Sync iPhone Contacts & Calendar with Outlook - Part One - Contacts

I got an iPhone and had some trouble finding out how to keep both my Contacts and Calendar in sync with MS Outlook, I simply want to be able to enter or delete something in one device and have it updated elsewhere without USB / iTunes etc, not rocket science.

Here's what I've ended up with (at least so far). It has the dual virtues of a) working without problems and b) free of charge. As always do backup everything first in case you screw something up (easy to do, for example ending up with duplicates of all your contacts).

I couldn't find anything free that would do both data sets so ended up with a fully automated push solution for Calendar and a slightly less automated solution for Contacts.

Contacts

I used Funambol -

1. Download the Funambol app direct from the iPhone App Store
   
2. Download the Funambol Outlook sync client from here & install it to your PC
   
3. Sign up for a free Funambol account via here
4. Tell iTunes to stop syncing Contacts
   
5. Sync your info from where ever it is complete (e.g Outlook if you have everything you need there) with a One Way sync to Funambol
6. Do a One Way sync from Funambol to your other device (so if you used Outlook in step 4 you'd now sync your phone
7. CHECK EVERYTHING IS OK - check number of contacts in each place, particularly check that you haven't got a zillion duplicate entries
8. Once your happy with step 6 change all syncs to Two Way

Now every time you change a Contact in Outlook it will update the copy on the Funambol server, you just need to run the Funambol iPhone app periodically to keep the phone in sync. Does anyone know how to automate this so it happens, say daily?

Part 2 on Calendar to follow