Finally there's a way to sync contacts out of AOL and into something free. Since AOL Sync is based on Funambol, it uses SyncML, and the Funambol clients.
You'll need Java, and then:
- Download the Funambol Google Plug-In. If you want to sync into Outlook, use the AOL Sync client, or look at the other Funambol plug-ins for other systems.
- Extract it, and run it — look in the funambol, pug-ins, then bin folders. The file is called "runGoogle.cmd" on Windows, and "runGoogle.sh" for Unix systems.
- Go to Edit, then Communication Settings
- Put in
http://m.sync.aol.com/sync
for the Server URL. Fill in your AOL username and password, and your Gmail username and password. - Hit OK
- Hit Synchronize
Voila, your contacts are in Gmail
Say good-bye to a provider that has until now worked very hard on locking your contacts in.
Comments
Just don't keep a email contact list.
The one thing I can't seem to remember is date context.
By relying on my memory, I don't get lulled into thinking that my email contacts will always bee available to me. And if something does happen-- my account gets hacked or whatever-- I don't have to apologize to my friends.
And, for people who I email regularly, it's habit.
If I need to remember an address of someone who has already emailed me, and I can't remember their email address, I can search for their name to pull up the last-known-address.