/busy status should work both ways (I should be able to see the free/busy status of other people and they should be able to see mine)
  
• Should sync seamlessly with my blackberry (calendar, contacts and notes)
  
• I want it all to be reliable and trust-able. I dont want to deal with beta software or solutions that "almost" work.

After spending about 6 months of trying out various tools, I now think that I have a solution that does all of this and does them very reliably. Its not a cheap setup but, hey, its one-time investment !! Here, it goes:

First, the list of tools that I bought

• Microsoft Entourage 2004 (for mail, work calendar and exchange connectivity)
• Kinkless GTD (GTD-based task management) - requires Omnioutliner Pro
• Missing Sync for Blackberry (for blackberry syncing and a note taking application that syncs)

Now, here is how I set them up:

• Calendar : I use Entourage to work with my calendar. (I could just as easily work with iCal) and my sync flow is: Exchange <--> Entourage <--> Missing Sync <--> Blackberry
• Tasks : I use Kinkless GTD to work with my tasks. I also take notes on my blackberry so I need to have any new tasks that pop up in my head when I am working on my blackberry show up in my kGTD inbox. My sync flow is: Kinkless <--> iCal <-- Missing Sync <-- Blackberry. I do not currently sync my tasks with Exchange.
  
• Contacts : My sync flow is: Exchange <--> Entourage <--> AddressBook <--> Missing Sync <--> Blackberry
• Plaxo Contacts :I also use Plaxo for keeping current with some of my contacts so I have an additional branch to my sync flow above Plaxo <--> AddressBook which then sync with the rest of the contacts as above. I use Plaxo's Addressbook add-in for this purpose.
  
• Notes : Missing Sync ships with a great notebook that you can use on the OS X and that syncs with BB. I use Yojimbo which is much more versatile and sync with BB notes as well. My sync flow is pretty simple: Yojimbo or Missing Sync Notebook <---> Missing Sync <--> Blackberry
  
• Photos : I end up taking lots of photos from my blackberry. These are synced one way to iPhoto and then I manually update to Google Picasa that acts as my Photo backup. Picasa <-- iPhoto <-- Missing Sync <-- Blackberry .
• Music : I realize that with the music support on my blackberry I do not need to carry an iPod. I just use Missing Sync to keep my music in sync on my blackberry. iTunes Store / CDs etc --> iTunes --> Missing Sync --> Blackberry
• Mail : I have a personal IMAP account along with work Exchange account. Both just download to Entourage and Blackberry.
  

As you can see, this set up not only meets all my needs but I am also able to use my blackberry as my only portable device (for my photos, music, mail, notes, calendar, contacts and task taking). When I am on my computer, my photos, music, mail, notes, calendar, contacts and task list are back in sync with my OS X.

Some tips that are useful when creating a similar setup:
* Entourage works with iSync but always sync with a special calendar called "Entourage". My missing sync calendar settings make sure that all my calendars sync to blackberry including Entourage.
* A simple Task setup would just sync everything from kinkless to blackberry. however, I just want the ability to note down any new tasks that pop up in my head on my blackberry and the ability to have them pop up in kinkless "inbox". hence, I created a special calendar called "blackberry" in ical and have missing sync only sync this calendar for my tasks with blackberry. this way, my tasks in iCal never get transfered to Blackberry but any tasks created in blackberry get back to kinkless

Happy Syncing and let me know if you have questions about this set up !!