Sync Your Online and Offline Calendars
If you have no need to transfer cal-
endar items from Microsoft Outlook
to Google Calendar and instead just
want to update your home com-
puter with your online centralized
list of appointments, then you have
no need for synchronization soft-
ware of any sort. Load Outlook and
your Google Calendar page. On the
latter, click the downward-pointing
arrow to the right of your calendar’s
name. Select Calendar Settings to
bring up a list of options and con-
figurations. Scroll to the very bottom
of the page to the section labeled
Private Address. Right-click the
green iCal button and copy the link
to your clipboard.Switch back to Outlook and
click the Tools menu. Select
Account Settings and select the
Internet Calendars tab. Click the
New button—a dialog box will pop
up asking for the location of the
Internet calendar you plan to add to
Outlook. Paste the iCal link into this
field and hit Add; don’t worry about
changing the URL to webcal://
style. Fill in the pertinent details for
your calendar on the subsequent
screen and press OK. Now when
you run any send/receive process
in Outlook, the accompanying cal-
endar will update with your current
Google Calendar information!If you thought Outlook’s calendar-syncing
process was easy, get ready for a treat. Copy
the same private iCal link to your clipboard
before you fire up Sunbird, Mozilla’s open-
source calendar-only application. Once
the program’s running, click the File menu
and select New Calendar. You’ll be adding
a calendar to the network, so select that
option and hit Next. Paste your iCal link into
the location box on the subsequent screen
and press Next again. Name your calendar,
assign it a color, and you’re done—one-way
synchronization accomplished in less time
than it takes to drink a can of soda.If you’re going the two-way-synchro-
nization route, install the synchroniza-
tion program GCALDaemon. Next,
go to the program folder in your Start
menu and click the Install shortcut in
GCALDaemon’s Services folder. After
that, click the Start shortcut in the same
folder and then copy this shortcut to
your Windows startup folder. Roll your
sleeves up to your elbows, head back to
the program’s folder in the Start menu,
and click the Config Editor.
The subsequent screen of options
can be a little confusing—not helped by
GCALDaemon’s lack of an instruction
manual. It’s an awesome program never-theless. We’ll show you
the basics of getting
two-way synchroniza-
tion up and running, but
know that the program
has many more inter-
esting features buried
beneath its complex
shell, e.g., one-way
syncing of Gmail con-
tacts, file-based cal-
endar synchronization,
and the ability to run
programs using e-mailed
commands.
Click the HTTP
Synchronizer tab
on the main page of
GCALDaemon’s Config Editor. Make sure
there’s a green check mark instead of a red
“X” next to “Enable HTTP-based calendar
synchronizer.” Click the Google Account
button at the bottom of the screen, click
New Account, and add your details. Make
sure you include your full email address,
such as [email protected].
Type in your password twice, hit Verify for
good measure, then click OK.
Now, select your Google Account from
the drop-down menu at the bottom of the
screen. A list of your calendars will pop
up; select the calendar you want to import
and press the Copy to Clipboard button.2 a The Simple Import: Outlook
The Simple
2 b Import: Sunbird 3 Set up a Two-Way Sync
The bottommost green iCal link is the one you care
about. The link above it is applicable only if you’ve
opened your online Calendar for everyone to see.Remember how to get this screen: It’s the
same place you’ll go to if you’re setting up
a two-way synchronization.To synchronize multiple calendars and Google accounts,
just add them into GCALDaemon and use the handy drop-
down menu to switch between them.http://www.maximumpc.com | apr 08 | MAXIMUMPC 61