I’ve had a problem with Microsoft Office Outlook Connector for some time now. Basically, it would still sync my contacts and tasks, but not my email. One could argue this is the most important part as I also sync Outlook with my smartphone (I have a Samsung Blackjack II).

Fist of all, what is Outlook Connector? If you have Outlook (not Outlook Express, I’m talking the version that comes with Office) you can sync your MSN Mail/Hotmail/Windows Live Mail email, contacts and tasks (calendar too if you pay for it) between the web and Outlook itself.

To revise, my problem was that email was not syncing and also my contacts were getting duplicated. I wanted to recreate the account locally (local = on your computer, not the ‘net) but found the local software would not let me delete an account.

Today, I ended up making a new email account and found that you can have 2+ webmail accounts set up with Connector. I added my second account, deleted my old account, then readded my old account as an addon account, the deleted the new account. Make sense?

Once I did all that, I ended up with my old account and as I type this, I’m about 22% done download my 3gigs of email and contacts back down to my local machine.

Now if anyone in South Florida can tell me why my Earthlink connection keeps dropping out, I’d greately appreciate it!

Update August 1, 2008:

MS Connector has been fading in and out in terms of working. For a couple weeks, it hasn’t.

I downloaded Community Clips becuase I wanted to record some screen caps for a how-to-get-podcasts tutorial for those not in the know, and for a new video-based podcast I am working on with Benjamin Adams.

Ever since installing it last night, Outlook has been download all my mail and attachments. I don’t know what the two have to do with each other, but if the above alone hasn’t worked by itself, give this a shot and leave a comment.

http://communityclips.officelabs.com/