tech-tag » Calendar

Scheduleworld and Google Calendar Synchronization works two-ways

jens — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 09:58:26 +0000

I claimed earlier, that Calendar synchronization between Google Calendar and Scheduleworld only works one way. But yesterday I read in \\Engtechs very nice guide to synchronization that it works two-ways, consequences were: I had to try again.
At first my results were the same as reported earlier, none of the appointments I had in Scheduleworld would appear in Google Calendar. This however changed when I made a completely new appointment in Scheduleworld which appeared in Google Calendar after a sync. The entire problem was solved by adding a hyphen to all my appointments – and suddenly they all appeared in Google Calendar.
This goes to show two points. First of all, that two-synchronization actually works between the two, making it possible to use Scheduleworld as a middleman for synchronization between Google Calendar and any SynML compatible device, like a cell phone. Second, that this service (in beta) has some weaknesses at the present, making it possible for some appointments to be left out.

Syncing Scheduleworld with Google Calendar works – but only one way

jens — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:56:06 +0000

After a failure earlier on, I tried syncing Scheduleworld and Google Calendar yesterday and it finally worked. I was hoping (naive – yes) that this could as a middleman providing Google Calendar with the needed Syncml compatibility. In reality I could only make this work one way, exporting from Google Calendar (why they needed my pasword and username I don’t know), and in order to make the synchronization start I had to log in to Scheduleworld and request it.

All in all progress but I don’t really know what to use the one way sync for – unless I’m migrating completely!

How to easily sync Outlook calendar with an ordinary cell phone

jens — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 20:33:07 +0000

A week ago I discussed the possible ways one could sync the cell phone with an external calendar. Here I will show more specific how syncML can be used to synchronize a standard cell phone calendar with Outlook. The advantage by this is that that once it is up and running it is much easier (or at least on the phones I’ve tried) than using infrared or bluetooth, thus giving the user a calendar which is always close by, and backed up on a remote server if the phone should be lost, or your Dell laptop should explode.
In order to achieve this, a few thing are required:

A syncML compatible cell phone (most newer phones, and a lot of the older is)
A working WAP connection (GPRS, 3G or similar)
Outlook (this is possible with other applications too, but this guide is about Outlook).
An account at a syncML server

From here on there are two ways to go, this can either be done for free but with a little more hassle in the setup. Or this can cost a bit of money and then have an easier setup.

The free solution

The only way I could make this work for free, is by using Funambols free syncML plugin for Outlook. Since this is the only free syncML plugin I could find. It seems that this plugin has some issues since I could only make it work with Scheduleworld.com. I would have preferred to use it with zyb.com, since I prefer them to scheduleworld, but I could not make the connection.

The first thing to be done is to make the synchronization between Scheduleworld and the cell phone work. In order to do that one need to start by going to Scheduleworlds website and set up an account. Then the phone needs to be set up (this is very different from phone to phone) with the following values, I can take some time to make it work.

Server url: http://sync.scheduleworld.com/sync4j/sync
User name: (this the costumer number which can be seen by logging in on the website and select preferences)
password: (the same password as selected for the website)
Application URI (often called a variety of things):

calendar:cal
contacs:card

When the synchronization is working between the phone and Scheduleworlds syncML server, it is time to focus on Outlook. The first thing which needs to be done is the installation of Funambols free syncML plugin for Outlook. The next time Outlook is started it will have on more menu called sync4j. In this menu configuration is selected and communications settings, synchronizations settings and Remote settings are set up as shown. With the “xxx..” in the username being the same user number as used when setting up the phone.

The problem with cyb.com’s server with Funambols plugin, was that the plugin crashed every time I tried to sync. If someone else can make that work I would like to know.
The paid way

The first thing needed is to setup an account at cyb.com, and get the synchronization connection between the phone and the cyb server. This was actually easier done than said for me, all I had to do is go to zyb.com, and they helped me identify the phone and sent me the settings for the phone by text message.

The next thing to be done is to install and configure a plugin for Outlook. Since the funambol kept crashing, I’ve downloaded a 15 days trial version Nexthause’s Outlook plugin, the full version costs 29 dollars.

Like with cyb things a just a little smoother with this plugin. The first time Outlook is started after installing this plugin, a wizard is started.

At the dialog, shown above, the server is url is set. After that the password and username hs to be set.

In the third dialogue box I choose to test the server setting. When this is choosen the server found the remaining settings itself like shown below.

After pressing “Finish” Outlook starts normally with a synchronize icon appears in the toolbar.

No matter which of the paths has been chosen, at this point one can now get Outlook and the cell phone in sync very fast. Just remember that it is an ecternal server, meaning that if you have made some changes on the cell phone since you last used Outlook you have to start by syncing aswell as end by doing it, and vice versa so that the external server is always up to date.

Syncing Google Calendar

jens — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 14:27:53 +0000

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This post is outdated, and a updated version has been published

syncing Google calendar v2
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I’ve been trying to get an overview of how it is possible to sync Google Calender. Here are the main ways I could find/think of. There are some solutions for mobile devices Ipod and Java compatible cell phones, and som solutions for desktop applications Ical and Outlook.
What Google offers is first of all import and export of cvs and ical files, but doing this manually is too much of a hassle. Secondly, they offer the chance to make the calendar available as a feed or a public ical file, but this is read only, which means no two-way syncronisation. Thirdly they offer some more specific services, texting in events via the cell phone, but this does not seem that attractiv to me and they don’t support my service provider.

As I noted earlier it is possible to sync with advanced cell phones via the free application gcalsync, but I just read on Matthew Millers blog that there is also a commercial solution called Companionlink. I am hoping that this maybe supports more phones.

Ipod users can sync one way with the getcals pc application.

As for the desktop solution by Scheduleworlds, which I mentioned earlier, this does not seem to work. Whenever I try to set it up I get a weird error message.

Tuaw.com has published a guide for setting this up in Ical and Grinn Productions has published one for setting one-way sync up in Outlook using the remotecalendars, but this graphic tutorial shows how to-way sync is possible in the current version.
I anyone know of more ways to sync Google Calendar – don’t hesitate to comment.

Additional Syncml servers for syncing your cell phone

jens — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 09:05:37 +0000

Since I wrote the post on syncing the cell phone calendars I’ve discovered a few more syncml servers, from reading up on other blogs.
Gsmsync is a web based service (although still in beta), where one can sign up, and sync calendar and contacts with the server via syncml. Thereby using the server as interface for the calendar, and backup for contacts. The website looks and functions really well, most of the way, I never recieved the setup sms (until 30 minutes later), so I had to set the settings up by hand. In addition when looking in the documentation it is clear that they are in beta. In time they plan to make it a paid service, but as fare as I could see it is free right now.

ZYB is a service very similar to GSMsync, in the way that they offer a very similar product, calendar and contacts sync via syncml and a nice web interface, for adding appointments and contacts. Contrary to GSMsync their documentation is very good, and it is a free service, which they plan to keep it free, and make their money from selling additional services like outlook integration (I however have a hard time seeing how they will keep users from connecting with Outlook via Funambols free syncml plugin for Outlook).

Of the two ZYB gave the best impression, it worked right out of the box, and even helped the user identify the phone model during the signup, and sending the settings right to the phone. All in all ZYB is in my mind clearly the most consistent solution for syncing the cell phone calendar, making it an best choice for the non-experienced user.

Syncing advanced cell-phones with Yahoo and Google Calendar

jens — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 13:07:30 +0000

As an update to the previous post, on syncing cell phone calendars, it has been brought to my attention, that newer phones has some further possibilities of syncing with Yahoo and Google Calendars.
Users who prefer the Yahoo, has the possibility to download the Java app Yahoo GO which offer a wide degree of integration with Yahoo, including Calendar, contacts and e-mail. There are however series limitations to the number of phones it works on. Put in another way it only works with Nokia series 60 phones (9 different models all in all).

For Google users the opening of the Calendar API has resulted in the creation of GCALSYNC, a java app which is capable of syncing a cell phone with Google Calendar. However, this app is still in beta and only supports a limited number of phones (and not my Nokia 6610i, but a lot more than Yahoo Go).

If one has an advanced phone this might be a the way to go. Although in my mind a lot more complicated than if everybody could agree on using syncml.

Getting the cell phone calendar in sync

jens — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:57:56 +0000

An overview of how simple standard cell phones can be synchronized with calendar apps

Most current cell phones contain an embedded calendar. Even though this seems like a useful feature it has little value in my eyes if it can’t sync with external calendars like Sunbird, Outlook and Google Calendar, since it is just too unhandy to constantly edit events and Todos on the cell phone. But on the other hand a handheld calendar which syncs with my calendar on the pc’s seems very attractive to me.

There are of course a lot of cell phones, differentiating in any number of ways. But there still seems to be some similarities when. This will be based with my experience with my Nokia 6610i an older Sony Ericsson T68i and a Siemens M55, but I believe that this apply to a wider array of phones.

Syncing a cell-phone an external calendar can basically go on in two different ways. Either the cell-phone can connect directly with the computer, or they can both act as clients to an internet server.

Syncing directly with the computer

Synchronising thru a direct connection is free (once any needed hardware is obtained). But require that you are close to the computer, and that this is running with the right software setup.

The way to do this is often via cable or wireless connection, where the most common are the ageing IRDA standard and BLUETOOTH.

The IRDA standard is an infrared connection. The advantage is that these are often supported by older hardware, but the connections are often slow, and require the phone to be within very short range of the pc pointing exactly right. On the phones I’ve tried i has been fairly easy to establish a connection with Windows XP and the software made available by the manufacturer. The only hitch is that in every case (the 6610i and the T68i) the connection did not function until I had limited the connection speed to 115 kbps. This is done by entering the System in the Windows control Panel (classical view) and selecting the hardware tab, and then opening the device manager. In the device manage you find the infrared connection, and there it should be fairly easy to find the max. allowed connection speed. I sometimes use this kind of connection to get the pics on my cell phone downloaded or backing up the contacts list. But in my mind the infrared connection is to complicated and slow for daily sync’ing with the calendar app.

With BLUETOOTH one overcomes some of the weaknesses the infrared connection has. If one has a BLUETOOTH enabled phone (like the T68I), and a computer with either an internal or an external BLUETOOTH adapter it makes faster, and more solid connection than the infrared connection. A BLUETOOTH connection also works within a lot wider range (up to 100 meters depending on equipment).

My complaints about the direct connection is that one is locked to on specific computer, that the software from the phone manufacturer often only supports Outlook and that it often takes a lot of clicks every time they sync. Another objection which concerns me but might not concern all, is the software often only is available in Windows versions.

Syncing indirectly via a server

As stated above the other way to go, is to synchronize using an external server which both the PC and the Cell phone syncs with. In order for this to work, the phone needs access to the internet in order to sync with the server, the best options I know of is either 3G or GPRS, which are both non-dialup connection types, where the expenditure is on the bandwidth usage. 3G is the newest and fastest of the two, but the phones are still pretty expensive, and I have not had access to an enabled phone so I can’t say a lot. The other way to go is GPRS, all the phones mentioned here were GPRS enabled, and it seemed pretty easy to get it working by help from the network provider’s website.
Compared to the direct connection this also means that there will be an additional expenditure every time the calendar is sync’ed, since the network providers charge for bandwidth usage. But during my trials it did not seem that this was very much.

The phones I’ve tried all were able to act as a syncml client sync’ing with a syncml server. It takes about 5 minutes to set the phone up to sync via syncml, and a sync takes about 15-20 seconds. With this setup it is possible to sync with the home compute, using the free funambol ad-on for outlook, or any of the other syncml clients/ad-ons.

It does seem, that syncml servers are hard to find. One possibility is to set one up on the home computer, software for this can be downloaded from funambol. But then the home computer has to be running in order to sync, and access to the Calendar is only possible from the home computer or the phone. All in all on get the same as with the direct connection, but at a a little bit higher price.

If one has a web hosting account it should be possible to set up a server syncml on this. I have found two free software solutions for this. For those who master php, it is possible to incorporate Nicolas Bougues syncml tools in a webapplication, or just use it as a simple server. An other way to go is to install egroupware groupware server on the server. I have not made any of these work but this is probably due to the fact that my hosting account has php safe_mode set to on. But i plan to purchase another one and try them again. I plan to make a post about this later.

The last possibility, I know of, is to make a free account at a web site like ScheduleWorld, they provide free access to a syncml server, a very nice webinterface, and an advanced java-calendar app, and it syncs with Google Calendar. With this server it does not take very long to get the syncing up an running, but the disadvantage is that they plan to put in ads via events in the calendar.

All in all I prefer the sync’ing through a server, but this is of course not the only way to go. Right now I personally use ScheduleWorld, but I the day I get a server up and running on my hosting account I will probably be using it.

If you feel that, anything in the above is inaccurate or wrong, or there is something you need deepened, or your have any other reason, don’t hesitate to make a comment.