Treo 700p, Entourage, .Mac, Two Macs

[ericgg]

Hi,

I hope I provide enough information to solicit some useful advice.
I fear I've over-complicated my syncing life.

I have two macs (laptop & desktop) on which I run Entourage 2004 as my PIM. When I got the Treo 700p I managed to set up the Entourage conduit and successfully HotSync between the two computers and the Treo, back and forth, with the limitations inherent therein (the smaller number of contacts- without categories, the multi-day events coming over as single days on the Treo, etc.).

Some time later I decided I wanted the two computers to be perfectly in sync (rather than imperfectly, as described above) and signed up for .Mac from Apple. With this I managed to successfully mirror the calendar & addresses within Entourage, and the syncing was easy.

But then I ran into trouble. When I used Palm's HotSync with the laptop, it worked fine. When I then used Palm's HotSync with the desktop it worked fine. All was in sync. But then, when I used iSync & the .Mac account (the sync icon in the top-right menu bar of Finder), I received duplicates of calendar events & contacts. Contacts were kicked out of my Palm & the laptop because (I presume) the allotted number had been exceeded (thanks to the duplicates).

Any ideas on what went wrong?

Any thoughts on e2sync or the Missing Sync? What exactly do they add to the mix (i.e., why would one need either)?

Any help would be incredibly appreciated!