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I have my digital life split in two. At home I have my PowerBook. It's all set up as I like it and has the master copies of all my code, e-mail, calendar, RSS feeds and so-on. I've also got my dinosaur at work - a old P4-2200 with WinXP - with which I try to remain on top of things while at work. I've also got my PocketPC smartphone (although the 'smart' part is highly debatable). And as such I prefer not to duplicate work between the lot. However, this is harder than it should be.

I'll start by ignoring the PPC phone: until synchronisation is available for the Mac it sort of exists outside the loop.

E-Mail - I keep my personal e-mail in GMail. This is, however, winding me up somewhat at present. Firstly (and this is a general criticism) I have to file everything twice. I have to set up filters twice. POP lets me replicate, but for the fact it's dodgy as hell - sometimes messages are missed for no apparent reason. Google say they're working on it. And so I really need to find myself a decent IMAP service. This is on hold at present as a) it's hard to find someone trustworthy and b) I don't want to have to go though all my e-mail again.

Yahoo Mail has improved with the new interface but it won't let me import from GMail. And there's no IMAP support (which I'd gladly pay for). So that's out. As for Hotmail/Windows Live Mail - the new interface only supports IE6, which rules it out for Mac users immediately. Silly MS...

Calendar - this should be easy once I have PPC sync. iCal/Entourage can sync with the PPC, which can then sync with my Windows box. Easy. But for the fact that Lotus Notes is, well, plain sucky and keeps duplicating things. Whoever thought Notes was even half decent can and should be shot.

Tasks - much the same as calendar. One day anyway.

Address Book - as above. I maintain iSync is one of the best things about the Mac.

RSS - I did use NewsFire. I've now jumped to NetNewsWire, purely for the NewsGator sync. The online web reader is pretty rubbish though and I haven't found a free offline reader for Windows yet (well I have, but RSSBandit doesn't synchronise read states which is the important bit really), but it does make life easier.

I'm afraid there is a theme here - synchronisation is just too hard. It's approached as an afterthought, instead of as a necessity. Online e-mail is great, until you lack internet access. Likewise, the online calendars are nice toys, but how do I make sure my appointments are up to date on my PPC and my laptop while I'm disconnected? And why do I need to maintain seperate address books on GMail and my Mac?

Alarm bells should be ringing for anyone developing in this area - why is it harder to maintain contact details in the digital world than in the good old days with a note book? How times have changed...