Sync'Em doesn't work directly with the Palm but can help sync the Palm Pre indirectly. See Palm's site for more information.

The same applies for calendar events.

Note that this strategy will also work for Exchange (i.e., Outlook/OWA/Entourage) contacts because Sync'Em can also sync Exchange contacts/calendar events either with your Address Book/iCal or directly with your Google contacts/calendar events so you can get your Exchange contacts indirectly sync'd with your Palm Pre.

Yes. You can set one or more of the information sources to sync unidirectionally — i.e., to either sync only "From" or only "To" that information source.

These options are available via the Setup assistant — e.g.:
Click on the graphic for a full-sized view.

When Sync'Em is syncing, you can select the "Open Sync'Em Engine Log" entry in the Sync'Em menu extra to monitor the syncing progress.

There are many factors that determine the speed of syncing — the following list is somewhat ordered, starting with the most important performance factors:

• an initial sync must sync and initialize everything and so will take a relatively long time:
• depending upon the factors below, allow from 1 to 4 seconds per item being sync'd ('though some systems will be faster and some will be slower)
• to see how Sync'Em is progressing, select the "Open Sync'Em Engine Log" entry in the Sync'Em menu extra
• note that accessing high-performance servers so Sync'Em can process transactions quickly will tend to use more processor resources, but for a shorter time — and Sync'Em is multi-threaded so it'll use multiple processors when available
• after an initial sync, only items that have been added/changed/deleted will be sync'd
• sync setups that sync a few information sources — e.g., an Exchange, Google and iCal calendar — will typically take less than a minute and not have any significant impact on system resources
• syncing with information sources that require OS X's Sync Services are slower and can consume significant CPU and memory resources:
• OS X's Sync Services provides the only full-featured Apple-approved interface to the Apple Address Book and iCal (and other resources) so Sync'Em must use Sync Services when syncing with Address Book and iCal
• the only Sync'Em operations that use noticeable system resources, especially CPU, are those where Sync Services are involved — it's Sync Services that's more resource-intensive
• OS X's Sync Services doesn't "scale" very well — e.g., at around 20,000 to 30,000 contact entries it gets non-linearly slower and becomes too slow to be practical (only Apple can fix this) — 'though it's true that most people don't have that many items of any kind!
• syncing Exchange-based information sources can require noticeable resources:
• in particular, syncing Exchange calendar events requires multiple transactions that require CPU resources
• the following general factors affect the overall/per-item syncing performance:
• the type and speed of processor — this is most noticeable for the phases that use OS X's Sync Services
• the faster the processor speed, the faster the processing (du-oh!)
• Sync'Em is highly multi-threaded so multiple processors helps, but primarily when the system is otherwise busy
• Intel-based systems, even of a comparable processor speed, are significantly faster than PowerPC-based systems
• Exchange and Google server performance — from the data we've seen, most Exchange servers seem quite fast and Google is legendary for normally having quick response
• the speed and latency of the network — normally not an issue, but slow wireless, VPN and/or proxy configurations can have a significant negative impact
• low available memory can have a noticeable effect, especially for the phases that use OS X's Sync Services — OS X's Sync Services can consume considerable memory when syncing many (i.e., thousands of) items and OS X, like any modern-day operating system, will seriously slow down if it's driven to "swap memory" on and off the disk (i.e., if it's using "virtual"/disk-based memory instead of RAM)

If you are experiencing conditions other than what would be implied by the above information, please review our article about OS X's Sync Services' corruption. As always, if you're having a performance (or other) issue, please create a support ticket and we'll help.

There are multiple possibilities

• the Sync'Em Engine is paused because:
• it was paused via the menu extra (i.e., the "Pause Sync'Em Engine" entry has a check-mark to its left — select it again to un-pause the engine)
• the Sync'Em preferences panel is open — that automatically pauses the engine so settings can be changed without the danger of having an undesired sync when part of the way through a setup change
• the Sync'Em Engine is no longer running (the menu selection above the "Pause Sync'Em Engine" entry provides a status that may give a clue) because:
• the Sync'Em Engine was manually stopped — e.g., via the Sync'Em preferences panel
• the Trial license has expired or Sync'Em has otherwise become unlicensed — you can check the licensing status via the "About" panel in the Sync'Em preferences
• the Sync'Em Engine crashed — to restart the Sync'Em Engine:
• open the Sync'Em preferences and click on the "Preferences" tab ("User Prefs" in older versions)
• if it's available, press the "Stop Sync'Em Engine" button (admin credentials required)
• press the "Start Sync'Em Engine" button (admin credentials required)
• please help us find the issue

Also see the Knowledgebase article about the Sync'Em Engine in a "hung" condition.

Yes, see the Knowledgebase article on this topic.

Information about the embedded Sync'Em Message Viewer application is in the Sync'Em ReadMe document that's included on the downloaded installer disk image and accessible via the About tab in the Sync'Em preferences.

Yes, even if you don't have an Exchange server, you can use Sync'Em to create shared calendars with calendar events that are shared across iCal calendars on multiple Macs. For details, see our Knowledgebase article on creating shared calendars.

Yes, even if you don't have an Exchange server, you can use Sync'Em to create contacts that are shared across the Address Book on multiple Macs. For details, see our Knowledgebase article on creating shared contacts.

For this an other important operational information, you should read the small "Operating Sync'Em – The Sync'Em Menu Extra" and "Sync'Em Messages" sections in the Sync'Em "ReadMe" document (available via the "Read Me..." button in the "About" tab on the Sync'Em preferences panel and/or via the installer/uninstaller disk image). There's also a forum comment on this topic.

Yes. See our Exchange Hosting Service Providers page for more information.

Please contact us and we'll enable you to extend your trial period.

Yes, Sync'Em can help you get your iPhone sync'd wirelessly.

If you have an Exchange account that offers wireless syncing with your iPhone, just sync your Address Book and iCal to your Exchange account that syncs with your iPhone. Your Address Book contacts and iCal calendars can also be sync'd with your Google account and/or other Macs^*.

If you don't have an Exchange account that offers wireless syncing with your iPhone, you can get a hosted Exchange account that does offer wireless syncing then sync your Exchange account and/or Google account and/or Macs with that Exchange account (which then syncs wirelessly with your iPhone).

Our Exchange Hosting Providers page has some information on providers that offer wireless iPhone syncing.

^*Not all features are currently available. See the product roadmap for more information.

Yes and no, which means yes (in that order).

The "database" for Entourage, Outlook and OWA is Exchange — actually, these are all "clients" that utilize the services of Exchange servers.

So, effectively, Sync'Em syncs with Entourage/Outlook/OWA — i.e., Entourage/Outlook/OWA all "see" the contact and calendar information sync'd with Exchange by Sync'Em and Sync'Em "sees" and syncs the contact and calendar information added/changed/deleted via Entourage/Outlook/OWA (because they're all just telling Exchange what to do with items that reside in Exchange).

See the Knowledgebase article on this topic.

Yes, you can use Sync'Em in conjunction with Entourage but you must ensure that Entourage's syncing is turned off (unless you are using Entourage without Exchange — i.e., if Entourage is being used as a stan-alone main client for non-Exchange email servers).

Entourage's syncing can be turned on/off via its preferences.

Specifically, it's always dangerous to sync two of the same resources "together" via multiple sync'ers. In this case, the two resources would be Exchange contacts with Address Book contacts and/or Exchange calendars with iCal calendars and the two sync'ers would be Entourage and Sync'Em. This danger is true whether it's Entourage and Sync'Em or any other sync'er programs syncing the same two resources. For a more complete explanation, see our Knowledgebase article on this topic.

For safety, if Sync'Em determines that Entourage appears to be installed, it will show an advisory message once after each new version that's installed.

Yes, there is a way to sync from Mac-to-Mac!

You can use the following strategy to sync your contacts and/or calendar events across two or more Macs:

• you'll need either a (free) Google/Gmail account or an Exchange account
• syncing via Exchange provides a few more capabilities than syncing via Google (because there are fewer differences between iCal and Exchange's capabilities that between iCal and Google's capabilities)
• If you don't have an Exchange account, you can get a (relatively inexpensive) hosted Exchange account — see our Exchange Hosting Providers page for information on providers that are known to work with Sync'Em.
• purchase one Sync'Em Contacts or Sync'Em (standard) license for each Mac (depending upon whether you want to sync only contacts and/or calendar events, respectively)
• on one system, setup and sync that Mac's contacts and/or calendar events with the Google or Exchange account
• one-by-one, on the other system(s) setup and sync that Mac's contacts and/or calendar events with the Google or Exchange account

Sync'Em will now keep your contacts and/or calendar events in sync across those systems.

You can easily setup a test scenario — just download Sync'Em and use free Trial licenses (each trial License ID will license 2 Macs). In addition, many of the hosted Exchange providers offer "free for 30 days" trial Exchange accounts.

Notes:

• there's additional information in our Knowledgebase article about syncing multiple Macs
• a Sync'Em Contacts license can later be upgraded to a Sync'Em license, 'though the overall cost is slightly higher

As always, if you have any problems, contact us and we'll help.

No, only Sync'Em needs to be installed. If you are syncing to other Macs, Sync'Em also needs to be installed and licensed on those Macs. You can also review the requirements for Sync'Em.