contact syncing questions

[jfolliard]

Folks - I know there are many threads on this subject and I've gone through them but nothing really comprehensive on how best to sync my contacts. Here's my setup:

1. desktop - Outlook 2003
2. notebook - Outlook 2003
3. Hero - Android 1.5

Obviously my goal is to have the exact same contacts in each computer and the Hero. Gmail (contacts) does a good job in making sure the Hero is synced automatically to the contacts in Gmail but I make my additions/corrections to contacts either on the desktop or the notebook computers. So far I've been manually exporting/importing from notebook to Gmail and from desktop to Gmail but run into problems such as duplicates, and most frustrating, some contacts on the Hero are first name, last name while others are reversed.

I really prefer last name, first name but I can't seem to get it that way in the Hero - both computers (Outlook) are last name, first name.

Anyway, I guess the central issue is how to sync the two computers with Gmail so the Hero gets auto synced?

Next question - if I happen to make a new contact within the Hero, does that get synced to Gmail and become a Google contact? I guess I'm confused between phone contacts and Google contacts - I noticed that either or both can be selected in the view function and you have to check one or the other or both?

Seems like what I'm trying to accomplish should be fairly common as most people have a couple of computers plus their phone. Any advice what be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

Jack