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.

Local calendars are dead, he says

Paul Thurott: "The email application is dead. So, too, is the local calendar application."

Someone needs to notify the mobile phone companies, who will ship maybe a billion "local calendar applications" this year.

But I know what Paul's talking about. It looks like the writing is on the wall for calendar applications that don't live in the browser. But we don't know exactly what the date of death will be -- yet.

Any hosted Exchange customers out there?

Today I read a post from Matt Hartley about DSLExtreme's hosted Exchange service, and wondered if anyone was using it to sync their calendars. I'm particularly interested to know if anyone has done this to sync two or more non-Outlook calendars without requiring an Outlook client. Feel free to email me or post a comment here, if you have a story to tell.

Stewart Alsop's solution doesn't work for most

Stewart Alsop (full disclosure: former boss of mine) is sick of the sorry state of calendar and contact sync. Unfortunately, his solution -- designed around Microsoft Exchange -- isn't practical for the average calendar user. Outpost.com lists Exchange Server at $1,299.99, which doesn't include the PC with Windows Server 2003 you need to run it.

iPhone calendar sync woes

Paul Thurott: "It's clear that, on Windows at least (Apple's biggest market), iPhone sync is horribly broken. Regardless of the supported Windows or Office version you use, the iPhone will only sync with the single default local calendar in Outlook, and not with any other calendars, be they local or Internet-based. This is a problem for a number of reasons, but the most damning is that calendar sync with multiple calendars (local, Internet, whatever) actually works fine with a normal iPod." I don't own an iPhone (River does) but the fact that I don't have a Mac (and she does) was a factor in my decision. As for what Paul considers superior performance on the iPod, remember that you can't update the calendar on an iPod. I'm not surprised that Apple's one-way sync works better or is more capable. Two-way sync is hard (though necessary).

Another Outlook/Google Calendar horror story

I'm sure Microsoft Outlook works fine for lots of folks, but stories like this keep me looking for alternatives.

Vista Calendar/Windows Mobile: Microsoft's Web site is no help

Did Microsoft drop the ball on providing sync between Vista Calendar and Windows Mobile 6?

From the current Windows Mobile Device Center page:

"Microsoft® Outlook® XP, Microsoft® Outlook® 2003, and Microsoft® Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration clients are required for synchronization of e-mail, contacts, tasks and notes to a Personal Computer."

The Vista Calendar page still makes no mention of syncing with any version of Windows Mobile.

Since Outlook still doesn't sync with Vista Calendar, does this leave those who own both Windows Mobile devices and Vista Calendar up a creek without a paddle?

Windows Mobile 6: How does it stack up?

In my never-ending quest to sync my Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC calendar to anything other than Outlook, I came across LapLink Software's PDASync, which works with a variety of PC-based calendars, including Notes, Groupwise, Lotus Organizer, and ACT! 2000. For me, none of those are viable alternatives to Outlook. But what about Vista Calendar, I wondered? Would PDASync support Vista Calendar? I dropped a note to LapLink Software and received this reply from Aarti Vaid:

"Unfortunately, Laplink is not currently looking to build a version of PDAsync that works between Windows Mobile 5.x and Vista's Calendar. However, I will forward this enquiry to the developers for consideration. Thank you for writing in. If there's anything else I can help with, please let me know."

I notice some Windows Mobile 6 devices are already shipping. Does anyone reading this have one? Which calendars does it work with on the PC side?

iPhone day: Calendar interop picture to brighten soon?

Steve Jobs, quoted by John Markoff: "There’s already corporations who have been running pilots hooking up to Exchange servers and other kinds of mail servers, and they have gone very well." Exchange is also a calendar server. I would love to see a way to wire up one's own calendar server to talk to the iPhone calendar over the air. I will even buy a copy of Leopard if I can do this with the CalDAV server built into Leopard. Then, I would be the master of my own families' calendar sharing, because (hopefully) starting today, that will include at least one iPhone.

The Windows Mobile problem persists

While a new generation of Windows Mobile devices heads for release, the current generation is mired in the calendar swamp.

That is, if you don't want to sync to other calendars via Outlook, which I don't.

Oh, and if your Windows Mobile device is just a PDA, better trade it for a Windows SmartPhone, an iPhone or something else. Otherwise, you're going to have one disappointment after another. Plaxo Mobile Plus is just the latest. (what do you mean, you don't have a carrier associated with your Windows Mobile device?)

No new negative SwampDrain points here for Plaxo. It's just a well-worn path of disappointment.

Meanwhile, River is ready for her iPhone! Like so many others.

iPhone, Google Gears a match made in heaven?

Graeme Mathison: "Here’s my prediction (which isn’t exactly too far fetched, I don’t think): the iPhone and Google Gears are a match made in heaven. The iPhone will ship with Google Gears built in."

No way Apple would ship something now that Google still admits is early, buggy code. But even when Gears goes 1.0, I doubt that all iPhone users will abandon the iPhone's iCal interface for a reduced, AJAX-style user interface. Some will, many won't.

iPhone + AJAX good, Spanning Sync would be better

With Apple announcing that the iPhone will run AJAX apps, it seems clear that Apple expects a number of iPhone users to rely on Web calendaring, rather than the built-in iCal. The next step would be up to the folks at Spanning Sync, if only they had a true iPhone API.

Simple Sharing Extensions update

Remember Simple Sharing Extensions, Microsoft's proposed technology that, among other things, would let us easily cut and paste events between different Web calendars? After months of silence, Sam Ruby found the latest scoop.

Remember the Milk becomes first free Web calendar to go offline

Jumping on the Google Gears announcement on May 31, Ajaxian reports that online calendar site Remember the Milk has become the first such free site to provide offline calendar access. Gears is still early code, so your results may vary. More details at the Remember the Milk blog.

Messaging News puts calendar interop on its cover

Kudos to Messaging News for making calendar interoperability the cover story of its May/June 2007 issue. Recommended reading. And to those of you who found Calendar Swamp through this story, welcome. We have several hundred FeedBurner subscribers, and the number is growing. I also like the Messaging News headline -- Calendaring: Why Isn't It Just Like Email?

Shared tags are a good idea, how do we agree on them?

Earlier this month Brad Templeton posted an interesting list of possible tags that could add rich meaning to the events entered in one's calendar:

Here are some levels I think one might set on tagging an external event (or even a personal one) into your day.

• I will not attend this event (usually means it will not be shown.)
• I will not attend but need to keep track of this event.
• The event is canceled.
• I have not made any decision (default behaviour.)
• There is some chance I will attend (perhaps a percentage can be applied.)
• I want to attend, but something may change my mind.
• I plan to attend. (A typical default.)
• I am central to this event (speaking, leading meeting etc.)

This is a neat list. Is anyone working anywhere to standardize such a set of tags, so they may have shared meaning between people?

Musings on Palm and Google

The Palm Foleo, announced today, and Google Gears, being announced tomorrow, both have impacts on the calendar landscape. The Foleo offers a "large screen" cell phone experience, but the initial product doesn't bring cell phones' calendars to the large screen unless they're Web-based. Google Gears will, in time, make Google Calendar truly an "always-on" app by allowing easy offline access.

Palm missed an opportunity to lure back some customers lost to other calendars, or even paper, since using a calendar on a typical cell phone is cumbersome at best, and adoption of Web-based calendars over cell phones is just beginning.

Google still has yet to address growing privacy concerns. For instance, when will Google Calendar users be able to store encrypted calendars? Simply storing them with a secure HTTP connection (https) would be an improvement, wouldn't it?

Google missed an opportunity to address this, but since taking Web applications offline represents such a large step from the state of the art, the world will forgive Google for now.

None of which has much to do with improving calendar interoperability. Generally, I avoid commenting on calendar tech in itself here. But I've been thinking of tweaking the mission of Calendar Swamp from plain "interoperability" to "security and interoperability." Let me know if you support the idea, or if you consider it mission creep.