tech-tag » google calendar

Competition for Scheduleworld – Goosync bridges between Google Calendar and the cell phone

jens — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:06:27 +0000

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.

Today I read of yet another service with that potential. Goosync started syncML synchronization with Google Calendar this September. As fare as I can tell the service is automated and free, just like scheduleworld.

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.

Synchronize Google Calendar v2

jens — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 20:46:45 +0000

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.

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.

Ipods

Ipod users can sync one way with the getcals pc application. Or simple downloading the public or private Ical file to the Ipod Calendar folder.

Outlook and other desktop applications
Syncing desktop applications

Ical:Tuaw.com has published a guide for setting this up in Ical
Outlook: 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. With a syncML client for Outlook Scheduleworld can act as middleman.
Sunbird: One-way synchronization can be archived by subscribing via the public ical address.

If you have a question or know of more ways to sync Google Calendar – don’t hesitate to comment.

Scheduleworld now provides automatic Google Calendar synchronization

jens — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 22:16:21 +0000

With the latest announcement from scheduleworld it is possible to have automatic calendar synchronization between a standard cell phone and Google Calendar.

This news finally ads something resembling syncml compatibility to the list of possible ways to Synchronize Google Calendar.

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.

A simple way to synchronize Google Calendar and an Ipod on the road

jens — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:25:16 +0000

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.

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!

Syncing Google Calendar

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

————————————————————-

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.

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.