How to Sync Contacts,Calendar from OVI.com to your Evolution in Ubuntu.

Technorati Tags: Ubuntu,Linux,Open Source,Synchronization

If you have been using Smartphones, you may be aware concept of PIM Synchronization. It basically keeps in sync different data sets on different system/platforms. Thus you can get same contacts, calendar, notes, to-dos everywhere across devices, systems,internet.
This looks good on paper but actual implementation is far from perfect. I use Nokia N82 which I sync with Outlook on my laptop, with OVI.com, cloud service by Nokia which allows you to store your PIM data like Contacts, Calendar, Notes, To-dos.But I always wondered about missing link- Syncing your PC/Mac directly with OVI.com cloud. I searched around internet and couldn’t find any reasonable solution. At last I found software called syncEvolution which is available to Linux. This fills missing gap. syncEvolution is Open source project, done as part of Moblin – Initiative by Intel for developing Linux on Netbooks, MID(Mobile Internet Devices).
Below is current Sync scenario with Nokia devices/OVI/PC&Mac.        I have tried to cover overall current scenario in this slide.

So for Windows & Mac users, there is still no direct way to sync from your PC/Mac to OVI.com cloud, but it’s possible in Linux.

Let’s see how to do it. I am using Ubuntu 9.10 but this works well for 9.04 and should work for other versions as well.
1) Backup – This is very important because syncEvolution is Beta and many things can go wrong. You can back your contacts data in memory card or PC via PC suite. Also I cleaned all PIM data from Evolution to avoid conflicts.
2) In Ubuntu , System->Software Sources->Other Software, Add line    deb http://downloads.syncevolution.org/apt unstable main   Close and reload.
Now open System->Synaptic Package Manager and install package syncevolution-evolution, don’t install other packages with similar names, they are older versions.
  Restart, this may not be required but I have noticed that sync program doesn’t show up sometimes until you restart system.
2) Now you can launch program Internet->Sync

   You will need to create Sync setting/profile for OVI service.Click on Select sync service.       Click Add new service.Specify service details for OVI. Note that these settings , we can get from OVI.com. Login to ovi.com on web browser and navigate to Contacts->Manage your Device(I assume you have setup sync already)
  Once you get above settings, you can enter in following form. Note that Notes & Todo don’t sync currently.
Click Save and use this service

3) Now comes most important part, you need to change configuration so that this sync works, Open file manger->Home folder, you need to enable show hidden files, open .config folder, then .syncevolution->ovi-> Open file config.ini, You will need to make following main changes.
clientAuthType = md5
deviceId = sc-api-nat
SSLVerifyServer = 0
SSLVerifyHost = 0
You can  also set loglevel to higher value like 5 or 6 and log files can be found in home->user folder->.cache->syncevolution->ovi Open html file to see log after sync.
Save changes and close file.
4) Now you are ready to Sync. Select following options for first sync. Remember to disable Memo(Notes) , Todo. Click Sync Now.
First Sync may take sometime to start and complete, be patient !!!
If everything goes well, you should be able to see following. Since I am still trying to get memo/todo sync, it’s showing up rejections. But you can see that Contacts and calendar sync well. This you can check by opening Evolution.
Please note that Software is still Beta and you may face many issues, hence take backup of your data always. As you may have seen syncEvolution also supports few more online services including Google contacts sync(Only contacts),ScheduleWorld, Funambol, Zyb.com, Mobical,net, Memotoo.com
I have tried to test application and provide constructive feedback to developers who are really helpful and great to work with. You can check following links for more details. Play around config settings and you may find something more.     
 http://bugzilla.moblin.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3182   http://bugzilla.moblin.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4611          http://bugzilla.moblin.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3593
I hope you will find this How-to guide useful( * not very boring)  :)
Please write to me via comments if you have any questions or if you know of any alternative method for this. You can also find me on twitter @mobileyog. I am really curious to know how we can do same with Outlook in Windows.