The Google security glitches received a lot of press. The two main concerns focused on both the performance and security of the calendar application and customer support responsiveness. While the security issue was a quick fix, the support issue lingers. Users are now paying for support over the phone to receive the appropriate answer to their problem. Consumers are willing to pay as long as someone actually does get to them.

Frustrated with the lack of response, users are migrating to paid solutions. With ClearSync, even if there is a small hiccup (glitch happens, right?), our tech support works hard to attend to each and every customer in a timely fashion. This is what makes ClearSync stand out from the crowd: data security is always taken into consideration while a viable solution is appropriated to each and every customer to suit a specific need.

LifeHacker asks the question, “How does your daily routine compare with Ben Franklin’s?” You remember, the author of “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Apparently, at least in print, his daily schedule involved rising at 5AM, in order to address himself to “Powerful Goodness” and prepare for the day, by, among other things, asking, “What good shall I do this day?” The day ends, at a reasonable time, with Franklin asking, “What good have I done today?” Notice, in this listing of his daily routine, he gets about 7 hours sleep. But no one accused Ben Franklin of being a slacker.

What questions do you put in your schedule, to keep you on track? What daily activities/reflection/disciplines keep you focused on your most important goals for the day? Do you use ClearSync to keep your appointments, or to remind you to reflect on your day and purpose good in it? Or do you do that automatically? Or not at all? Perhaps a daily repeating untimed event could show up, “Remember to reflect on my day and be grateful for small things.”

Sometimes it takes a study to confirm what a moment’s reflection would indicate. Microsoft sponsored a study that confirmed that Cloud computing for business uses less energy. More and more companies are putting their business processes, collaborative efforts, marketing, sales and invoicing in the cloud to save energy, environment, and even to reduce their IT costs. ClearSync as a tool for delivering value for price reduces communication and coordination costs, allowing our small to mid-size businesses to offer their services for less and beat out the competition. ClearSync can help your service business deliver cost effective customer solutions.

If you have begun to try out ClearSync for Android, here are some usage tips. If you have not yet had the pleasure of using CS for Android, I encourage you to sign up for our beta test program by sending an email to support [at] clearsync.com.

Customizing Your Experience

• Font Size: Increase or decrease the size of text displayed by tapping [Menu][Preferences], then [Theme Text Size].
• Changing the Theme: To change the set of colors used to display your information, tap [Menu][Preferences] and then choose a theme in the drop down list.
• Alias: If you wish to keep your ClearSync User Name confidential on your phone, inside the Account Selector, tap on [Change Alias].
• Sync Frequency: The minimum sync interval is 2 minutes, but you can set your sync interval to a longer period of time to save on battery life, or you can always manually sync by tapping [Menu], [Sync Now].

Finding and Displaying Your Data

• Contact Search: You can search for a contact by the alphabetized letter from A-Z by touching the alphabet bar along the top of the screen at the appropriate place. You can search for a contact by category by touching the color bar along the top of the screen, selecting a contact category to correspond to the color.
• Calendars or Contacts Displayed: To select/unselect a number of calendars or contact categories displayed, tap on the [ClearSync logo] at the bottom.
• Last Sync Time: You can always find out what your last sync time was by the information displayed at the upper left hand corner next to the ClearSync logo. It also displays how much data was transmitted in the last sync.

Creating, Editing and Deleting Contact Lists and Calendars

• Creating a Resource: To create a calendar on the Android, tap on the [ClearSync logo] at the bottom, then tap [Calendar Manager], and finally tap [New].
• Resource Name and Color Change: To edit the name, description or color of a certain calendar on the Android, tap on the [ClearSync logo] at the bottom, then tap [Calendar Manager], and finally tap [Edit]. For contact lists, tap the [Category Manager] in the same way.
• Deleting a Resource: To delete a calendar on the Android, tap on the [ClearSync logo] at the bottom, then tap [Calendar Manager], select the calendar and finally tap [Delete]. For a contact list, do the same with the [Category Manager] while in the contacts area.
• Sharing Calendars and Contact Lists: You can use your phone to set up sharing groups, but it may be simplest to use a computer browser to navigate to www.clearsync.com and log-in. Then, you will be able to set up sharing groups, share calendars and contact information, subscribe to the same information from other people, and set up web pages to display your calendar information.