Guest writer Tim Salmon brings us a timely review of Psiloc's GSync utility, designed to automatically archive your text and MMS messages to labelled GMail. After a few recent glitches (in part caused by Google), GSync now appears to be working well.
Read on in the full article.
Nice review
I just installed the trial version and it's already doing its magic 😊
one small bug though: rather strangely the main screen's text is split in two in the middle so no matter how wide your screen is, the fix width left column always takes up as much space as the always changing right column, so even on E90's 800 pixel, parts of the text in the right column is just not visible.
I think the left column's width should be set to a fixed value that covers the longest word and the rest of the screen should belong to the right column...
other than that I think it's all thumbs up!
after playing around with it a little more I have a (possibly) silly question: is it really a synching software? it behaves more like a backup...
[QUOTE=Attila;386469]Nice review
one small bug though: rather strangely the main screen's text is split in two in the middle so no matter how wide your screen is, the fix width left column always takes up as much space as the always changing right column, so even on E90's 800 pixel, parts of the text in the right column is just not visible.
I think the left column's width should be set to a fixed value that covers the longest word and the rest of the screen should belong to the right column.../QUOTE]
Thanks. Lost me there with your problem. I just ran the app on my E90 and there's no split screen with text on mine. Don't really understand what you're saying. Can you post a screenshot?
Tim
Attila wrote:after playing around with it a little more I have a (possibly) silly question: is it really a synching software? it behaves more like a backup...
I guess it's an argument about the English language! Is it possible to Sync one way? Or by definition, does a sync always have to be two way? I take your point though, it certainly is a back-up and not a two-way sync. It would be a bit sad to get the dictionary out 😊
Tim
timsalmon wrote:[QUOTE=Attila;386469]Nice reviewone small bug though: rather strangely the main screen's text is split in two in the middle so no matter how wide your screen is, the fix width left column always takes up as much space as the always changing right column, so even on E90's 800 pixel, parts of the text in the right column is just not visible.
I think the left column's width should be set to a fixed value that covers the longest word and the rest of the screen should belong to the right column.../QUOTE]Thanks. Lost me there with your problem. I just ran the app on my E90 and there's no split screen with text on mine. Don't really understand what you're saying. Can you post a screenshot?
Tim
in landscape mode on the main screen you have two columns for text. left column is the "headings" (Sync schedule, Current status, Last sync) and they don't change in content so we know the width they need to keep the full text visible all the time. the second column is the date/time, current status and information about the last sync. my problem is that not even the E90's 800 pixels wide screen is big enough to display the information because of the way Psiloc decided to position the text. it just looks weird that the text is cut off despite all the empty space available.
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/images/news/gsync%20landscape.jpg
in portrait mode it's just slightly different, because the second column of text is displayed in smaller fonts. although he we know the number of lines needed to display the full information and we have more than enough empty space on 320x240 to display the cut-off text for the Last sync in a third line.
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/images/news/gsync%20portrait.jpg
it is not actually a problem just a tiny issue of practicality and taste:
if you have screen-space, use it rather than just cut text off
I don't understand why does the "About" section get more love and care than the main program when it comes to appearance. display the text or don't display the text but don't display half of it. I know it's supposed to be a background app, but still.
that was me, showing you how to forget to type in your user name 😊
oh and since you stated that you don't work for Psiloc, this moaning above is in no way aimed at you, just a simple observation on the product.
OK. I see what you mean now. Yes - this is an ongoing issue with lots of apps not using the width of the E90 efficiently. I guess it takes developers more time and effort to make a 'special' version for the E90. I also see what you mean about the depth of the available space in Portrait mode. I think that Psiloc will be monitoring this item but just in case, why not make an entry in their forum?
Tim
well, it's not just the E90 but also every phone with landscape mode (fixed and virtual alike) or all the 416x352 screens and their landscape modes. if 800 pixels is not wide enough, those widths will be too small as well.
good idea about the forum, I might just go and moan there too😊
well tim.
Technically, its a back up but, thanks for exposing it to me. This is a great way of preserving sms and mms of sentimental value.
Was all set to buy this, being "just over a fiver", which is what irecall from when I first read the article yesterday.
Now however, I see it's actually �9.95
Now I don't ever, even in the grand old days, remember a time when the exchange rate meant that �10 amounted to just over a fiver *lol*
Still, given the hassle it is to remember to use LifeBlog, which is how I do it now completely for free, albeit manually, I might still think about it.
QUESTIONS:
Having ran the trial now for over a week, I have to say this is a BRILLIANT app.
BUT... I now have a couple of questions...
I have trialled it with a standard Gmail account, and it works great.
But I am now in the process of moving over to Google Apps For Your Domain/Google Hosted (whichever you wish to call it) - the Google Mail service that lets you use and point to your OWN domain name.
My first question, clearly then, is will this work with it, as I have been reliably informed that the API's etc for GAFYD/Google Hosted are totally different altogether to standard Gmail accounts.
Anyone know?
The second question I have, is does anyone know HOW the automatic labelling for MMS or SMS gets done, as when I move over to Google Hosted, I can use the Add Account tool to import all my existing Gmail messages, but when you do so, they do not keep their labels - you would need to set a filter up to re-label them all, and I can;t see HOW I would do this to re-label the items in my then Inbox, to MMS or SMS.
Steve et al, if you have a link to the developers of the APp, can you put such questions as these to them maybe *lol* ?
Cheers all.
shadamehr wrote:QUESTIONS:
Google Apps For Your Domain/Google Hosted. HOW the automatic labelling for MMS or SMS gets done.Steve et al, if you have a link to the developers of the APp, can you put such questions as these to them maybe *lol* ?
Glad you got over my exchange rate generalisation without losing much sleep 😉
When I did the testing, I did not touch any alternative GMail setups, I'm afraid. Personally I don't really understand the point when you can tell your ISP mailboxes to redirect to GMail and also tell GMail to petition ISP's mailboxes. You can also set up GMail to make it look like your outgoing emails come from whatever email address you fancy. So I'm sure I've not read enough/don't understand the benefits of the system you're advocating, so when I have a moment I'll take a look. If it's something I think is worth investigating, I'll update my review accordingly.
In the meantime, you can talk to the developers directly from the 'forum' link on the Psiloc pages. Go to SHOP then you'll find a link top left to FORUM. I'm sure they'll be pleased to hear your comments.
Tim
