Im just testing daylite for mac osx again – quiet a nice system that can be run on a single machine or networked and accessed from external devices such as iphones and ipod touch..
The daylite ystem keeps all your contacts – tasks – projects – opportunities – calendar notes and reminders all in one neat package on the mac. Its very geared towards corporates and it is a very rich bit of kit! The install and setup i must say was a breeze! I downloaded the server package and the daylite install dmgs – you only need the daylite install dmg for a single machine and install the server if you plan to network or connect over the internet with your iphone..
Anyway I started bt installing the server on my mac server took like half a minute then i installed the main daylite package.
I opened up daylite and ran through the wizard asked me my name address etc and a username and password then aked me to pick for a selection of industries or just a blank template database – so opions being photography or real estate – i picked general and then it logged in cool up and running!! – i went into my ical and created three calendars for it to sync with for now work / band / personal – then i went into preferences in daylite and picked sharing and indicated i wanted it to sync with them calendars and that i wanted to create a group in my mac address book called daylite were i can choose who i want to sync entries in my addressbook to be added to daylite and not the whole lot of my address book because believe me some of my mates i would never think twice of doing business with!!! Bingo add a entry into either daylite or my ical or address book they appear in each program!!
Next i went into the server database admin program and turned told it which database to share on the network and turned on sharing with the big share button ! easy – (this part is for external iphone connection!) then went to network and put in my external ip address and told it to route the ports for me which is does using upnp!! so no port forwarding in the firewall – but one thing you have to keep the server admin program open if you dont forward the ports manually so i will port the ports – it tells you the three ports to forward in so make sure your box has a fixed ip to make it more reliable!! pull across the big button saying share again and hey presto !! shared on the network and to the internet !!! easy done in like 5 mins!! also inside the server admin you add licences for addons and setup periodic back ups for the database!!! awsome..
So i next installed the daylite install on my laptop and connected straight in after i dropped the firewall so will have to add rules for my local connections to be allowed 😉 straight on – all the data shared no problems!!
Next went to the iphone installed the ap through app store – started it up – put in my ip address and username and password – it downloaded the data and im in!!! I can see all the data in need to in daylite plus i can add data and sync with the main database!!! works a treat!! £35 for the year for the iphone app!!! not bad really!!
Its looking like £839 for 5 users and about £130 for one user which is very good really – if your a one man band with a mac daylite + server + the iphone app is like £165 and your away!! great value – i notice they have cut down version for £99 which doesnt have the mail intergration etc – its worth a look
My only problem …. all my calendars and contacts are synced with google so nowadays the contacts aint a problem as the mac syncs contacts with google out of the box!!.. now my calendars in ical just connect to google but will daylite see the data on the google calendars?? nope! is the answer – there is no way around this im afraid at the monment apart from one i downloaded spanning sync which let me create a standard ical calendar and then get that to sync with google calendar!! easy install quick setup and about £35 out of my back pocket! plus it does other syncing which i havent used just the calendar stuff which works a treat as its syncing every 15 mins in the background no problem!!!!
Also if you look at the marketcirle site for this app take a look at billings for the mac for £30 nice easy billings program very easy to setup and use and ties into your address book etc and makes very pro looking invoices!!