Another syncronisation service

One of the hassles which I have from time to time is keeping all of my telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and snail mail addresses updated on all my machines.  There is a terrible tendency for changes to get made on the nearest device, and not always updated on everything else.

At the moment, my phone syncs with my main computer, but my work computer and my laptop only get updated when I remember to export and import data manually (at which point I run the risk of overwriting more up to date information with older info if the latest address is on the work machine or laptop).  This is inconvenient, but there is no easy answer.

For a while I looked a syncronisation software, and online syncronisation (such as the service offered by Orange), but none of them were adequate.  The orange online service was just a pain, and most other free services wouldn't work with outlook or my phone (which basically renders them completely useless).  Many of them didn't support all of the fields I use, so things would end up in the wrong places (mobile phone numbers are easy to spot, but if work and home numbers are swapped, how do you tell?).

Anyway, I'm trying a new service now - Plaxo (www.plaxo.com).  First impressions are quite positive - it doesn't seem to be able to update mozilla calendar in Thunderbird (which I use at work), but it will sync contact information with Outlook (and by extension my phone) and Thunderbird, it's got a reasonable web interface (although why I would need that when I always have my phone I don't know), and for other Plaxo users it will always automatically update their information, and keep a log of changes.

I haven't given it the big test yet - at the moment I've synced Plaxo to Outlook, but I haven't synced Outlook to Plaxo.  I hope that it doesn't mangle my contact information....

If it all works, it should be revolutionary for me - and I'll probably start pestering everyone to use it so that I don't have to track things manually.  If it doesn't work, I've got a current backup of my contacts, and I'll just uninstall the plugins and forget about it (meaning that when someone else discovers it in 3 years time, all of my contact information will be out of date - but that's their problem).

Now to go a find a plugin which will let me display calendar information and appointments on the MCE machine.  That said, I'm not sure I want to be greeted with the todo list for the day when I first turn on the TV in the morning.