Bugs & Fixes: Dealing with iCal and Entourage duplicates Elgin IL

If you sync Entourage calendar appointments with your iPhone or MobileMe account, you might notice duplicate entries popping up. Ted Landau has a procedure for eradicating unwanted copies with a minimum of fuss.

Local Companies

Zetta Medical Technologies
847-550-9990
363 Enterprise Parkway
Lake Zurich, IL
City Electric Supply
(847) 622-2360
1390 Gateway Dr Ste 1
Elgin, IL
Qualcomm Inc
(847) 214-8458
39W191 Water Rd
Elgin, IL
Westside Electric Supply Inc
(847) 468-1000
1530 N La Fox S
Elgin, IL
Harting Inc
(847) 741-1500
1370 Bowes Rd
Elgin, IL
Allcom Products
(847) 468-8830
695 W Sundown Rd S
Elgin, IL
Warner Electric
(815) 389-3771
449 Gardner St
South Beloit, IL
Frost Electric Supply Co
(618) 465-3347
Alton, IL
Alton Radiant
(618) 463-5006
408 State St
Alton, IL
Mar-Tek Sales Corp
(630) 543-5626
243 W Fay Ave
Addison, IL

provided by: 


Suppose you use Microsoft Office's Entourage to maintain your list of contacts and calendar appointments? Further suppose you wish to sync these data with your iPhone or with your MobileMe account. Can you do it? Yes.

To do so, go to Entourage -> Preferences -> General Preferences -> Sync Services. From here, enable the options to synchronize contacts and events with Address Book, iCal and .Mac (MobileMe).

This is what I've done and it works pretty well overall. Except for one persistent and annoying problem: My calendar appointments inevitably begin to reproduce. That is, at some point, I'll find two of every calendar event in Entourage. At the same time, iCal will show a matching set of duplicates. This replication process expands over time, so that older appointments (ones I have saved past their due date) often wind up with four or six copies.

Who's to blame for this bug? There is some dispute (see this Apple Discussions thread for example) as to whether the cause lies primarily with Microsoft Office or with Leopard's Sync Services software. Personally, I give the nod to Microsoft, as I have never had the problem in iCal unless I am syncing iCal with Entourage. What is undisputed is that there is not yet a permanent fix. Neither Apple nor Microsoft appear to be in a hurry to correct the situation.

What can you do in the meantime? Your choices are limited. Either give up on using Entourage for syncing or keep deleting the duplicates as you find them. The latter option can be a time-consuming nuisance, especially if you have a lot of duplicates. If so, try this procedure to eradicate the unwanted copies with a minimum of fuss:

  1. Download iCal Dupe Deleter and use it to delete all the duplicates from the Entourage calendar in iCal.
  2. Go back to the Sync Services Preferences in Entourage. From here, deselect the sync options and click OK. Return to the dialog to reselect the same options and again click OK. A dialog should appear with three choices (as shown in the screenshot to the right). Select the one to "Delete Entourage information." In theory, this should immediately eliminate all the events in Entourage, forcing it to repopulate with the duplicate-free data from iCal.

However, when I tried this, and waited about 30 minutes, nothing happened. Growing impatient for results, I tried something else.

I have Apple's Developer software installed on my drive. Inside the /Developer/Applications/Utilities folder is an application named Syncrospector. I don't know much about how this utility works. But I know enough to launch it and click its Sync button. That did the trick. I immediately checked back at Entourage and iCal; all the duplicates had vanished.

The entire process, starting with iCal Duple Deleter, should only take about two minutes. There are probably other variations on this theme, perhaps simpler ones, that would have worked as well. But this is what I tried and it worked. Having a way to prevent the duplicates from appearing in the first place would obviously be a preferred solution. Until then, this will do.


Read article at Macworld.com

Featured Local Company

Zetta Medical Technologies

847-550-9990
363 Enterprise Parkway
Lake Zurich, IL
http://www.zettamed.com

Related Local Events
Electronics Assembly Show
Dates: 9/21/2009 - 9/24/2009
Location: Donald E Stephens Convention Center
Rosemont, IL
View Details

Electronics Assembly Show
Dates: 9/21/2009 - 9/24/2009
Location: Donald E. Stephens Convention Center
Rosemont, IL
View Details

Assembly Technology Expo
Dates: 9/21/2009 - 9/24/2009
Location: Donald E Stephens Convention Center
Rosemont, IL
View Details

AD:TECH CHICAGO 2009
Dates: 9/1/2009 - 9/2/2009
Location: Navy Pier
Chicago, IL
View Details

Rss   Delicious   Digg   Add To My Yahoo   Add To My Google   Bookmark   Search Plugin

Topics:
Advertising Family Home Services Real Estate Resources
Business Services Fashion Industrial Goods & Services Retail & Consumer Services
Career Financial Services Insurance Software
Cars Food & Beverage Internet Technology
Computer Hardware Franchise Legal Telecommunications
Construction Health Miscellaneous Trade Shows
Education Holidays Nightlife Travel
Entertainment Home Appliances Online Database Weddings
Environmental Home Electronics Pets World History