Scott Hanselman

Hanselminutes Podcast 58 - Synchronizing Internet Calendars

April 10, 2007 Comment on this post [7] Posted in Podcast
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My fifty-eighth podcast is up. Scott and Carl chat about the pain of the DST change and how they manage their calendars over the Internet with things like SyncMyCal and Google Calendars, and the mysterious ICS file format.


UPDATE: An interesting comment in the comments of this post leads to me to add one little bit of extra info. The comment was:

"However I couldn't help thinking that you can purchase great calendars in Borders and other places which with a "version control" pencil and eraser you can write in all your important family events for the month / year and hang on the wall in the kitchen. Lets face it you can even create your own with some software and use family pictures for each month. No data corruption issue, no battery issues and no synchronization issues and its a pleasure to look at."

And I totally agree. We use the Boone "Week over Week" Rolling Whiteboard Calendar" for our kitchen refrigerator for most large-scale life planning. It's SO much more useful than a Monthly Whiteboard. You move each week - Week Over Week - so you don't have to update it every month. We have two, so we've got 8 weeks of life on our fridge.

To be clear, the electronic version works famously. Perfectly. We're always traveling and distributed, and being able to schedule each other with ICS Meeting Requests is a fantastic way to stay in touch. We've done more family events and visited more friends in the last month since we started this system than in the previous year. We each know when we're free and when we're not. It's brilliant.
The Boone board is for "big picture" stuff.


Links from the Show

SyncMyCal (nmz)
Sync Google and your Smart Phone (nn3)
The Holy Grail of Calendar Sync (nn6)
Google Calendar (nn0)
Another PocketPC to Google Calendar (nn4)
Outlook 2007 and iCal (nn7)
OggSync (nn1)
RemoteCalendar (Sync Outlook 2003 to iCal) (nn5)
Syncing Google and Outlook (nn8)
Plaxo (nn2)

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Enjoy. Who knows what'll happen in the next show?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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April 10, 2007 1:13
Just as an update, the SyncMyCal people are launching a PDA version this week.

Cheers.
April 10, 2007 1:28
Also real quick... it may not be obvious from the podcast, but SyncMyCal supports Outlook 2003 Basic, Outlook 2003 Pro, Outlook 2007, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. Also, support for Outlook XP and Outlook 2000 is on the way.

I use SyncMyCal.

Cheers.
April 10, 2007 20:05
You started to hint at it at the end of the podcast, but my family and I have started to use google calendars to remember birthdays and other important family events. We have one called Krause Family that is invite only, where we put in all of those dates that are important to us as a family. It has really helped everyone with remembering to call or send letters when it comes time.
April 11, 2007 2:19
Plaxo is the devil. I hope you mention that in your podcast with the appropriate spitting to ward off the evil eye.
April 11, 2007 7:26
I was playing around with Vista's (Ultimate) Windows Mail (the new outlook express) and noticed a button that opens the Windows Calendar. I was surprised (should I?) to see that it can subscribe to ical feeds and can publish it's own calendars to webdav. I think I'll give that a go because I much rather have my calendar data hosted on some server I have at least some control over, like a hosting provider or even a home server.
If I can get the calendar thing to work, I don't think I'll need a full version of outlook on my box and my wife's new Vista laptop.
April 11, 2007 15:44
Hi Scott,

Love the podcast always great content. However I couldn't help thinking that you can purchase great calendars in Borders and other places which with a "version control" pencil and eraser you can write in all your important family events for the month / year and hang on the wall in the kitchen. Lets face it you can even create your own with some software and use family pictures for each month. No data corruption issue, no battery issues and no synchronization issues and its a pleasure to look at.
Keep up the good work.
April 11, 2007 20:50
David - I use the Boone "Week over Week" Rolling Whiteboard Calendar" for our kitchen refrigerator for most large-scale life planning. It's SO much more useful than a Monthly Whiteboard.

To be clear, the electronic version works famously. Perfectly. We're always traveling and distributed, and being able to schedule each other with ICS Meeting Requests is a fantastic way to stay in touch. We've done more family events and visited more friends in the last month since we started this system than in the previous year. We each know when we're free and when we're not. It's brilliant.

The Boone board is for "big picture" stuff.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.