Location and calendar sharing

James McGovern:

"One of the things that I would love to see the folks over at Microsoft and Zimbra address is how calendaring works in enterprises that have multiple locations."

Not to mention making such a solution work between Outlook and Zimbra, and other calendars. I wonder if meeting location is part of existing or planned iCal/CalDAV standards work?

MonoCalendar

Listening to a podcast about the Mono project, I began wondering if there's a calendar built on top of Mono. Viola, there is. MonoCalendar runs Windows with the .Net framework installed, but more interestingly also on Linux. MonoCalendar may represent a fresh alternative for owners of portable Linux devices such as Nokia's Internet tablets. If anyone reading this has used MonoCalendar, please drop me a line. It's billed as .ics compatible.

WSJ on calendar sharing

From Saturday's Wall Street Journal:

"Marriage often requires coping with the loss of some individuality, whether it's adopting a spouse's last name or setting up a joint bank account. Now, some couples say it can be equally tricky to navigate intimacy in the digital sides of their lives. They are running into thorny questions regarding how much to share and how much to keep separate in areas ranging from email addresses to online calendars."

The story doesn't return to calendaring, but that's worth a whole 'nother story. Or even a blog! If your family has figured out just how much calendar to share and how, send me your stories. I'll print 'em here.

Offline mobile calendars: Now what?

In InformationWeek, Mitch Wagner writes:

"I had a terrible time synching [Mac OSX ] iCal to my Palm Treo. Other people report the process goes quite smoothly, especially using Missing Sync software from Mark/Space, but it didn't work for me. I ended up permanently scrambling my calendar, and needing to re-enter appointments by hand, which was no fun. (Ultimately, I bought an iPhone, but since this is a rather expensive workaround, it's one that I don't recommend to most people.)

I was at Fry's in Concord, California last night. Windows Mobile PDAs are not to be found. (There was one unidentified, non-operating HP iPaq.) A few pathetic-looking Palm PDAs were there as well. Sony's Mylo was there, but remember, it has no calendar, just a Web browser. Next week, at LinuxWorld, I'm meeting with PalmSource (now Access) as well as the Windows Mobile folks, Motorola, and the LiMo Foundation (working on mobile Linux). I really want to understand where offline mobile calendars head from here. The iPhone is forcing that conversation.