This week my frustrations with the fact that I have two calendars going on non-compatible platforms finally came to an end. The task? I wanted to sync my iCal calendar on OS X Tiger (10.4) with my Outlook 2007 calendar on Windows Vista. Even more importantly, it had to be a two-way sync, with changes to either calendar being reflected on the other. Furthermore, I wanted to be able to sync multiple calendars, not just one. As a bonus, this would all be accessible on the web.

Now, this wouldn’t be too hard if I wanted to spend cold, hard cash on commercial software (or even worse, subscription-based software), but I wanted to do it all for free. I tried to do this last spring, and failed miserably. Thankfully, things have changed now, much thanks to the free availability of Google Calendar with multiple calendar support, and the recent free offering of Calgoo. Here’s the full tutorial, then:

First, set up equivalent calendars in all three locations.

(Google Calendar, iCal (version 2.0.5 on OS X Tiger), Outlook 2007)

1. Set up multiple calendars in Google Calendar
2. Set up multiple calendars in iCal 2.0.5
3. Set up multiple calendars in Outlook 2007

Then, tie them all together.

(Using GCALDaemon, Lingon, and Calgoo Connect)

1. Sync multiple iCal 2.0.5 calendars with Google Calendar
2. Sync multiple Outlook 2007 calendars with Google Calendar

That’s it! You’re done! Sure was easy, wasn’t it? As you can see, all changes everywhere are synchronized through Google Calendar nearly instantaneously: now you can keep all your Outlook, iCal, and Google Calendars in sync for free.

So I just finished posting an article about Step2 on Wikipedia, and it scares me. Why, do you ask?

Within a few minutes of posting, the “Step2″ page must have showed up on the “recent changes” section of the site, and a few people made notes about it being an advertisement, or needing wikipediaizing, or having an inappropriate tone. However, I just immediately went back in, added a few links, and deleted their comment thingys…and viola! Totally “legitimate” article. To be honest, it now reads a lot more like it should, and is definitely less advertisy (though I tried to make it as neutral as possible to begin, and largely similar to the Fisher Price page that’s already up there).

The scary part comes in the fact that if it makes it for longer than 2 minutes without getting flagged, chances are that your new article will last for a very long time without being edited. This is especially true with marginal topics where the only people who really know what’s legitimate are the ones who know so much about said topic that they’ll never visit Wikipedia to read up on it.

Can I say it again, kids? Wikipedia is not a credible source. Might be good for quick info…or you might end up telling people that the Nigerian Banker guy really is legitimate after all. (Because, hey, Wikipedia says so!)

I found the cause of my Fireworks CS3 Crashing issue–bad date stamps. Somehow, a number of files I had included created date stamps that were invalid. Whereas Fireworks 8 simply ignored the problem, it would cause CS3 to crash. So I simply found a program to update those created and modified timestamps, and viola! No more problems.

I got a new colleague at work, and we hooked her up with the new version of Fireworks. At first, I was thinking it was unfortunate that I was still on Fireworks 8, but I’m changing my mind.

After install, she couldn’t select Fireworks as the default program for jpegs. We called Adobe, they verified the same problem on their machines, but couldn’t tell me why, or how to fix it. Today I did some searching and found some guy who had the problem and fixed it himself. Thanks, Jason.

But the bigger problem is still at large. Every time we try to use Fireworks CS3 to open certain jpegs, the program crashes. I can’t find anyone with the same problem, and Adobe still hasn’t gotten back to me regarding this issue. This is a legitimate, licensed version of the software. Grrr….

Does anyone out there have the same problem? Did anyone have this problem and fix it?

For now, I’m just glad that I still have Fireworks 8. It at least opens stuff.

Updated: I found the problem

Ah, each day with the Mac gets a lot smoother. It was a rough transition, but I think I’m finally starting to settle down. (Lord, help me to not turn into a fanboy…help me remember how much it sucked trying to get accustomed to this thing) It’s been really nice having the support of a few thoughtful commenters along the way, and my friend Matt from work has definitely provided some useful and much-appreciated advice–albeit, still from a perspective that makes me think he’s wearing Apple-colored glasses.

The biggest difference I’ve noted is that using OS X makes the OS seem a whole lot more apparent to the user. With XP, it’s largely transparent. You do what you do in the apps, and ignore the surrounding framework. With OS X, you’re forced to immerse yourself in a slick, (at times cartoony) animated interface at every turn. Zipping back and forth between apps isn’t a sterile Alt-Tab anymore, it’s a F9-click transition that’s smoothly animated and somewhat addicting. After three days with this thing, I find myself reaching for the F9 key even on my PC–even though I personally feel that hitting Alt-Tab was way better.

You get accustomed to things though, and use your desktop a lot more, especially given the one-key access to all the stuff on your desktop. In XP, you have to hunt for that little “Show Desktop” icon. Vista did the right thing in including the desktop as a window in their little Flip-3D thing, and I’m sure if I ever go the Vista route, my desktop will take on an entirely new role. (My XP philosophy is that desktops are meant to be neat, clean, and sparse)

I’m still not that big a fan of the Finder, and my RAM situation has forced me to just give up on attempting to use Fireworks on my Mac, but that’s OK. I’ve still got a PC on the KVM switch that needs to be there for some pretty expensive analytics software, so I can co-exist. I just hate switching back and forth though, and I must admit that I’m liking switching “back” to OS X more and more each time.

I must say, though, that while I’ll probably end up loving this OS, I don’t ever want to forget what the transition was like. I don’t want to turn into some zombie that walks around making people feel inferior for using a Microsoft operating system. I’d hate to have to teach my mom to use a Mac, and I can’t imagine the nightmares that would happen if work tried moving everyone to a Mac. If it took some people a month to figure out how to print, what would it be like trying to teach them different habits?

Score:
PC: 3
Mac: 1

I kicked around on the new mac mini all day today, getting much more work done than yesterday. It only took me an hour or so to hack together a printer solution using Gutenprint and a mismatched PPD–at least it prints now.

Some stuff I’m starting to like: Spotlight was useful in a case or two, I’m getting used to hitting the [Windows] key instead of control, and the F9 reflex is starting to set in. I got some networked folders to show up every time I boot (something that’s more involved than it is on a PC), used Terminal for the first time, and and installed FireFox. I also hit the menu button on the remote, and that’s pretty dang slick. Of course, I have no media on that beast to use it with, but it’s a pretty slick implementation nonetheless.

I still had trouble on the following:

• Safari froze up multiple times. (I guess 512MB of RAM and a dual-core proc isn’t enough for 5 apps at a time in OS X after all)
• Fireworks 8 is slow as crud if I try to use it with anything else running
• I still keep sacrificing system resources to apps that continue running even after I’ve closed all the windows
• Mail bogs down horribly every time I try to read an email with big images attached
• I realized that my “60GB” Hard drive already had 20GB of space used up. (Even Vista, with its gobs of legacy code, uses only about 12)
• All the anti-aliasing doesn’t look so great on my LCD, and gives me a headache. (yes, I tried adjusting it in Sys Prefs) Switching to my windows box is like a breath of fresh, crisp, clean, air.

Other than all that, OS X does have a very polished, schnazzy feel to it, for lack of a better word. I’ll at least take it out of the negative for the relatively painless day I had with it today.

Score:
PC: 3
Mac: 0