On 8/11/2011 2:14 PM, John Andersen wrote:
On 8/11/2011 12:15 AM, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
Any suggestions about the best way to use an Android telephone with openSUSE? This is re: things like syncing contacts and perhaps mail.
I am guessing the best is to use various Google services as the mediator. So, for example, sync evolution contacts and calenders with Google, and then sync the phone with Google. Or is there a more direct way that does not involve Google services?
Unless you have a philosophical aversion to Google, I've found that with iPhone OR Android (but especially the latter) you might as well go all in on google services, and use it to sync everything you possibly can with Google.
Addresses, Contacts, Mail, Calendar, Music, Docs, etc. Its easier to find desktop applications that deal with Google than find phone apps that deal with KDE or Linux apps.
Any KDE/Linux app that insists on ignoring Google integration is just not worth my time.
Since I use IMAP for all mail, it really doesn't matter what mail client I use, but Address books are a perpetual problem, because Thunderbird keeps walking away from its own plugins, so address book syncing works today, and then fails tomorrow.
It sure is convenient, but for some unlucky people, it sure is more than a philosophical issue. You don't have to care one teeny tiny whit whether Thomas Monopoly actually did anything wrong to be scared to death of just trusting google or anyone one else with everything. The fact that the backup options are incomplete and suck, and that there are no avenues of appeal, that some admin somewhere, who you are not allowed to contact, just decides to erase you, is just intolerable. The whole Thomas Monopoly thing, ultimately turned out to be about an image that could possibly be considered child porn? Are you kidding? When I google for "beach" I can find nude beaches with kids in some shots. If I google "nude beach" some shots that come back look like not merely naked kids on a beach but actually in some sort of beauty pagent. Well, I didn't go looking for naked kids, I went looking for nude beaches. But then again, what if I were a student or researcher? There are any number of reasons I might specifically go looking for pics of naked kids, or even specifically child porn. I could be collecting statistics, I could be looking for people I know, I could be looking for patterns like where do certain known images turn up, how do they propogate etc to trace where they really come from etc etc the mere existence of a pic, or even a huge collection of them, means really absolutely nothing by itself. But someone somewhere gets to decide that because of this my entire presence across all google services should be erased? Including maybe things like pics of and mails from people who aren't even alive any more let alone all the mundane things like work and dealings with authorities etc. Way too much of importance happens via email now for it to be OK to just erase it lightly. Suppose you owned domains that were registered to a gmail account that got erased? You are supposed to have a phone number or fax number also but you can have as little as a single email address. Once that goes invalid you actually can not, no matter what you say or do, regain control of the domain and once it expires you get to take your chances with everyone else to re-aquire it. This has nothing to do with backing up data or having other email addresses to use. The registrar will, exactly as they are supposed to do, completely disregard anything that doesn't come from that email address and that's just all there is to it. Of course it would be dumb to allow so much importance to hinge on any single thing, especially something you don't ultimately control like a gmail address. Exactly as unwise as just consolidating everything into google and hoping they don't erase you just because as far as you can tell you're a pretty nice guy not doing anything wrong... If google modifies their procedures and behavior a little, then it would be a bit less crazy to just go all-in with them. But as it is, I'll use all their stuff. It's great. So convenient! But I won't *rely* on any of it. No emails of any importance on gmail, or at least the occasional important thing immediately forwarded elsewhere, no pics I don't have elsewhere, etc. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org