Spanning Sync Blog

End of the Line for Spanning Sync

After much deliberation, Larry and I have decided to discontinue sales of Spanning Sync. We'll continue to operate the service for existing customers through June 2013, but we won't be selling new subscriptions or renewals.

It's been an incredible 5 years—5 years!—since we released Spanning Sync v1.0. So much has happened.

We've learned a lot about technology and business. We've proven to ourselves that you can make a good living as an indie Mac software developer. And we've had a lot of fun. But the most rewarding part of the journey has been getting to know some of our customers.

Over the years, more than 50,000 people in over 50 countries subscribed to Spanning Sync. Many of those people became well-known to us through emails, forum posts, Twitter, and in person. I can hardly attend a technology conference or meetup without running into someone who's used Spanning Sync. And it's to those people—our customers—that I want to say thank you. You've made this the most rewarding experience of my professional life.

But, as they say, all good things must end, and so it is with Spanning Sync. We've faced what we thought was certain death several times before, notably when Google built CalDAV support into Google Calendar, then later when Apple built contact sync into Address Book. But though these developments hampered our growth, neither of them killed us. What finally did it was Apple's move to the cloud.

In June of last year, Steve Jobs announced iCloud, saying, "We're going to move the digital hub—the center of your digital life—to the cloud," adding, "If you don't think we're serious about this, you're wrong."

Technically, this meant a shift away from Apple Sync Services, the technology upon which Spanning Sync is built. The Sync Services team within Apple was quietly disbanded and the technology deprecated in OS X 10.7.

But it wasn't until a year after the iCloud announcement that the other shoe dropped with the release of OS X 10.7.4. That release included a bug that prevented iCal from properly syncing with Sync Services, and therefore with Sync Services clients like Spanning Sync, BusySync, Blackberry Sync, and many others. We've been in touch with Apple, and it doesn't appear they intend to fix the bug.

Instead, they've suggested we move to the more modern CalendarStore and Address Book frameworks. But this would require a major rewrite, which, given the dwindling need for a third-party solution to sync Apple and Google calendars and contacts, isn't economically feasible for us.

So this is it. On June 19, we temporarily suspended sales and renewals of Spanning Sync. Today we're making that permanent. We will however continue to operate the service until June 19, 2013—one year after we sold the last one-year subscription. If you have any questions about all of this, please contact us at support@spanningsync.com.

(I should also note that this has no effect whatsoever on Spanning Tools for Mac or Spanning Backup for Google Apps, both of which are kicking total ass!)

It's been an amazing time. We have lots more thoughts and stories to share. But for now, on behalf of Larry, Byron, and myself, let me just say thank you.

Best regards,
Charlie

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Charlie Wood
Spanning Sync, Inc.
charlie.wood@spanningsync.com
blog.spanningsync.com

OS X 10.7.4 Update Breaks iCal, Spanning Sync Sales Suspended

To our great disappointment, the Mac OS X 10.7.4 update introduced a severe bug in iCal that prevents Spanning Sync from functioning correctly. This bug also affects other sync apps including BusySync and Blackberry Sync. It's unclear whether Apple intends to fix this bug.

Larry, Byron, and I don't want anyone paying for something that doesn't work, so we've decided to take the drastic step of temporarily suspending Spanning Sync sales. Of course, we'll continue to offer service to current subscribers. Once we fully understand how this issue affects the future of Spanning Sync, we'll post an update here.

We sincerely appreciate your support. Please contact us at support@spanningsync.com if you have any questions.

Best regards,
Charlie

Oppenheimer, the Fall of the Roman Empire, and Google Drive

Cross-posted from the Spanning Backup Blog:

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At Spanning, we've been doing sync since 2006. (Damn, that's a long time.) But we hadn't been doing it long before we realized that sync makes backup even more important. Because with sync, when you make a change—including an accidental deletion or modification—that change gets sunc (we made that word up) to all of your copies of that data. So if you sync everything everywhere, your changes, including screwups, affect everything. Everywhere.

In March 2007 we shipped Spanning Sync v1.0, which for the first time let users sync their Google calendars with iCal. Soon tens of thousands of people were using it to do for their calendars what apps like Dropbox now do for files. People could connect multiple Macs to a single Google account with Spanning Sync and have changes made on any of them show up on all of them—and on Google. It was awesome, and there was much rejoicing.

But just a few months later Apple shipped OS X 10.5 "Leopard", and something very bad happened. Inexplicably, Apple made a few changes to Leopard between the final developer release (against which we had been testing) and the bits they shipped to customers. And one of those changes caused Apple Sync Services to tell all sync clients (including Spanning Sync), "Delete everything!" And we did. We had become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

Luckily it didn't take us long to figure out what was going on. We shut down our servers so no more bad delete commands would be sunc and worked through the night digging through log files to manually recover lost data for our affected customers. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't fun. We updated our app to work around the problem and issued a fix within 48 hours. Disaster was averted but the experience stuck with us. And it led us to develop Spanning Backup for Google Apps.

So here we are in 2012 and sync is hotter than ever. Dropbox has some crazy ten-digit valuation, Apple is syncing data among all their own devices willy-nilly with iCloud, and the mighty Google is rumored to soon be launching something that may or may not be called Google Drive. But whatever it's called, I bet it's going to be awesome. And there will be much rejoicing. But.

But like the roads of the Roman Empire that enabled not only commerce but also hordes of marauding barbarians, sync is a two-way street. (See what I did there?) It enables not only easy sharing but also easy accidental data loss. Delete something here and—poof!—it's gone everywhere.

Sync makes backup even more important.

For my part, I'm loving the sync-everything-everywhere lifestyle. Dropbox is awesome. Google Drive will hopefully be awesomer. And along with tens of thousands of other people (thank you all!) I continue to use Spanning Sync (because it's still way better than the alternatives). But I'm more careful than ever to back that stuff up.

Google Breaks iCal Sync (On Purpose) -- Spanning Sync to the Rescue!

In response to a recent interaction problem with iCloud, Google has purposefully broken their CalDAV sync with iCal. From the Google Calendar Known Issues page:

Events deleted in iCal on Mac OS are not deleted in Google Calendar until further notice
…
In response to the above issue, we have stopped deleting events if the delete request comes from iCal. Until further notice, deleting any event in iCal on Mac OS will not remove this event from Google Calendar, but all other requests like creating events or changing existing events will be synced properly.

Spanning Sync, which uses a different sync technology than the CalDAV protocol used by iCal's built-in support for Google Calendar, is unaffected by this issue and remains the best way to sync iCal with Google Calendar. Boo-yah! :-)

iCloud

Hi all,

Larry at Spanning Sync here. As you've heard, iCloud is available to the world as of today. If you've moved to iCloud (or plan to) and also use Spanning Sync, you'll want to be aware of a few things.

Upgrading to iCloud is similar to the issue of upgrading MobileMe calendars which was a big topic of discussion back when Apple started moving MobileMe customers in that direction. iCloud calendars are represented as CalDAV calendars on the Mac. Apple simply doesn't allow syncing to CalDAV calendars. It's not a choice that we've made not to support it or fix it, Apple just prevents developers from doing it. 

That said, you can still sync with Spanning Sync even after moving to iCloud. What you can't do is sync the same calendar to iCloud as you sync to Google. The important thing to understand is that Spanning Sync can only fully sync iCal calendars that are "On My Mac", aka local calendars. To make a new local calendar, you can always do File > New Calendar > On My Mac from iCal. 

The iCloud migration most likely changed your existing local iCal calendars to CalDAV calendars, but you can change them back. To do so: 

• Open iCal
• Click the Calendars button (top left corner of the leathery toolbar)
• Right-click a calendar on iCloud that you want to make local, select Export, and save the export to your desktop
• Create a new calendar "On My Mac"
• Select File > Import and select the exported calendar on your desktop, then import it to the local calendar you just created
• Examine the new calendar to make sure everything is there. There will appear to be a bunch of duplicates because the iCloud calendar is still displayed. Uncheck the iCloud calendar to get it out of the way. When you're satisfied that the calendar imported correctly, delete the iCloud version. You don't want duplicate calendars sitting around in iCal because the duplicates can confuse the syncing system.
• Open the Spanning Sync pref pane and pair up the new iCal calendar, then sync.

Similarly with contacts, iCloud most likely moved all of your local contacts to the cloud. Technically, iCloud hosts these contacts on a CardDAV server which is similar to CalDAV. And like CalDAV, Apple doesn't allow developers to sync to the CardDAV server. The twist here is that syncing to and from Google will continue to happen after moving to iCloud, and all the contacts that are now "missing" from your Mac will be synced from Google. Since these contacts were moved to iCloud, you're now going to see two of each contact in Address Book: one from iCloud and one "On My Mac", aka locally. Obviously, you don't want duplicates.

The solution: If you want to sync contacts with iCloud then turn Spanning Sync contact syncing off and delete all of the contacts "On My Mac". (Be sure to turn off Spanning Sync contact FIRST. If you don't then they might get deleted from Google.) If you want to sync contacts with Spanning Sync and not iCloud, then open the iCloud pref pane, uncheck Contacts, and select the Keep Contacts option.

Larry

UPDATE: A Spanning Sync user asked us if it's possible to sync iCloud-based calendars and contacts "one-way" to Google. The answer is yes for calendars but no for contacts. While Apple's sync system is happy to inform Spanning Sync about changes to iCloud calendars, it doesn't tell us anything about changes to iCloud contacts.

Spanning Sync v3.2 Now Available

Spanning Sync v3.2 is now available as an automatic update for all existing users. New users can always download the latest version at spanningsync.com/download.

Spanning Sync 3.2 requires OS X Lion or Snow Leopard. Leopard users should continue to use v3.1.2. Tiger users should continue to use v2.1.3.

What's New in Spanning Sync v3.2:

• Performance improvements
• Fixed a crash that could occur when running Mac OS X Lion
• Fixed a problem where duplicate calendars appeared after upgrading to Mac OS X Lion
• Moving an event from one calendar to another on Google is now handled correctly
• Bug fixes involving contacts and groups

As always, this upgrade is free for paid subscribers. New users can download Spanning Sync to start a 15-day free trial.

Spanning Sync is only $25 for a one year subscription or $65 for a one-time purchase, plus $5 off with a discount code.

Syncpocalypse!

This past Tuesday we had what you might call a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Wednesday too.

Early Tuesday morning our user database kicked the bucket. Technically, one of our underlying database files became corrupted, but the result was that no one could sync. And for a company in the sync business, that's no good.

Of course we expect these kinds of problems to crop up from time to time, and we back up our data accordingly. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a lot harder and more time consuming to restore from our backups than we had planned.

The good news is we were able to get back up and running without spilling a drop of data. The bad news is it took us almost a day and a half, and we were offline during that time. And frankly, that's embarrassing. We hold ourselves to a higher standard than that, and we failed to meet it.

So, what to do? Well, a couple of things.

First, we're revamping our internal backup and restore processes so we'll be able to recover from problems like this much more quickly in the future.

Second, we're putting in place redundant systems so problems like this don't even require a restore from backup; instead they simply trip a switch that causes the redundant system to take over with no interruption in service.

And finally, we're saying thank you to our customers and trial users for your patience. We were offline for a day and a half, so we've added three days of service to every customer's paid subscription and every trial user's free trial period. We haven't looked it up, but we believe that's a better service credit you'd get from any of the big guys who offer Service Level Agreements.

Regardless, if you're a paid customer and you'd like a refund, just let us know at support@spanningsync.com. We'll refund your purchase, no questions asked.

We really value what we do, and we believe our customers do too. We had a predictable problem and failed to solve it in a satisfactory amount of time. We'll do our best to make sure that doesn't happen again.

Thanks,
Charlie

[FIXED] Server Outage

Update: This problem has now been fixed.

We're currently suffering from a server failure and Spanning Sync is offline. We're working hard to restore the server to working order and apologize for the inconvenience.

We'll update this blog as new status becomes available.

Thanks for bearing with us.
Larry

Spanning Sync is Fully Compatible with OS X Lion

Spanning Sync v3.1.2 is fully compatible with OS X 10.7 Lion and takes advantage of its support for 64-bit processing.

Of course, Spanning Sync 3 is still compatible with both Snow Leopard and Leopard. Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" users should continue to use Spanning Sync v2.1.3.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions or run into any problems. Thanks!

[Fixed] Google issue causing login/sync problems

Update (29-Jun-11 15:59 GMT): We've put in place a workaround and have gotten confirmation from a number of users that it alleviates the problem. If you you experience any errors, please let us know on Twitter (@spanningsync), on our forum, or via email to support@spanningsync.com. Thanks!

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We're continuing to hear from lots of users who can't log into Spanning Sync. When the Spanning Sync client tries to fetch a list of the user's calendars, it's getting a generic "Spanning Sync encountered an error" error. Under the covers, our authenticated request to Google for the user's metafeed (list of calendars) is getting a "400 Premature end of file" error" from Google.

The problem seems to affect some users consistently, some sporadically, and others not at all. I've posted a request for technical support from Google to the Google Calendar API forum and am optimistic Google will find and fix the problem on their end soon. You can follow that discussion here: http://goo.gl/tX1xN

Thanks,
Charlie

Update: Spanning Sync and the New MobileMe Calendars

We know many of you have been wondering about the state of Spanning Sync and MobileMe calendars, and thought it was a good time for an update.

To recap, last Fall Apple made the switch to the new MobileMe calendar format official, but allowed users to remain with the old calendars if they chose. However, on May 5 all MobileMe calendar users will be required to switch to the new format. What's different about the new format? Previously, your calendars were stored on your computer and synced to MobileMe. With the new format, your calendars are stored in the cloud with MobileMe but apps such as iCal on the Mac and Calendar on iOS can interact with these calendars through a standard called CalDAV. The new MobileMe calendars include a better web interface, the ability to share calendars, and critically important to developers, Apple does not allow developers to sync calendars to CalDAV. Since Spanning Sync does its job using Apple's Sync Services system, the change effectively breaks Spanning Sync's ability to sync with these calendars.

Obviously, since Spanning Sync worked with MobileMe calendars before, our MobileMe customers expected it to continue to work and we wanted to accommodate them. But, in the end, we decided that Spanning Sync and MobileMe calendars aren't a good fit for each other.

Why?

1) Spanning Sync was created to sync calendars on your Mac with Google Calendar, but the new MobileMe calendars aren't on your Mac. They live in the cloud, just like Google Calendar.

2) While some of our customers are clearly using both, we don't see much benefit to using two cloud-based calendaring services whose feature sets overlap almost completely. Instead, we think users will eventually choose MobileMe calendars or Google Calendar, but not both. 

3) It would take an enormous amount of resources to make Spanning Sync a full-fledged CalDAV client. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't include any libraries to help developers work with CalDAV, WebDAV, or iCalendar, which are all complex technologies and all required to make this work. It would be a lot like writing iCal from scratch, minus the UI.

So what does this mean for Spanning Sync users who also use MobileMe?

First, this change is only for MobileMe calendars. If you don't use MobileMe calendars or you don't currently use Spanning Sync to sync MobileMe calendars, then this change doesn't affect you.

Also keep in mind that there's no reason you can't put some calendars on MobileMe and keep others on your Mac for syncing to Google Calendar with Spanning Sync. For example, if you share some calendars with your family via MobileMe and others with coworkers via Google Calendar, you can still do that even with the new MobileMe calendars. In iCal, just be sure to create these calendars "On My Mac". 

And if you were syncing your local calendars to MobileMe and also to Google Calendar, it might be time to examine the reasons for having both. Remember, you can access both your MobileMe and Google calendars from any web browser, and both support sharing with others.

 

Spanning Calendar Cleaner, Contacts Cleaner Top the Mac App Store Charts

Calendar Cleaner and Contacts Cleaner are live on the Mac App Store for just $4.99 each.

Plus, they're the #1 and #4 Top Paid utilities! Wow, that's really humbling. Thank you to all our new customers!

Spanning Sync v3.1.2 Now Available

Spanning Sync v3.1.2 is now available as an automatic update for all existing users. New users can always download the latest version at spanningsync.com/download.

(Spanning Sync 3 requires Leopard or Snow Leopard. Tiger users should continue to use v2.1.3.)

What's New in Spanning Sync v3.1.2:

• Better handling of Entourage calendars
• Fixes a bug that could cause some items to be missed after changing the sync method from two-way to one-way
• Fixes a rare problem that could cause contact syncing to fail

As always, this upgrade is free for paid subscribers. New users can download Spanning Sync to start a 15-day free trial.

Spanning Sync is only $25 for a one year subscription or $65 for a one-time purchase, plus $5 off with a discount code.

Here are just a few of the things people are saying about Spanning Sync:

I've been using Spanning Sync for a couple of weeks now to sync iCal & Contacts with Google. It rocks. http://ow.ly/2mv5xSun Aug 08 01:41:03 via HootSuiteJanetRoper
JanetRoper

HOORAY!! I was finally able to sync my Android with iCal with Google Calendar using Spanning Sync software. http://spanningsync.comFri Sep 24 12:45:05 via TweetDeckLeigh Zeitz (@zeitz)
zeitz

Just purchased a license for @spanningsync an amazing piece of software for the mac, flawless syncs with ical/gcal/gcontacts I am now happyMon Aug 23 00:35:25 via EchofonJorge Ledesma
jorgeledesma

Excellent Intro to Syncing Macs, Google, iPhone, and Android on Rocket Silence

From Howto: Your Data, Everywhere, In Sync at Rocket Silence:

Keeping your data organized is hard. Keeping your data organized across many devices is harder.

Today, I’m going to show you how to keep your calendar, contacts and email in sync across devices using Google as the glue. As a bonus, I’ll even tell you how to have your files and notes everywhere too. Be advised that some of the puzzle pieces here are subscription based and cost money — things that work well usually do.

My data is stored across three applications on OS X: Mail, iCal and Address Book. They’re simple, fast and to the point. Email is painless to access across devices because of IMAP and its quick using IDLE, but calendar and contacts get tricky. Address Book is unique insofar as it has built-in support for Google syncing out of the box. It does, however, have a knack for forgetting to continue syncing after a while. iCal is the big one for most people and there are ways to rig syncing for free using CalDAV and tools like Calaboration. It quickly becomes a mess and is beyond most people; be sure you have backups of your data before trying.

With your Gmail or Google Apps email account, you’ve already got Google Calendar and Google Contacts. With these, you’ll be able to access contacts and calendar using any web browser, as well as push syncing on Android smartphones and iPhone.

Getting your data into Google’s cloud services is simple with the help of Spanning Sync. It installs on your Mac(s) as a preference pane that coordinates hourly syncs to Google of your iCal and Address Book data. Pricing is fair at $25/year or $65 for a lifetime subscription. Their pricing model is per Google account rather than per device which is a plus if you have more than one Mac.

Prior to starting your first sync with this, it’s always a good idea to backup your data. You can do this in both iCal and Address Book easily by going to File > Export > Archive in each program. Syncing can get messy and having backup takes a few seconds and saves hours of headaches.

Go ahead and start your first sync, it’ll take a while depending on how much data you have. Upon completion, explore iCal and Google Calendar and make sure events are linked to the correct calendars and that any recurring events are as they should be. For your contacts, compare the number of contacts in Google Contacts to the status bar’s count in Address Book. Everything matches up? Great. We’re half way done.

Read the rest of the article...

Spanning Sync and the New MobileMe Calendars

With the new MobileMe calendars just now getting out of beta, we'd like to take a moment to address compatibility between Spanning Sync and the new MobileMe calendar format with a FAQ.

Note that this issue affects only users of Apple's MobileMe service, not regular iCal users.

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Q. Can I sync the new MobileMe calendars with Spanning Sync?

A. Spanning Sync can sync the new MobileMe calendars to Google, but changes made in Google won't show up on your MobileMe calendars. Unfortunately, Apple specifically disallows syncing of the new calendar format (called CalDAV) using its Sync Services architecture, which Spanning Sync is based on. Spanning Sync can read from MobileMe calendars so "one-way sync" is possible, but making changes to them is currently impossible.

Q. I upgraded to the new MobileMe calendars and now they won't sync with Spanning Sync. What should I do?

A. You can revert the new MobileMe calendars to the old format by going here:

https://www.me.com/calendar/downgrade

Q. Will Spanning Sync be able to sync with the new MobileMe calendars at some point in the future?

A. We can't make any commitments about future features, but we'd like to see Spanning Sync continue to work well with MobileMe. In the mean time, we're hopeful that Google will enhance Google Calendar so that it can sync directly with MobileMe without any intervening software. Google is tracking the request for this feature here:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=34e8c4dc6379472d&hl=en

Q. Is there an alternative to Spanning Sync that can sync with the new MobileMe calendars?

A. No software based on Apple's Sync Services can sync with the new MobileMe calendars. However, synchronization is built in to the new format so if you're content with having iCal sync with MobileMe, then the new MobileMe calendars are a good choice.

[FIXED?] Google Calendar Outage

Update: Google reports that the problem is now fixed. (22:45 GMT 2010-10-10)

Update2: Some users are reporting they're still seeing the problem. (16:26 GMT 2010-10-11)

Google Calendar has been experiencing an outage for the last few days that has affected a number of our users. Here's a list of the updates from the Google Apps Status feed:

 October 8, 2010 9:53:00 AM PDT

Google Calendar service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users within the next 12 hours. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change.

Thank you for your patience as we resolve this issue, which is affecting the secondary calendars of less than 0.1% of users. Primary user calendars are not affected by the issue. We’re sorry for the inconvenience, and are working to fix this asap. Calendars are being restored every hour, and we expect to have everything back to normal today (PDT).

 October 8, 2010 7:00:00 AM PDT

Google Calendar service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users in the near future. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change.

We will provide an update by October 8, 2010 5:30:00 PM UTC+1 with more information.

 October 8, 2010 4:38:00 AM PDT

Google Calendar service has already been restored for some users, and we expect a resolution for all users in the near future. Please note this time frame is an estimate and may change.

We'll provide more information by October 8, 2010 3:00:00 PM UTC+1

 October 8, 2010 1:47:00 AM PDT

We are continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by October 8, 2010 4:47:00 AM PDT detailing when we expect to resolve the problem.

 October 7, 2010 1:47:00 PM PDT

Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by October 8, 2010 1:47:00 AM PDT with more information about this problem. Thank you for your patience.

 October 7, 2010 9:47:00 AM PDT

We are continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by October 7, 2010 1:47:00 PM PDT detailing when we expect to resolve the problem.

We have identified the problem with Google Calendar and have begun restoring service for the affected users.

 October 7, 2010 6:45:00 AM PDT

Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by October 7, 2010 8:45:00 AM PDT with more information about this problem. Thank you for your patience.

 October 7, 2010 4:45:00 AM PDT

Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by October 7, 2010 6:45:00 AM PDT with more information about this problem. Thank you for your patience.

 October 7, 2010 2:30:00 AM PDT

We're experiencing an issue affecting less than 0.1% of the Google Calendar user base. The affected users are able to access Google Calendar, but may not have access to the most recent data. We will provide an update by October 7, 2010 4:30:00 AM PDT detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

The affected users are unable to access their secondary or resource Calendar. Primary user calendars are not affected by the issue.

 October 6, 2010 11:00:00 PM PDT

We're investigating reports of an issue with Google Calendar. We will provide more information shortly.

Completing the iCal ↔ Google ↔ Salesforce.com Connection

Metz Consulting is a management and social media consulting firm with clients that include Thomas Friedman, Mighty Leaf Tea, and Pirate's Booty. Needless to say, they know their way around the modern web.

The firm's founder Adam Metz recently posted about how his company uses Spanning Sync alongside Appirio Calendar Sync to keep their desktop and cloud apps on the same page:

We’re pretty much an Apple/Salesforce shop.

Which is why it’s always been a little of a pain for our team to use Salesforce, because there was no way to sync the calendars to our iPhones and iPads. But we just found a way to fix it. And boy, are we happy about it.

It’s a little complex, how we work.
Salesforce ↔ Google Calendar ↔ Apple’s iCal.

We used Appirio Calendar Sync for Salesforce and Google Apps. Then, we used Spanning Sync to connect Google Calendar (yes, the Google Apps version) to iCal. So now, when we change something on our iPhones or iPads, it goes into Salesforce and Google Calendar, in 10 minutes or so.

If you want to hook up this whole thing, for under $20, here’s how:

1. Set up your free Google Apps For Domains account
2. Set up cool little Appirio Calendar Sync (if you don’t know how, Tweet @googleappssusan and she can do a quick walkthrough, for a small fee).
3. Buy Spanning Sync at the discounted price of $20, and you’re all set!

Click here to save $5 on Spanning Sync!

We love hearing about how our customers use Spanning Sync to help them get their business done. If you have a story we can share with our readers, please email it to support@spanningsync.com. Thanks!

[Updated] Temporary Errors from Google

Update: Google says they've fixed the error, and we're no longer seeing it on our end.

The Google Contacts API has been sporadically returning errors (of type "503") for many of our customers over the last couple of weeks. When that happens you'll see an alert like this:

and, if you have "Show status in menu bar" selected, this icon in your menu bar:

The good news is the error isn't affecting any of your data and is sporadic. The bad news is the problem is entirely on Google's side, and there's not much we can do other than wait for them to fix it.

We've made Google aware of the issue and are optimistic they'll solve the problem quickly. In the mean time you can safely ignore these messages. The problem is sporadic, so if one sync fails chances are the next one will succeed. You can avoid seeing this alert altogether by disabling contact sync in the Spanning Sync pref pane.

Gmail Gets a New Contact Manager, Spanning Sync Already Compatible

Google is rolling out an overhauled version of Gmail Contacts today. Among the many improvements is something we've been wanting for a long time: structured name fields ("so you can adjust titles, suffixes, and other name components"). And the best news? Spanning Sync 3 is already compatible with the updates.

Note that the new UI is not (yet?) available at the standalone Contacts URL: https://www.google.com/contacts, but is available at https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#contacts. Hopefully the kids in Mountain View will get this sorted out pronto. Also note that the change affect only Gmail and not yet Google Apps users.

Thanks, Google!

A Year and a Day of Spanning Tools for Mac

A year and a day ago we launched our second product, Spanning Tools for Mac, a trio of utilities that find and fix dozens of different problems with iCal, Address Book, and Apple Sync Services. And since then we've continued to refine them to make them even more useful.

We're gratified that thousands of people have decided to buy Spanning Tools after a 15-day free trial. But we're even happier to know that we've made digital life easier for those people.

Whether it's invalid calendar data from Entourage a poorly-behaved app, duplicate contacts from a sync gone bad, or a completely hosed Sync Services database, Spanning Tools can help diagnose and fix the problem.

And of course, Spanning Sync customers get a 25% discount off the normal $19.99 price. Which is nice.

Happy birthday, Spanning Tools! And many more.

Spanning Backup Launches, $10 Off for Spanning Sync Customers

Cross-posted from the Spanning Backup Blog

After months of beta testing, Spanning Backup for Google Apps has launched. Since the beta began, we've backed up over 100 million calendar events, contacts, and docs for our users. That's 100 million fewer things they have to worry about.

Now the ability to back up Google Calendar, Contacts, and Docs is commercially available at spanningbackup.com.

Data loss and corruption is a serious problem for Google Apps users. Browse through the Google Apps help forums and you'll find hundreds of posts from users who have lost their data and need help. The usual reply, when one is given, is, "Sorry, your data is gone for good." If those users had been using Spanning Backup, they'd be able to restore their data with just a couple of clicks.

Clay Spinuzzi is an associate professor at the University of Texas and an early user of Spanning Backup. Here's what he has so say:

I've been using Google Docs almost daily since 2006, and I'm totally sold on cloud-based word processing. But how about cloud-based backups? For years, I had to safeguard my thousands of documents, spreadsheets, and presentations by manually downloading them once a week - and I always worried that I would miss something. But with Spanning Backup, I never have to worry about backups. Backup is dependable, browsing files is easy, and restoring a file is transparent. It just works.

Spanning Backup is a pure cloud-based application built on Amazon Web Services (EC2, S3, SQS, EBS, CloudFront, and CloudWatch) and is designed to scale to millions of users. It uses a number of Google API's (Calendar, Contacts, DocList, Docs, Spreadsheets, Provisioning, AuthSub, and OpenID Federated Login) and is natively integrated with the Google Apps Marketplace to support domain-wide provisioning and Google Universal Navigation.

The service is available for individuals at spanningbackup.com or for entire Google Apps domains on the Google Apps Marketplace at spanningbackup.com/marketplace.

After a 30-day free trial period, a subscription costs $3.95/month or $39.95/year per user. Educational, non-profit, and volume discounts are available. Spanning Sync customers get an automatic $10 discount off their first year's subscription.

Spanning Sync, Inc., based in Austin, Texas, was founded in 2006 by Charlie Wood and Larry Hendricks. The company's eponymous product syncs calendars and contacts between Apple and Google applications. The company is profitable and has tens of thousands of customers in 58 countries.

For more information please contact info@spanningbackup.com.

Spanning Sync v3.1.1 Now Available

Spanning Sync v3.1.1 is now available as an automatic update for all existing users. New users can always download the latest version at spanningsync.com/download.

(Spanning Sync 3 requires Leopard or Snow Leopard. Tiger users should continue to use v2.1.3.)

What's New in Spanning Sync v3.1.1:

• Fixed a problem where contacts with an invalid URL could cause the sync to abort
• The user is now notified of software updates without having to open the pref pane
• Delete protection is handled better when calendar filtering of old events is turned on
• Now syncs the contact "department" property
• Syncing of the calendar "classification" property can be turned off
• Fixed an error ("attempt to insert nil") that could halt the sync
• Fixed a problem where the background notifier app wouldn't relaunch after an upgrade

As always, this upgrade is free for paid subscribers. New users can download Spanning Sync to start a 15-day free trial.

Spanning Sync is only $25 for a one year subscription or $65 for a one-time purchase, plus $5 off with a discount code.

#SpanningSync rules. That is all.Thu May 13 19:15:31 via EchofonSimon Woodman
sjwoodman

Spanning Backup, Sync, and Tools at Google I/O

Cross-posted to the Spanning Backup Blog

Ryan and I (Charlie) are at Google I/O in the Enterprise area of the Developer Sandbox. Come say hello and pick up a complete collection of Spanning laptop stickers, including a brand new one for Spanning Backup.

Just look for the giant Enterprise sign hanging from the ceiling, then make your way over the side of the area facing the windows. We're here to answer any questions you may have, show you how the whole thing works, and hand out free stuff.

And don't forget to join us and our friends at RedMonk for beers at House of Shields tonight around 8:30.

See you there!

Get 20% Off Spanning Sync During Google I/O

Our users tell us that Spanning Sync is the best way to integrate Android devices, Google Calendar and Contacts, and their Macs. Thanks, users! :-)

During Google I/O, you can save 20% off a one year subscription with the discount code io2010. And if you're attending Google I/O please stop by the Spanning demo station in the Developer Sandbox for a limited-run laptop sticker. See you there!

Wow, just got an outlook mtg invite via gmail, accepted, now it's magically on my Android & iCal. Spanning Sync ftw.Fri Feb 05 19:46:58 via TweetieTim Bray
timbray

Got an #Android phone? Got a #Google account? Got a #Mac ? #SpanningSync is where it's at. Trust me.Mon May 17 17:06:46 via TwitterGadgetOwen Clay
weonsnonge

Just bought Spanning Sync to sync my #mac to my #google account and then to #Droid. Great piece of software! Use my discount code RRHWW8!Sat Mar 27 01:48:56 via Tweetiebeandip
beandip

@spanningsync SpanningSync keeps my Mac, Google Calendar/Contacts & Android Phone in Sync + it brings xtra food $ for my grad student budgetWed Dec 30 18:33:11 via Socialite.appArthur Sabintsev
lazyrussian

Spanning Sync + Google Contacts + Android Phone = sync heaven.Wed Aug 19 08:53:17 via Tweetiejohan
nollbit

Spanning Sync v3.1 Now Available

Spanning Sync v3.1 is now available as an automatic update for all existing users. New users can always download the latest version at spanningsync.com/download.

(Spanning Sync 3 requires Leopard or Snow Leopard. Tiger users should continue to use v2.1.3.)

What's New in Spanning Sync v3.1:

• Now syncs contact URLs
• Contacts with a company name and no first/middle/last name synced from Google now show up as business contacts in Address Book
• Displays a warning when Apple Sync Services doesn't respond after 10 minutes instead of canceling the sync
• Addresses a change in Mac OS X which could cause syncs to stop happening after loss of Internet

Note: Upgrading to v3.1 will cause a full refresh sync, which will take longer than normal.

As always, this upgrade is free for paid subscribers. New users can download Spanning Sync to start a 15-day free trial.

Spanning Sync is only $25 for a one year subscription or $65 for a one-time purchase, plus $5 off with a discount code.

Superior Customer Support is a Fundamental Part of Our Business

When we launched Spanning Sync in March 2007, it was the only way to sync iCal and Google Calendar. Since then other companies have introduced other, sometimes cheaper, ways to do the same thing. But our customer base continues to grow at a pace that amazes even us. Why is that?

For one thing, we've continued to invest in the product itself by adding things like alarm and contact syncing, along with all the little touches that people appreciate like support for contact photos, nicknames, and birthdays. We've also made a big investment in our customers who recommend Spanning Sync to their friends with the Save 5+Make 5 program. But what really sets Spanning Sync apart from our competition is the quality of our customer support, led by Byron Shaheen.

Here are a few of the things our customers have told us:

"It's so nice communicating with a person in a support role who actually cares." —Brayer Teague

"You are awesome. Not only did I get a response—it actually worked—what a novel idea for tech support." —Adam Kimple

"Amazing! Almost every company's technical support would have gone home by now, but here you are still serving your customers at 11:00pm! Thank you." —Ryan Petty

"Thanks for the great service and the lightning quick response time." —Barrie Bramley

"Thank you for the fast reply! I am completely amazed at the speed of service you guys have! Fantastic!" —Zach Mann

"I'm not only impressed with your digital service, but also with your customer service." —Todd Payne

"Superb customer service. I'm glad I bought Spanning Sync." —Rasmus Vestergaard

"You guys continue to impress me with your fast and courteous customer support... even on New Year's Eve." —Jason Rubin

"Wow! Your service is extraordinary!" —Joachim Dagerot

"I love your product, but your support might be even better." —Gavin Shearer

"Thank you so much. It's good to know that Customer Service is NOT a dying art!!" —Earl Caustin

Our business model is simple: provide something of value and charge a fair price for it. And as we see it, part of that value is created by delivering superior customer support. It's not an afterthought or something we punt to a community forum. It's a fundamental part of our business, and we're gratified to know that our customers appreciate it.

How to Fix Any Problems Caused by the OS X 10.6.3 Update

The recent OS X 10.6.3 update is causing problems for some but not all Spanning Sync users.

After the update is applied, Apple Sync Services erroneously sends Spanning Sync a potentially large number number of records as "added" which are in fact existing records. (Technically, Sync Services is performing a "fast" sync, where it should be performing a "refresh" sync.)

In our own testing, Spanning Sync's duplicate detection and prevention mechanisms prevented any duplicates from being created, but two of our users have reported finding duplicate events in their calendars after applying the 10.6.3 update.

We recommend backing up your iCal calendars (File > Export > iCal archive...) before upgrading to 10.6.3. If duplicates are created after upgrading, you can just restore your calendars from that backup and replace your Google calendar data using Spanning Sync (Advanced > Replace Data on Google > Calendars).

If you already have duplicate events in your calendars, please contact support@spanningsync.com and we'll help you quickly remove them.

Spanning Sync Turns Three

Three years ago today we launched Spanning Sync v1.0. Since then we've released 21 updates (not including betas), added tons of new features, and profoundly improved performance and reliability. But what we're most proud of is our customers.

There are a lot of faddish business models floating around these days, but we've always stuck to the most traditional one: provide something of value and charge a fair price for it.

So thank you to our tens of thousands of customers. Without you, we wouldn't get to do what we do, and Spanning Sync wouldn't exist.

It's been a fantastic three years, and we look forward to many more.

Spanning Backup for Google Apps Now Available Through the Google Apps Marketplace

Cross-posted from the Spanning Backup Blog

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Spanning Sync, Inc. today announced it has added Spanning Backup for Google Apps to the Google Apps Marketplace™, Google's recently launched online storefront for Google Apps™ products and services.

Spanning Backup for Google Apps is a cloud-based application that continually backs up Google Calendar™, Contacts, and Docs™ in order to reduce the risk of losing critical data. Using Spanning Backup's easy web interface businesses can restore lost data with just a few clicks.

"We have thousands of customers ranging from small businesses to enterprises who all have one thing in common: they've chosen Google Apps to manage their most important information," says Spanning cofounder Larry Hendricks. "Spanning Backup  integrates with Google Apps to make sure that information is never lost. By adding Spanning Backup to the Google Apps Marketplace, we've made it easy for Google Apps customers to make sure their entire organization's data is protected."

As a pure cloud-based application, Spanning Backup for Google Apps is always on, providing continual protection against accidental or malicious data loss. Customers can rest easy knowing their most important information is safely and securely backed up.

"We are very excited to have Spanning Backup in the Google Apps Marketplace," adds Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead for Google Enterprise. "Through the Google Apps Marketplace, software vendors like Spanning are helping us build a rich ecosystem of integrated apps that work seamlessly with Google Apps, allowing IT administrators to leverage the benefits of cloud computing and extend Google Apps to meet more of their business needs. We are happy to offer Spanning Backup to the millions of Google Apps users who have embraced the cloud."

The Google Apps Marketplace makes it easy for more than 2 million Google Apps customers to discover, purchase and deploy integrated business applications and related professional services. By integrating with user account and application data stored in Google Apps, these cloud applications provide a simpler user experience, increase business efficiency, and reduce administrative overhead. To learn more, visit google.com/appsmarketplace.

Google Apps brings simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools to organizations. With Google Apps, users can use applications such as Gmail™ webmail service, Google Talk™ instant messaging service, Google Calendar™ calendaring service, Google Docs™ program, Google Sites™ web application, and Google Video™ for business on their own domain to work together more effectively.  Best of all, it's all hosted by Google, so there's no hardware or software to download, install or maintain.

To learn more about Spanning Backup for Google Apps, visit spanningbackup.com.

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Google, Google Apps Marketplace, Google Apps, Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Video are trademarks of Google Inc.

Spanning Sync, Spanning Backup, and Spanning Backup for Google Apps are trademarks of Spanning Sync, Inc.

[FIXED] 'Remember the Milk' Causing Widespread Sync Problems

Update: Google reports they have fixed this problem.

If you're unable to sync due to "could not generate your list of calendars" errors, please remove any subscribed calendars from Google Calendar, including Remember the Milk, even if you're not syncing those calendars.

After several weeks of investigative work by engineers at Google, NuevaSync, Pocket Informant, and Spanning, we've found the root of a problem many users have been experiencing. Calendars to which the user has subscribed in Google Calendar can become unresponsive, causing the Google Calendar API to be unable to work with sync clients from any vendor.

Apparently calendars from Remember the Milk have become relatively unresponsive in the last few weeks, causing many of our users to be unable to sync. Deleting the RTM calendar from the Google Calendar web interface solves the problem immediately.

Much thanks to our counterparts at Google, NuevaSync, and Pocket Informant for helping track down this issue. Please let us know if you have any questions.