Spanning Sync Blog

Spanning Sync 3: Built for Snow Leopard

This Friday Apple will ship Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and Spanning Sync is ready.

Spanning Sync 3 is fully compatible with Snow Leopard and takes full advantage of its support for 64-bit processing. (And for those of you with an eye for the technical details, the Spanning Sync pref pane is now garbage-collected.)

We've been using Spanning Sync 3 on Snow Leopard for over a month with no issues, as have a number of our users.

Of course, Spanning Sync 3 is also compatible with Leopard. Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" users should continue to use Spanning Sync v2.1.3, available from spanningsync.com/tiger-download.

Spanning Sync v3.0.1 is Now Available

Spanning Sync v3.0.1 is now available. It includes a number of improvements, and all Leopard and Snow Leopard users are encouraged to upgrade. (Tiger users should continue to use v2.1.3.)

Here's what's new in v3.0.1:

• Fixed a bug where calendar data synced from Google wasn't getting sent to iCal in some cases
• Default alarms are now created in iCal when alarm syncing is off
• Default alarms are no longer created in iCal when alarm syncing is on
• Fixed a bug where backups weren't getting made after upgrading
• Behaves better with locked Mac OS X login keychains
• IM labels are now synced
• Deleting of postal address properties is handled better
• Small fixes to German localization
• The chances of getting a "server timeout" error are greatly reduced
• Fixed a bug where iCal default alarms were getting deleted in some cases
• Better handling of canceling a sync during the push phase to Google
• Contacts deleted on iPhone and sunc with Google Sync for iPhone are now deleted in Address Book
• Improved detection of duplicate events
• Fixed a bug where detached events were sometimes not properly created/updated
• Improved birthday support in calendars and contacts

Users of v3.0 can simply open the Spanning Sync pref pane in System Preferences to be prompted to install the update. New users can always download the latest version at spanningsync.com/download.

Like all Spanning Sync updates, v3.0.1 is free to paid subscribers.

Buy or Renew a Spanning Product, Get a Free Sticker!

Update: This offer has now expired. Thanks to everyone all over the world who requested a sticker. They're on the way!

To celebrate the launches of Spanning Sync 3 and Spanning Tools for Mac, we're mailing out (yes, through the actual postal service) laptop stickers!

The one pictured here is for Spanning Sync, but the Spanning Tools sticker is just as cool. And of course, people who buy both products get both stickers.

To get a free sticker, just do any of these things:

• Buy Spanning Tools for Mac
• Subscribe to Spanning Sync
• Extend your existing Spanning Sync subscription

If you already have a lifetime Spanning Sync subscription, just drop us a note with your Google account name and postal address and we'll send you a sticker too.

This offer is NOT limited to U.S. addresses only. We have customers all over the world, and want to show them the same love we give those who are closer (and cheaper to mail to). Already we've gotten requests from six of the seven continents (none yet from Antarctica, but we remain optimistic). My four-year-old son asked if we'd be sending any stickers to other planets. I told him that if we got a request, we'd try.

These are extremely high-quality, industrial-strength vinyl stickers from Sticker Robot. They're waterproof and weatherproof, and have a clear gloss 100% UV coating with a 5 year effective capability against fading. In short, they rock.

We have a limited number of stickers. As soon as we run out this offer expires, so get your request in quickly!

Spanning Sync 3 is Now Available, Up to 10x Faster

After eight months of development and testing, we're proud to announce the immediate availability of Spanning Sync 3, which not only provides you with more precise control over how your data syncs, but also includes sync engines that have been rewritten from the ground up for speed.

What's New in Spanning Sync 3:

• Much faster sync times—up to 10x faster on large syncs
• Calendar alarm syncing
• One-way syncing of calendars and contacts
• Syncs more contact properties, including birthdays and nicknames
• Option to not sync older calendar events
• Reduced memory usage
• Easier installation process
• Snow Leopard compatibility

Here's a quick video overview (or click here for a higher-quality QuickTime version):

You can find more detailed information in the ReadMe and the Spanning Sync User's Guide.

To upgrade, just open the Spanning Sync pref pane and follow the instructions. Or you can manually download Spanning Sync 3 at spanningsync.com/download.

Spanning Sync 3 represents our most important release ever. If you're already a Spanning Sync user, we urge you to upgrade as soon as possible. And if not, we invite you to download Spanning Sync, log in with your Google account name, and start your 15-day free trial.

Plus, while supplies last we're sending a Spanning Sync laptop sticker to anyone who buys a new subscription or extends their existing subscription. I'll post more about that tomorrow, but we're running out of them pretty quickly already (the offer has been on the purchase page for a few days).

Like all upgrades, Spanning Sync 3 is free to paid subscribers.

Introducing Spanning Tools for Mac

Today we're launching Spanning Tools for Mac, our suite of utilities that finds and fixes dozens of different problems with iCal, Address Book, and Apple Sync Services.

People are sharing their contact and calendar data across more and more devices (like iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, and Blackberry), applications (like iCal, Address Book, and Entourage), and services (like MobileMe, Google Apps, Plaxo, LinkedIn, and Microsoft Exchange). And as that data proliferates, it becomes more susceptible to subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) corruption. That's where Spanning Tools for Mac comes in.

Spanning Tools for Mac includes Calendar Cleaner, Contacts Cleaner, and Sync Tune-Up to keep your data clean and everything syncing smoothly. Here's a video introduction (a higher-quality Quicktime version is at spanningtools.com):

You can download a free 15-day trial version at spanningtools.com. Spanning Tools for Mac costs only $19.99 to buy, and Spanning Sync customers get an instant $5 discount. Plus, while supplies last you'll get a free Spanning Tools laptop sticker with your purchase.

[UPDATED] Widespread Google Calendar Outages

We're getting reports of widespread Google Calendar outages and are seeing similar problems affecting the Google Calendar Data API, which in turn affects Spanning Sync.

We've seen similar issues before on Sunday evenings and expect Google to resolve the problem in the next few hours. We'll update this post when we know more.

Thanks,
Charlie

Update: As of Monday (Aug 3) morning US time, the problem seems to have been fixed.