With the proliferation of smart devices
and home offices there's a lot of talk about syncing our personal
data. Not that it's really "personal", because the idea
behind syncing it is to share it, and then it would no longer be
personal. Besides, its business data, if it was personal we'd just
use Facebook wouldn't we? Anyway, Evernote, Google, and iCloud are
possibly the top three, when it comes to syncing and sharing
personal data.
Evernote has its own way of doing things. Notes,
Notebooks, and lots of ways to organize them. You can sort and
search by date created, date last modified, content and source.
There's sharing and syncing too.
Evernote isn't going to share or sync your calendar,
or contacts, email or notes. It has it's own way of doing things,
which may not be a good fit for business people.
Google has one of everything, everything, and you
can share. Keep your calendar in Google, documents, personal
profile, news about you, personal events, your feelings, and share
them, like with Facebook. Again, not necessarily a good fit for
business people.
Apple on the other hand, whose Mac you almost never
see used for business*, has iCloud. iCloud is Apple's
tool for syncing iPhones, iPads, Macs, and yes, PCs. iCloud seems
to be a really good fit for business people.
The iCloud Calendar, with Reminders, Projects, and
Tasks syncs right into Outlook. Outlook Notes sync too, and have
their own icon on the iPhone and iPad. Make a change on your
iPhone, iPad, Mac or PC and it gets pushed up to iCloud and out to
your other devices.
iCloud has a website you can log into and manage
those items if for some inexplicable reason you're without one of
your toys. Unless of course your iPhone / iPad has been lost or
stolen, then it is explicable. Using the Find My iPhone feature you
can send a sound or message to your device, lock it, wipe it clean,
or just find it. If its not online at the moment you can have it
email you when it comes online.
You've got mail, a new @me.com account when you sign
up for iCloud. You can have it delivered to your Outlook as an
@me.com address or forward it to one of your existing Outlook email
accounts. You can even make 3 aliases for the @me.com address.
Someone at Apple may have actually used Outlook, because they made
setting an Out of Office (Vacation) message really, really, easy
too.
If you're using a PC with Outlook, like a business
person, iCloud hooks right in. Calendar, Contacts, Notes, even
@me.com email. If you're not a business person using a PC with
Outlook, what information are you syncing anyway?
You need an iPhone or iPad to use iCloud, if you
don't have one what devices are you syncing anyway? Maybe you're
a business person that wanted an iPhone but settled for something
else to avoid using AT&T and now you're stuck trying to fit the
square peg into the missing hole. Good news, that's over, Virgin
has iPhones now too, at $35 a month, and Christmas is less than a
month away.
You can use iCloud to sync your important
stuff with a Christmas iPad or iPhone , or not, but that's your call, and that's Cocktail Talk.
