Windows Phone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

If you use Hotmail and do not already have an Exchange account set up on your WinMo device, you might want to give this a try. It isn't official so it could break or stop working altogether until an official announcement is made. If you use the server m.hotmail.com in your Exchange ActiveSync setup on your device and then use your Hotmail ID and password, you might get it to sync.

Currently email, contacts and appointments are supported. For tasks, you'll still have to rely on your desktop software to sync with. Poor tasks, always seems to get left out. In fairness though, is there even a place at Hotmail to store tasks?

"Chronobis is a FREE Outlook Web Access (OWA) to Windows Mobile device synchronization program. It connects directly to OWA from your Windows Mobile device and does not require any special permissions or options to be enabled by your company's IT department. If you can access Outlook Web Access (OWA) from a public internet connection, you can sync Exchange calendar to your PocketPC (PPC) device using Chronobis. Chronobis also runs completely self-contained on your Windows Mobile device, no need to install software on your desktop, work computer, or use any "3rd party service"."

Chronobis solves only one problem, but it's a problem that can be quite vexing if you happen to be impacted by it: if your organization uses an Exchange server, but doesn't allow mobile devices to sync against it, you can use Chronobis to sync your Windows Mobile smartphone with your Exchange server - provided that your organization allows Outlook Web Access. And it's free - the author only asks for a small donation if you find it useful.