Ray Ozzie proposed his concept of Simple Sharing Extensions back in 2005, and then more or less went silent. Until now!

Another Live Labs technology preview release arrived this week. It's called FeedSync and it is the current incarnation of the concept Ozzie developed to allow data sharing over web protocols like RSS.

The initial specification is available as version 1.0 at the time of this writing. It extends both the Atom and RSS specifications to incorporate item sharing which Microsoft defines as "bi-directional, asynchronous synchronization of new and changed items amongst two or more cross-subscribed feeds".

(Hmmm, calendar sharing anyone?)

The samples in the specification deal with a fictional task list example. Here is the code (emphasis added) for the sample RSS feed.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:sx="http://feedsync.org/2007/feedsync">
 <channel>
  <title>To Do List</title>
  <description>A list of items to do</description>
  <link> http://example.com/partial.xml </link>
  <sx:sharing since="2005-02-13T18:30:02Z"
    until="2005-05-23T18:30:02Z" >
   <sx:related link="http://example.com/all.xml" type="complete" />
   <sx:related link="http://example.com/B.xml" type="aggregated" 
    title="To Do List (Jacks Copy)" />
  </sx:sharing>
  <item>
   <title>Buy groceries</title>
   <description>Get milk, eggs, butter and bread</description>
   <sx:sync id="item_1_myapp_2005-05-21T11:43:33Z" updates="3">
    <sx:history sequence="3" when="2005-05-21T11:43:33Z" by="JEO2000"/>
    <sx:history sequence="2" when="2005-05-21T10:43:33Z" by="REO1750"/>
    <sx:history sequence="1" when="2005-05-21T09:43:33Z" by="REO1750"/>
   </sx:sync>
  </item>
 </channel>
</rss>

Notice the namespace reference sx=http://feedsync.org/2007/feedsync the "sx" prefix is the one designated in the spec.

FeedSync supports multi-master topologies which means it can be used to send and receive data to multiple clients. An example topology is shown below, (image from Microsoft's web site.), as you can see clients can be bi-directional or pull only.

The possibilities are many, I am already thinking about using this technology to allow calendar syncing between Google Calendar, and Outlook. Another thought that jumped to mind would be to allow sharing appointment data for a centralized calendar among a group of subscribers on a project I am working on.

Best of all, the technology has been released and licensed under a Creative Commons license which means the technology is likely to be extended.

The best place to start looking for developers is the FeedSync For Developers page.

Have fun! Share with me your observations and ideas!

Cheers,

Robert Porter

For the last two years I have had a UTStarcom PPC 6700 Smartphone. It was great, I enjoyed it and I would recommend it to anyone. Mine finally developed terminal touch screen failure. Certain parts of the screen would no longer react to being touched no matter how hard.

It came with Windows Mobile 5 and I had added a half dozen or so must have utilities that I always seem to find. AIRoboForm for PPC, SplashID for PPC and Battery Pack Pro were on top of the list, as well as Windows Live Search. The phone happily sync'd with Outlook and other programs keeping my appointments, tasks and contacts in order.

I was also able to use the Spring EV-DO network, or any handy WiFi access point to surf the web or send and receive email when away from my office. All in all I was pretty satisfied with the phone. So I was sad when I realized that the screen failure was rendering it less than useful.

Off to Sprint I went, after all I was paying 7 bucks a month for the "Total Equipment Protection" plan right? Well much to my surprise the Sprint rep took one look, said yep, "It's broken", and "we don't sell those anymore, is it okay to give you a PPC 6800?"

"Of course!" says I, with a grin from ear to ear! So now I am the proud owner of an HTC Mogul PPC 6800 with Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional, all Vista looking and shiny! A quick zap of my data off the old PPC

6700 and a sync with my 6800 and I was right back in action!

The new phone sports a few other improvements, like WiFi G and B instead of just B, my home router is now happily set to "G Only" and pumping much faster connections than when it was running in mixed mode. The form factor is nicer too, no more stubby antenna to worry about. And the keyboard slide is spring loaded so when it opens it does so with a satisfying "thunk"!

It came with Windows Live out of the box, and had a newer version of Messenger as well. So now I can happily IM whenever I want again! And lo! The screen works! Everywhere! It, like the 6700 has Windows Media Player, and can play music just fine. But I mostly use it to listen to podcasts. The audio quality is fine for me, and it paired easily with my Bluetooth headset.

All in all, the 6800 is the 6700 done right in my opinion! A great device that combines the best PDA features with a decent phone. And as a bonus I can easily write my own programs for it so it is a geek toy all the way. Oh yeah, it came with Java pre-installed as well and I still have over a Gig of RAM/ROM left counting the storage card, so plenty of room to add programs in!

Cheers,

Robert Porter

I have and love a PPC phone. It's a PPC6700 and runs Windows Mobile 5. Microsoft recently released a new tool that makes me love my phone even more!

Windows Live Search for Mobile just added a whole new dimension to my mobile experience. In and of itself it has justified the data package I have bought!

It brings localized search to your hand held! It works for either Java or WM powered devices so it's not an Microsoft only offering.

It supports scrollable, zoomable maps, driving directions, address look ups, business lookups, SMS capabilities pretty much everything search related.

But it gets better! I recently had need to meet a friend after work and was not familiar with the establishment or it's location.

A quick search yielded me the address and phone number (linked so I could click on it to make the call) and a map and driving directions!

This is the default starting page on my phone. I had already selected Raleigh, NC as my local area. Then I typed "playmakers" without the quotes, into the search bar and received the following listings. The first listing was the correct one.

Notice that the phone number is a clickable link! Clicking it dialed the number for me!

Also notice that it showed me a rough distance estimate. 3.36 miles.

I decided that I wanted the map and selected map from the menu and voila!

Here is the map I received, in just 2 -3 seconds!

 I could (and did) zoom in, click and drag the map around with my stylus, and switch to turn by turn text directions.

All in all a wonderful enabling technology! Run, don't walk, to your mobile browser and download this small application now!

The direct download link for your mobile phone is:

http://wls.live.com

The JME2 version for both the US and UK is also available there.

The application is GPS aware and works with some built in GPS's and almost all external GPS devices provided they can be configured to talk on a COM port.

Happy Mobile Searching!

Bob Porter

Hmmm