Sync contacts & calendar between Mozilla Thunderbird and Nokia E72 with Google apps (Gmail & Google Calendar)

I have been spending some time to make my contacts and calendar events in Mozilla Thunderbird with Lightning add-on on my laptop synchronized to my Nokia E72 mobile phone. Meaning that, all my contacts in Thunderbirds address book as well as the calendar events are always synchronized in my laptop and nokia E72 as if they are the same copy of information accessible from both my laptop and mobile phone on the go.

To save similar others' saving time in achieving what I did, here are what you can do:

1. You need to have a Google account for access into Gmail and Google Calendar. If you are using Google Apps, please ensure that in your Mobile service settings (from Google Apps Dashboard), the "Enable Google Syn" are enabled.

2. Besides Lightning, you also need to install these 2 Add-Ons:
- Provider for Google Calendar
- Zindus

3. In the Calendar of Thunderbird, create new calendar and select "On the Network" and enter your Gmail calendar feeds URL which will normally look like the following. You can find this URL in your Calendar Settings -> Calendar Details under Calendar Address, click on XML button.
http://www.google.com/calendar/feeds//public/basic

4. For Zindus, just set it to auto-sync to your Gmail account.

5. At this stage, all your contacts and calendar events will be automatically synchronized to your Google account. Next, we have bring in the mobile phone into the party.

6. On E72, create a new Mail for Exchange profile. Enter the settings as required by the wizard as follow:

Exchange Server: m.google.com
Secure Connection: Yes
Access Point:
Sync while roaming: No
Use default port: Yes
Username: Your full Google email address
Password: Your Google Account password
Domain:

7. Enable the settings of "Synchronize Calendar" and "Synchronize Contacts". DO NOT enable the "Synchronize Tasks" or emails. You must disable the "Synchronize Tasks" or otherwise the whole thing will not work at all.

8. The Mail for Exchange profile that was configured earlier will automatically work in the background.

9. For email synchronization, just use Gmail wizard to create another profile on E72 to read/write email of your Gmail account. You can set your E72's home screen to only notify emails on this profile instead of the Mail for Exchange profile.

10. Now you can try create a calendar event, or edit a contact in your contacts on your E72, and a short while later you will find them automatically updated to your Mozilla Thunderbird. The time to get updated on both sides might be longer according to your synchronization schedule settings on your E72. Be patient that even if you set it to "Always On", it will still take some time to get updated in either way.

Enjoy!

p/s: Unfortunately, Google account still does not support Tasks synchronization. Hopefully it will implement it soon.

Hard Reset your Nokia E72 (Restore to Factory Default)

After few weeks trying and stressing my new E72 with many applications, I am satisfied with what the E72 is capable of and I decided to make a clean reincarnation for the powerful gadget.

I tried to use the Restore to Factory Default function in the phone settings menu, but it seems that this only performed a soft-reset. It does not really restore the phone to the very fresh out-of-factory conditions.

I have also tried the *#7370# way but it is not working as well as it does not really hard-reset to the very fresh conditions.

At last, I have found the real way of reincarnating this E72. Just follow these steps:

1. While the phone is off, hold these buttons Capslock + Space + Backspace at the same time (you might need an extra hand to do that easily) and press the power on.

2. Keep the buttons pressed until the phone is booted up with the Nokia standard tone.

That's it. Now your E72 is reincarnated. Be warned that all your previous applications, settings and data on the phone's memory will be vanished. Please do a complete backup of your phone before doing this.