Technology in Mind

As a Windows Mobile user I struggled with finding a simple way to synchronize the podcasts I’ve downloaded to my computer, with my Windows Mobile Smartphone’s flash drive.  (I really don’t use my phone to listen to music.) Microsoft’s Active Sync does have the ability to synchronize with the phone’s internal storage, but for some reason they didn’t think that people might want to synchronize files with their optional storage as well, since that’s where most users would have plenty of space.

Several google searches later, I came upon an old freeware program called MobSync. I was concerned that it might not work as the website indicated that it was for PocketPC, and often that means it’s not compatible with Smartphones. But to my delight it functions just fine.

There is a bit of initial configuration as you need to specify the source folders and the destination folder on the phone and/or storage card.  I’ve set mine up to align with output folders from iTunes.  Via iTunes I’ve subscribed to various podcasts. I then open up iTunes, so it downloads the latest podcasts. Afterwards, I then launch MobSync which synchronizes them to a folder on my storage card.  One thing I have noticed is that it is important to right click on the MobSync icon in the system tray and exit before disconnecting the phone.  For some reason there seems to be a bug that launches a lot of error windows if you don’t.

But for a free solution to synchronize music, podcasts, pictures, or whatever folder to your Windows Mobile storage card, this works quite well.

If you have other methods for synchronizing (freeware and paid), share your ideas here.