Sync scenario -- will it work?

Question

I have a Palm T3, two Macs at home (iMac and Powerbook laptop) and a PC at work. I purchased The Missing Sync this weekend in hopes of being able to regularly perform the following simple tasks:
* Sync only three out of five categories in T3's Contacts with Adress Book on my iMac (the other five categories I wouldn't want in Address Book). Then, I'll use my .Mac account to sync iMac and Powerbook Address Books.
* Sync T3 with Palm desktop on iMac at home and PC at work.
Does this scenario seem reasonable -- do-able?
I've already done some work with Missing Sync, and due to a couple of glitches I'm working through, thought I'd stop and ask this question to make sure my expectations are o.k.
Thanks for any responses.
  Mac OS X (10.4.7)  

Answer 1

As Dirk indicated, it's likely not a process doomed to failure as long as you stay 'in bounds' and account for the inherent limitations of these technologies. I really think that the Sync Services framework is an amazing piece of work, but some components, particularly iCal and iSync, do not perform with Palm OS, Windows Mobile OS and other devices as one might reasonably expect them to. In this case, the inherent limitations of the Palm OS are showing too.
I had assumed that you also intended to have iCal in mix - your decision not to include it actually greatly reduces the likelihood of data corruption or loss.
The problems with iCal are manifested by, among other things…
• the inclusion of both calendaring and task data with iSync [though the Missing Sync for Palm OS breaks these out]
• the inherent 'disconnect' with handling events spanning more than a day, and with repeating events
You're not likely to encounter substantial problems reading and writing contact data alone in the manner you describe, though you might want to instead consider using Plaxo as an intermediary. The basic account is free, there is an Address Book plug-in which does a great job, and its easily accessible from a PC. There's more here:
http://www.plaxo.com
Oh, and one more thing: Plaxo seems orders of magnitude more reliable than .Mac Sync, as does MySync. I've never experienced a problem at all using Plaxo or MySync, but .Mac Sync has been an endless series of headaches. When it works, it meets my somewhat limited expectations. When it doesn't, and it often does not, then it creates substantial problems. I cannot imagine depending upon it to actually synchronize data frequently and reliably. It just does not perform, in my experience.
While it's a matter for a different thread, .Mac Sync suddenly stopped working at all for me recently. No amount of effort on my part, including reinitializing the truth and unregistering then reregistering Sync clients [something that requires developer tools, and that users cannot do], nor forced resets initiated through System Preferences could correct the problem. Why? The answer should be obvious - the problem is a server side, not client side, issue. There is no chance that the .Mac support team will buy that, and it's worthless to engage in yet another fruitless interchange with them. Nice people, but completely clueless. It will either work again someday, spontaneously, or it will not. [Just imagine actually having to depend upon a technology like that.]
If you decide to explore MySync as an alternative to .Mac Sync, here is a link:
http://www.mildmanneredindustries.com/mysync
Experimenting with test records to test the 'boundaries' of your scenario is a great idea, and should quickly identify potential problems. One last thought: back up. Frequently.