This is probably not the most appropriate place to ask this question, but I'm not having much luck on the Outlook Usenet forums, so I'll try here.

I mostly work from my home, and I use Outlook 2003 for e-mail, calendaring, contacts list, and tasks. Outlook syncs to my Treo 650, which uses Agendus Pro. The synchonization between Agendus Pro and Outlook on the PDA and desktop machines is usually seamless.

When I do go on a trip, I transfer the outlook.pst and archive.pst files to my laptop, so that I have the most current versions of the databases. I access and respond to e-mail, add and update contacts, etc. on the laptop. I am careful never to use the desktop machine for these tasks until I have copied the *.pst files back to the desktop machine. Therefore, it is always one or the other, never both at the same time.

If I synchronize the PDA with the laptop while on the trip, I usually wind up with a bunch of duplicated entries in contacts, calendar, and tasks. I have some PDA software that I can use to remove the duplicates, but the process is unwieldy. I have to first re-synchronize the PDA and laptop, setting the HotSync conduit to overwrite the data on the PDA. I then run the UnDupe software, then copy the data back to the laptop, reversing the overwrite procedure. Invariably, a few contacts or appointments get deleted or changed in the process.

Further, my e-mail "rules" won't work the first time I use the program after transferring the *.pst files to either machine. I get a "Rules in Error" alert message, and I have to manually reset those rules and run them on the Inbox messages. These problems apply only to rules that apply to messages that come in on that first e-mail download. After that, all the rules, reset and otherwise, work fine.

Does anyone have any suggestions to make this process work more smoothly?