GooSync's Blog

Performance Dates: Monday 28 September – Saturday 3 October

Andrew Dunn, Shobna Gulati and Sue Devaney return to their original roles for a new stage version of Victoria Wood’s hit BBC sitcom dinnerladies. The show, which initially ran for two series, 16 episodes in total, has been voted 9^th in the all-time list of favourite sitcoms.

I went to see this last night at the  Wolverhampton Grand Theatre

The stage play, produced by Jan Hunt and David Graham, is based on the second TV series and follows the reluctant love story of Bren and Tony egged on by their work colleagues, Dolly, Jean, Twinkle and Anita.  Making frequent appearances are caretaker Stan, Phillippa from Human Resources, Secretary Jane and Bren’s truly dreadful mother, Petula, played originally by Julie Walters.

Although one audience member remained asleep throughout my wife and I fully enjoyed it.

Go see it

Chris.

Head of sales, Jay, and his wife Nicola have become proud parents of Isla born 12:46, Monday Sept 21st, weighing 7lb 9oz, a little sister for Mia.

Well done Jay & Nicola!

This cartoon was inked by Howard Tayler for our Calendar, and placed here for your amusement.

Recently updated GooSync offers simplest way to sync Google Calendar, contacts and tasks on mobile devices

WOLVERHAMPTON, England, July 28, 2009 — The popularity of cloud storage is anything but up in the air, as more and more businesses and consumers ground themselves in this data accessing, management and editing strategy. Toffa International’s (http://www.toffa.com) cloud storage application, GooSync, provides synchronization between Google’s widely used Google Calendar and mobile devices such as mobile phones and PDAs. Recent updates to the market-leading software include upgraded infrastructure, a new helpdesk feature and enhanced scalability.

GooSync ties in with personal management systems that are a natural component of today’s mobile phones and PDAs, extending Google calendar to your mobile device, which is only accessible via a mobile phone’s Web browser. GooSync is designed to deliver a seamless service, regardless of whether someone chooses the basic, free option or the premium account’s more expanded features.

“With GooSync, Toffa International’s goal is to provide everyone with something that is free and simple to use, and we’ve also set up a premium option that delivers access to many more features,” says Chris Jukes, CEO of Toffa and GooSync. “So while GooSync’s basic service enables you to sync the default Google Calendar, our premium account lets you sync multiple calendars, contacts directly with Gmail, and tasks to the GooSync inbuilt tasks application. Autosync and multiple device support are just some of the numerous features supported through GooSync.”

Setting up a GooSync account is easy through the official GooSync website: http://www.goosync.com/. GooSync works on any device that is SyncML compliant, including the most recent Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola phones. It is also compatible with Windows Pocket PC, Windows SmartPhone, Palm OS, Treo, BlackBerry and Apple iPhone by installing a SyncML client. With a commitment to ensuring privacy and making the GooSync experience as safe as possible, Toffa International protects all personal information by incorporating industry standard, data encryption and secure storage. In the event of losing or damaging a device, all data can be restored.

“A secure, hassle-free experience is key to the success of GooSync, plus the fact that it’s applicable to everyone, from the casual user to power user,” Jukes says. “With the service based on the SyncML data protocol, most phones will have no problem incorporating either the basic or premium account.”

GooSync’s website provides a list of all supported phones, plus details on both the basic and premium services. For more information, go to http://www.goosync.com/.

This cartoon was inked by Howard Tayler for our Calendar, and placed here for your amusement.

The GooSync competition has now closed!

At the beginning of June we launched our GooSync giveaway, offering you a chance to win one of our great prizes. We have had an overwhelming response, with iPods, Nintendo DSi’s, PSP’s and GooSync subscriptions up for grabs.

There are 26 prizes to be won and winners will be picked at random no later than 17th August 2009. Please read the full details here.

I’m replacing my Windows Vista laptop with a MacBookPro, and for your insight and amusement I’m going to detail the process here.

It’s on order and should arrive around July 15th, I won’t get much done til my return from vacation on Aug 2.

Here’s the spec I went for:-

I’m reading “Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition” recommended by Danita

Love to hear of your experiences of switching too, Do’s and Dont’s would be great….

Update: August 4th

Still getting to grips with this shiny new world of Mac, I just about worked out the basics and loving the speed, I have a few “won’t work on Mac issues”; legacy M$ access db, websites needing ActiveX (thanks LloydsTSB); I have added M$ Office 2008, most of my docs are word or excel and I’m to use to it to change.

I did struggle to add a ip address to the hosts file (where is the hosts file); good job I cut my teeth oh Unix, I found a shell (Terminal), and cd /etc and wow the mac has a vi editor, so I was well sorted.

Getting to grips with Safari, I love Chrome and its ability to startup with loads of open tabs, no Chrome for Mac yet!

Update: August 6th

I cracked, can’t do without some windows stuff, I installed VMWare, now I can run IE and Access in a Windows XP VM.

Also installed IShowUHD, a great screen recording app, and the iPhone SDK (that’s the delveloper in me)

Update: Sept 7th

Another month of MacBook usage, it’s been a Joy, it just works, I needed to print some stuff out at a friends house, I just plugged the printer in and it was available to use, wow! that was easy, no drivers to load, nought.

I was on site doing a presentation, under windows I always needed to set the resolution to fit the display device I was attaching, again the Mac magic was great, just plugged in this huge 52in sony display and it worked like a charm, my customer commented on how slick the setup was, all credit to the Mac.

I also discovered “Spaces” – for the uninitiated its more to do with screen layout and control that green fields, in short it allows you to configure up to four views of your desktop; again great for customer visits, switch views in a whiz.

Wow! I’m sounding like a Mac geek now

Update: Sept 30th

I missed Photoshop, so purchased an upgrade form my windows version, I also purchased a Time Capsule (a 1Tb wifi backup device), this backups up all my data daily without a thought from me.

As you can tell I’m a complete Mac geek and would encourage anyone to switch, the Mac Book is a tad more expensive than its windows equivalent but hey! “you get what you pay for”

CONCLUSION – buy a Mac today

Chris.

This cartoon was inked by Howard Tayler for our Calendar, and placed here for your amusement.

Head of support, Stuart, and his wife Louise have become proud parents of Lily born 22:32, Monday June 15th, weighing 7lb 7oz (3.35kg)

Well done Stu & Lou!

*Edit* The competition has now closed. Winners will be picked at random no later than 17 August 2009.

We are offering you a chance to win one of our great prizes in the GooSync competition…  

To enter, all you have to do is simply refer at least 1 friend to GooSync to get entry into our great competition.

You can increase your chances of winning by referring more friends. For every email that we send out on your behalf you will get 1 additional entry into our competition, it’s that easy! So start referring your friends now…

Closing date for entries is 30th July 2009. There are 26 prizes to be won and winners will be picked at Random no later than 17 August 2009. Please read the full details here.