Android Help 1: Syncing an Android Phone with Outlook

Number 1 in this series of Android How To**

 

 

Blackberry supplied a free Desktop Manager that made syncing Outlook with the handset via a USB cable very, very easy. Contacts, calendar, notes and tasks on my laptop were also on my Blackberry.

Times move, the iPhone and Androids are now the in-devices. Everyone's using it, businesses included. Why then is it so difficult finding something to sync an Android phone with Outlook. I was even willing to pay!!

Fortunately, FJ Software Development came to the rescue with MyPhoneExplorer. It's free too (but I'll definitely be making a PayPal donation!)

To sync via a USB-Cable:

 
1. Download MyPhoneExplorer [Here] and install
2. Download an ADB Driver [Here]
3. On the mobile, enable USB-Debugging
          Settings -> Application -> Development
          Settings -> Apps -> Development
          Settings -> Developer options:
4. Connect mobile and install an ADB Driver
5. Start the MyPhoneExplorer on your PC
6. Setup the sync options File -> Settings
7. In the Connection-Tab under Phone Typ choose Phone with Google Android-OS and in Connect via... choose the option Autodetect.
8. Connect with the "F1"-button or via "File->Connect"
9. Now your Device should be connected to the MyPhoneExplorer. Select what you want to sync.

** More as a memory jogger for myself rather than for any greater noble purpose

Aspect and the greening of Sydney

Property buffs down-under know that the north aspect is best (it's different for those in the northern hemisphere). If you have a north facing apartment, you get perpetual sunlight in winter and shade in summer. Trying to sell the south facing apartments can be trying at times. 

In my stroll around Sydney, came across this brilliant design, on the south face, mirrors are positioned on the building to direct the sunlight down the southern side of the building.

Add to that, shrubs are planted into the western side of the wall, creating a floating oasis as one looks up from the street. Irrigation is built in to keep the plants green!

Is privacy becoming obsolete?

We're all doing it, the Chinese, US, Aussies... ignoring an individual's privacy under the guise of security concerns and welfare for all. Do most even care that what we do is no longer private? 

Maybe not.. especially the "younger" generation growing up in an era of selfie narcissism.

Did you know that since 2001, Telstra agreed to store huge volumes of electronic communications it carried between Asia and the US for potential surveillance by the FBI and the US Department of Justice.

All communications including the IP address, content of emails, online messages and phone calls involving a US point of contact is sent through to a secure storage facility on US soil that is staffed exclusively by US citizens carrying a top-level security clearance. [Read more here]

In China, poor Peng Hong was at home tapping away at his computer when a message popped up unexpectedly on his screen telling him to report urgently to the local police station.

Peng dismissed it as a computer virus until police appeared unannounced at his door weeks later. [Read more here]

Blogger and journalist Michele Catalano was Googling pressure cookers. She wanted a pressure cooker to cook quinoa, her husband had been using the same computer to search for backpacks and the couple's 20-year-old son after reading about the Boston bombings, was clicking links about home-made bombs.

What happened next was, authorities swooped. They visited the couple's home at about 9am. It was real black ops stuff, six guys in three black SUVs pulled up and surrounded the house. [Read more here]

There is a belief that Skype offers end-to-end encryption, meaning communications are encrypted by one user, transmitted over the wire, and then decrypted only when they reach the other party and are fully under that party's control. This is clearly not the case as Microsoft has the ability to read and regularly scans message contents for signs of fraud, and company managers may log the results indefinitely. [Read more here]

There is agreement the NSA’s PRISM technology is based on optical fibre “wiretaps” placed at the connection of internet providers to companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook in the US gaining access from nine Internet companies to a wide range of digital information, including e-mails and stored data. No one is really sure how it all works but it works. [Read more here] and [Here]

Accountants are cool...

There was a time when we made fun of accountants. Boring, number crunching guys and girls in glasses... Not anymore it seems...

Introducing Meri Amber who loves accountancy and her album LOVE$ACCY .

Tracks include KPMG Audit Team, Smooth Calculator,Mark to Market and many more!


Lyrics ~ KPMG Audit Team
Oh won’t you please,
Please employ me KPMG,
you’re my dream
Oh won’t you please,
Please give me a call

I follow your KPMG twitter feed
I’ve got your logo as the background on my screen
It’s like you know me cause your marketing
It speaks right to me- your blue colour scheme....

oh yea!

Bladder Fright Affliction aka BFA

Many years ago I mentioned the problem of BFA effecting us males. The difficulty of standing shoulder to shoulder attempting to 'do it'. Guess what, our good friends at LG decided add to our handicap by installing crystal screens in the urinal.

The result.... 16-second 'average stage fright delay' and a failure to launch rate of 26%.

Not Surprising

Sometime ago I wrote about someone who received emergency first aid from a St John Ambulance officer  and was suing and saying her treatment was unlawful assault. There was also the Alexandra Van Horn v. Lisa Torti case in California where it doesn't pay to be a Good Samaritan.

Now, we have the gall to complain that a woman in California dies after a nurse refuses to perform CPR?

Oh please!

Real Bankers?

I issued a cheque this week. For those who don't know what a cheque is, it's a piece of paper signed by me, addressed to my bank, asking them to Pay: xxx the sum of $xx. Unfortunately, the person I gave the cheque to, misplaced it.

Logged into online banking expecting to find a stop cheque function. Couldn't find one. Rang the helpdesk...

Indian: ANZ, how can I help you today?
Me: I'm looking for the on-line stop cheque function thanks.
Indian:......silence.... Let me put you through to my supervisor.
Aussie voice: ANZ, how can I help you today?
Me: I'm looking for the on-line stop cheque function thanks.
Aussie voice: ... er... You'll have to go down to the branch.
Me: Hmmmm....ok
Aussie voice: Is there anything I can help you with?
Me thinking.... Grrrrrrr!

Down at the branch
Teller: Good afternoon
Me: I'd like to put a stop payment of a cheque I issued please.
Teller...... blank look......
Me: I issued a cheque, the payee lost it and I would like to put a stop on it, thank you.
Teller...... looking round for help.......
(Ha! He was the only teller this lunchtime, barely 20, no doubt with his University degree).
Teller: Please have a seat, I'll get the Business Manager to see you.

Wait 30 minutes

Business Manager: How can I help you today?
(OK, have to admit, she's very pretty, barely 25, with her MBA)
Me: I'd like to put a stop payment on a cheque I issued please.
Business Manager: er.... let me see...
Me: Look, you'll need my bank account details, the cheque number.
Business Manager: OK 

(starts jotting down the details on her scratch pad)
Me: Will you need any other information.
Business Manager: No, that's fine. I'll see to it that this is done.

What, ask the Branch Manager when he gets back from lunch? She doesn't even have the payee details, amount, issue date and the most important, my agreement to the Stop Cheque Fee!

My rant for the day. Bankers W*nkers!

Farm Gate Trail

Wandered around the Hawkesbury area visiting farms last weekend. Support the local economy, healthy, organic greenie activity... Would never have believed it, me supporting the environment. Must be old age!

 The Hawksbury food bowl is one of the most productive regions of Australia, about an hour's drive north west of Sydney.

Couple of standouts, the Clarendon Organic Free Range egg farm was one. A dozen organic free range eggs for $5, a bargain.

The chooks were strolling in these large paddocks, protected by a pack of 

Italian Sheepdogs bark was a lot worse than their bite.

Always wondered how the eggs are found and collected if they're laid all over the paddock. Oddly, the hens only lay their eggs in mobile hen coops (well trained hens). Who knew?

Next stop, pick your own apples. One thing I've discovered, apples straight off a tree is nothing like what we buy at the supermarkets. Much, much juicer and sweeter!

It was one for the basket, one for me (one is only charged for what's in the basket).

More fruits. 

 In season are pears, plums and apples.

Was never too keen on apples, but have somehow been converted! It's not just the apples but the whole idea of growing your own stuff. I could quite happily be a farmer.

Read more about the Farm Gate Trail here and experience it before all these farms disappear under Sydney's urban sprawl!

A long time ago...

Us oldies, pine for the good old days. A time when kids were seen and not heard, corporal punishment not frowned upon, and we enjoyed simple outdoor and physical pleasures.

I definitely don't recall being told I'm special and given class awards for just turning up. We practiced failing and falling. It didn't kill us. There was no feel good therapy, nor did we drug misbehaving kids with Ritalin, making excuses like ADHD.

Nope, we were made of tougher stuff then and SNAG* wasn't in my vocabulary.

*Sensitive New Age Guy

Titanic?.... Think not

Wordless Wednesday