I think I’ve got some pretty basic calendaring needs. I want to be able to access (view/add/edit) my calendar data from any computer including my handheld (using the native handheld app and sync, not a web interface – at least for now) and I want to publish a simple free/busy view of my workday schedule publicly.
I’ve looked at a number of options, but before tainting the discussion I thought I’d ask for suggestions.
Suggestions?
We, this is a close one to my own heart. I have actually been holding out for such an application in the hope that you would build and host it and that I could just subscribe to it. For now though I’m using 30boxes (http://www.30boxes.com). It does what you need except its web based and not syncable other than through ical. When you do design the killer web 2.0 app which combines calendaring, tasks wordpress blog and maybe even email let me know and I’ll open my wallet.
I use a Windows Mobile 5 PDA/phone (i-mate JAMin), which manages to sync with both Outlook at work, Outlook at home and iCal on my MacBook at home too (through iSync and some add-ons).
As for publishing your calender, you could publish your iCal calender to Google Calender, which I think can be made public?
See: http://highearthorbi[...]le-calendar/
I can’t find a Windows or Linux calendaring app that does works how I would like it to, let alone with sync options. I second what Mark said! I have no doubt that anything to come out of the King Design stable would blow away any of the exisiting products on the market, and I’d be willing to put my money where my mouth is too.
What I do is setup a Google Calendar and then have iCal setup to sync with it every 15 minutes. I then have my iPod Mini setup to sync with iCal.
That way I can be on any computer, add something to Google Calendar, and then have it instantly appear on my iPod. I also have the option to share my calendar to anyone else if I want to.
Yes the iPod is a poor substitute for a handheld, but it is what I got and quite frankly, all I need. And it works perfectly.
When I used Yahoo! Calendar, they used intellisync software to sync with my PC and my handheld (which at the time was a Palm Tungsten E).
Currently, I have a Treo 650, and use their web interface to sync with my PC and Handheld. I wonder if the BlackBerry might have a similar service?
I’m waiting for the google calendar to sync with the palm desktop, then I’ll be set.
iCal with .Mac does the whole sync between machines thing (though only between Macs, which might be a problem for some). You can publish calendars, but I’m not sure how much control over what detail it publishes.
I do it with iCal+.Mac, then that stuff synchronises using Entourage to Exchange, which then synchronises to my phone (over wifi). It’s a bit convoluted, but means I don’t need to be near my own computer to sync my phone.
My suggestion is to not use “to calendar” as a verb.
Schedule, scheduling – why not calendar and calendaring? 😉
I was just looking around for something a little simpler – I want to sync iCal between macs without signing up for .Mac – and I found this program which might help you. It is called iSyncCal and it can also sync with Mozilla Sunbird. That might solve your first issue. Using PHPiCalendar or publishing directly to your own webDav server you can then easily subscribe to your work calendar in Google Calendar which has some good functions for sharing and publishing your schedule.
Link to iSyncCal:
http://ww2.unime.it/[...]n/index.html
So I *think* I have the answer for you. Let me explain what I work with first. I have an iMac at home, a macbook pro for work and travel, and a blackberry.
The only solution I’ve found is Google Calendar, iCal and PocketMac but it might not do what you exactly want to do.
Google Calendar is great because I can share my cals with everyone and edit my wifes and vise versa easily. Anyways, I have iCal publish a calendar to icalx.com which offers free ical syncing (awesome if you didn’t know you didn’t have to pay for .mac in order to do that). I then subscribe to that calendar in Google. I still can’t edit that cal in Gcal but I’m sure they’re working on it and before they do I just publish my gcal and subscribe to it in ical.
Confusing yes, but I simply just have 2 cals for each system since they only go one way for now.
I then use pocket mac and it syncs both cals, pretty easy there. But I can edit on my bb because it syncs with the iCal master call that I publish that eventually goes to gcal.
Wow, maybe there’s a different way to explain it. And I know I’m missing something because I work with NUD and Basecamp too which is cumbersome in itself.
Oh, and don’t ask about tasks.
😀
[…] I just commented on how I calendar over at alexking.org: Blog > Calendaring. So I *think* I have the answer for you. Let me explain what I work with first. I have an iMac at home, a macbook pro for work and travel, and a blackberry. […]
UPDATE: I wasn’t able to get iSynCal to work for me, but this hint on MacOSXhints.com says that Sunbird offers good two-way syncing:
http://www.macosxhin[...]125052944191
There are some scripts there that supposedly automate the process.
I should have waited longer before posting the above comment – I just heard from the developer of iSynCal and was able to resolve the problems. It works great with WebDav drives – you just have to be sure to either name the folder with the ics files as “Calendar” (with a capital C) or to properly specify the folder name in the preferences. It is best to create such a folder and export the calendars you wish to sync before starting.
The Sunbird solution I mentioned above does not seem ideal – I’m not sure if it still works after Apple switched from using the .ics format internally.
[…] There have been a number of interesting suggestions on my post yesterday that attempt to solve the handheld-desktop sync and provide a web view of my calendars. However, many of these do not include editing via the web interface and none of them include a public free-busy only view1 for my work week that combines all my calendars. […]
http://phpicalendar.net/
Roy – what about PHP iCalendar?
Try http://www.google.com/calendar/ 🙂
Cheers:)
Alex, I can export my Palm data to ical and then toss the file on some Webspace. PHP iCalendar is a viewer, but not an editor. It might suit you.
[…] My post asking for calendaring suggestions resulted in a lot of feedback, but no solutions that accomplished the goals I was looking for: […]