Goosync launches a service which provides over-the-air calendar synchronization between Google Calendar and cell phones .
When I updated my overview on how to sync Google Calendar, I only knew of Scheduleworld which could act as a bridge between Google Calendar and the open standard syncML.
This service is mainly relevant for cell phones, because most has a built in syncMl client but clients are available for Outlook other applications.
The first impression of the service and website, is very much on level with that of Scheduleworld. I will provide a more in depth comparison between the two at a later point.
Anyway, I find it very positive for average consumer like me that there are two competing services.
An overview of the number of ways Google Calendar can be synchronized with applications and devices like Outlook, Cell phones and Ipods.
Here are the main ways that I know of. There are some solutions for mobile devices Ipod and Java compatible cell phones, and some solutions for desktop applications Ical and Outlook.
What Google Calendar offers
The main offers from Google
Import and export of cvs and ical files, but doing this manually is too much of a hassle.
Make the calendar available as a feed or a public ical file, but this is read only.
Texting in events via the cell phone, but they don’t support my service provider.
An open API which makes it possible to write software which interacts with Google Calendar
Scheduleworld: the Swiss army knife of Google Calendar Synchronization
Scheduleworld is an online calendar service, among other things offers web access, Google Synchronization via API and syncML synchronization. The great thing about this is that the open standard SyncML is supported by many standard cell phones and third party clients are available for services and applications like Outlook.
Engtech has a fascinating guide, on how to put Scheduleworld to full use.
Scheduleworld is free for now, but as I understand it they plan to earn monye adding sponsored appointments to your calendar.
cell phone calendar
The way to synchronize Google Calendar which applies to most cell phones, is by synchronizing via Scheduleworld via the synML client, which is in most cell phones and an Internet connection like GPRS or 3G. Scheduleworld can be set up to synchronize automatically with Google Calendar, whenever a synchronization is requested from the cell phone.
In practicality this means, that one can access and edit the Google Calendar from any computer, and have it synchronize with the cell phone calendar anywhere by a few clicks on the cell phone.
Synchronizing the Ipod calendar is very simple, it only require, that you place your ical-file in the Calendar folder on the Ipod. Syncing with Google Calendar only requires that you download your private calendar file. If access your Google Calendar, and navigate to [settings]-[Calendar]-["calendar name"], then you just have to right click on the “ical” logo by the private address, and select to save it to the Calendar folder on the Ipod.
Even though this is pretty simple, it could be fun to make it even simpler, having a script on the ipod for one-click updates. Personally I would download the ical file with wget, this i by default installed in most Unix/Linux system, and is available for windows by downloding the unixutils from http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/, and extracting the wget file (around 200kb.). Afterwards all you need to do is place the wget file and a windows bat file in the root of the ipod.
Example of update-ipod-calendar.bat (just swap the http address for Google Calendar address). cd Calendar
..\wget http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/example_of_address/basic.ics
It should be even easier to compose a unix shell-scripts which accomplishes the same. And within minutes, and by just adding three small files, my Ipod can synchronize with Google calendar on both Windows and Unix systems, without installing anything on the machine.
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.
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!
