Synchronies your Online and Offline Calendars

For years, we’ve had the ability to synchronize email across offline and online platforms. That’s a no-brainer. But only recently have we stumbled across a rock-solid method for synchronizing that other big part of the typical email program: the calendar. Yes, we know how easy it is to pull down an iCal or XML feed into a desktop calendar application. That’s little more than a copy-and-paste job. We’ll still show you how to do it, but we’re far more interested in the holy grail: a two way synchronization between your Outlook or Sunbird client and your Gmail Calendar. Depending on which program you’re using, this can be as easy as pie or as fun as a kick to the groin. Our advice? Disentangle yourself from Outlook and move over to Sunbird.

Set up Google Calendar
Before you start your adventures in synchronization town, you need to have all the necessary programs and utilities up and running. If you don’t have a Google account, open one now (www.google.com). Doing so gains you access to oogle’s stable of awesome apps—Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk—but most importantly, it opens the door to Google’s mighty online calendar application.

The app itself is pretty straightforward. You’ll start off with a primary calendar that you can add all manner of appointments to. If you want to create secondary calendars for alternate purposes (say you want separate calendars for your work life and personal life), just click the Add button on the left of the screen. Select “Create a new calendar” and enter the corresponding information—including whether you want to share the calendar with your friends, the world, or nobody.

Now is the time to separate your calendars by function. Perhaps you want only work-related appointments to appear on your work laptop, whereas you want your soccer schedule and Maximum PC Podcast reminders to appear on your PC at home. We’ll show you how to do this with a synchronization program. Trust us; it’s a lot harder to divvy up your calendar entries after you’ve thrown a ton of items into a single container. After you’ve created your calendars, fire up your calendar application of choice (Outlook or Sunbird).

The Simple Import: Outlook
If you have no need to transfer calendar items from Microsoft Outlook to Google Calendar and instead just want to update your home computer with your online centralized list of appointments, then you have no need for synchronization software 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 configurations. 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 calendar will update with your current Google Calendar information!

The Simple Import: Sunbird
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 opensource 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.

Set up a Two-Way Sync
If you’re going the two-way-synchronization route, install the synchronization 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 nevertheless. We’ll show you the basics of getting two-way synchronization up and running, but know that the program has many more interesting features buried beneath its complex shell, e.g., one-way syncing of Gmail contacts, file-based calendar 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 maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com. 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.

Two-Way Sync: Outlook
In a perfect world, you’d use the steps listed above to synchronize a calendar with Outlook. But Microsoft’s software doesn’t like the fact that you’re pointing to a local calendar link, so you’ll have to get a little creative. And by that we mean you’re going to have to dabble with a program you’ll have to pay for.

SyncMyCal Lite allows you to synchronize up to seven days’ worth of events: from three prior to the current day to three days after. But we think it’s worth spending $25 for the unlimited synchronization that comes with SyncMyCal Pro.

Installing the program adds a toolbar to your Outlook application. Click the Settings button and select Sync Operations. Click the Add button and SyncMyCal’s confi guration options will pop up. Next, select one of the synchronization options in the Operation menu. Choosing the Outlook preference will overwrite existing events on the Google Calendar with any Outlook-based updates, and new Google events will transfer down to your Outlook calendar. The Google preference overwrites existing Outlook events with Google-updated information and picks up any new events created on the Outlook side.

Make your choice and select the Outlook calendar you want to synchronize. Enter your Google Calendar details in the provided fi elds and press the Get My Calendars button below that. Select the Google Calendar you want to synchronize from and/or to and hit Save.

If you use the free version of the app, you’ll have to press the Synchronize button on the toolbar every time you want to update your calendars—the auto-sync option only comes with SyncMyCal Pro.

Two-Way Sync: Sunbird
Synchronizing a calendar between Sunbird and Google Calendar is a less painful process than what Outlook users’ experience (as you’ll learn below). Fire up Sunbird and create a new calendar by right-clicking the Calendar Name box and selecting New Calendar. You’ll choose a calendar that’s “On the Network,” as you’ll be pulling the information that’s being relayed to your computer via GCALDaemon’s synchronizer.

Click Next, then copy and paste the .ics calendar link from GCALDaemon’s HTTP Synchronizer screen—the one you just navigated to in the previous step—into the Location field. Press Next again, assign a name and color to your calendar, and you’re done. Your calendar should now auto-populate with all of the entries from your Google Calendar. Add, edit, or delete an entry from Sunbird and it’ll be immediately reflected in your online calendar. The same is true in the opposite direction, although we’ve found that there’s often a slight delay when synchronizing from Google Calendar to Sunbird. If you’re impatient, you can jam Control+R in Sunbird, which automatically refreshes your calendar with the latest information it can find.

*.* Source of Information : April 2008 Maximum PC Magazine

Using Outlook on multiple machines

A variety of options let you use your Outlook 2007 data messages, calendar items, contacts, tasks, and so on in multiple locations. These include synchronization tools such as TrueSync, which is available on your Yahoo! account. But Outlook itself will do the trick, demanding only a little ingenuity to make it happen. Here'slow you can make Outlook receive your POP mail on several different machines, and keep all your records—sent mail, mail sub folders, everything—current on multiple machines.

LEAVE MESSAGES ON SERVER
POP3-email accounts work by accessing messages stored on a mail server (see graphic below). Typically when you download the messages, you simultaneously delete them from the server. But you don't have to; you may instead leave them on the server for subsequent downloading to other locations. Auto-deletion is part of the default setup of a POPS account and to change this behavior you must change the setting.

Choose Account Settings from Outlook's Tools menu and double click the account you want to change. On the resulting Change Email Account dialog, click More Settings, and then the Advanced tab of the Internet E-Mail Settings dialog. In the Delivery section check Leave a copy of messages on the server Then simply configure the samePOP3 account on your other PCs and you'll get the same messages on every PC.

Bear in mind, however, that this setting will result in your mail sitting indefinitely on your ISP's or organization's server clogging it after a while. So use the other options to help clean up, Remove from server after x days and/or Remove from server when deleted from Deleted Items.

DUPLICATE THE ENTIRE PST FILE
This is the brute-force method, and it works. Whenever you finish your stint at one machine, copy your entire PST file (Outlook's personal folders file) from that PC's hard drive to removable media or online storage. (The size of the PST file may encourage you to pare down your saved messages occasionally.) At the "target" PC copy the PST file into the appropriate folder on that machine. You can determine the location of your PST file by choosing Account Settings from the Tools menu in Outlook and then clicking the Data Files tab. The Filename column shows the full path for the file. The default path is a hidden folder; to see it in Windows Explorer use Folder Options in the Control Panel (or Tools I FolderOptions I View in Windows Explorer) to unhide hidden files and folders.

SETTING A PST PASSWORD
While you have the Data Files tab of the Account Settings dialog on screen, why not give your PST file a password to restrict access? Double click the Personal Folders line and click the Change Password button. Type the old password (leave blank if you haven't set one) and type the new password and its verification. Click OK. From this point on, when you open Outlook—or anyone else does Outlook will require the password to use the data file.

WHY LEAVE YOUR MESSAGES ON THE SERVER?
One option within Outlook lets you "Leave messages on server." This lets you download messages on a secondary PC—say, your office computer while ensuring that they're still available for downloading to your main PC.

*.* Source of Information : April 2008 PC Magazine

MICROSOFT OUTLOOK Tips Find What You’re Looking For

The first step in finding a particular e-mail message is often re-sorting by column date received or sent, subject, sender, or recipient then scrolling. Try this instead in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express or even in Outlook web mail: Click on the Name field to sort by name, then type the first letter of the name you’re looking for. The client will jump to names beginning with that letter. Type quickly and you can jump more accurately; if you’re looking for Smith, go straight to smith instead of starting with Sa. This can be faster than Find, particularly if all you remember about a message is the sender, not a unique phrase.

*.* Source of Information : March 2008 PC Magazine

Create Microsoft Outlook Appointments Automatically with Microsoft Excel

Do you work on projects whose due dates or events are kept in a spreadsheet? Wish you didn’t have to enter them manually into your Outlook calendar? Maybe you follow a sports team or have a child whose team’s schedule is posted online, and you have to type the times and dates into Outlook? You probably don’t realize it, but Outlook lets you import all these events with very little fuss. The key is to get the data into a Named Range in Excel, and then you can import it as appointments. For spreadsheet data, this is as simple as selecting all the cells you need, right clicking to select Name a Range, and then choosing a name. If the data you want to import is on a Web page in the form of a table, simply select the information on the Web page, copy it, and paste it into an Excel spreadsheet. You can then proceed with the import. One important note: It’s absurd, but Outlook 2007 can’t import Excel 2007 (XLSX) files. If you’re using Office 2007, remember to save your spreadsheet in the 97-2003 formats.

1. PREPARE THE DATA
Importing your appointments can be very simple, especially if you format the data well. First, put column names over data, so that it’s easy to specify which data maps to which Outlook fields. If you make those column names the same as Outlook’s own field names (like Location and Subject), then the fields will be mapped for you automatically. Second, if there’s a chance that I won’t recognize the event’s subject, I add a column with some general term that I’ll recognize. For example, the Stanford Tennis calendar I import lists only the Opponent and Date. So I add a column called “Stanford Tennis” as the Subject before I import the events. Finally, I add a column with a term that I import as an Outlook Category. That way if the event’s times and dates are updated, I can simply View by Category and delete all appointments in that category before re- importing the information.

To add alarms to events, title a column “Reminder on/off,” and use the code TRUE to set the alarm. Choose the alarm time with the headings “Reminder date” and “Reminder time”—you can even use formulas to set the reminder date or time to a certain interval before the Start Date or Time.

2. IMPORT THE SPREADSHEET
Importing appointments is fairly straightforward. Simply display your Calendar in Outlook and use the File Import and Export command, selecting Excel worksheet as the fi le type. Once you’ve selected the worksheet, you’ll get a list of named ranges in the fi le. Select the one (or more than one) you want to import. You can then map the columns in your data to Outlook’s native Appointment fields to customize your import. Then simply hit Finish and your appointments will be created.

3. CHECK YOUR CALENDAR
Once you’ve imported your events to Outlook, they appear just like any other appointments. For Outlook to get the times right, make sure you have your times and dates in the right format. For example, Outlook will recognize “3:00pm” as a time, but not “3pm.”






*.* Source of Information : March 2008 PC Magazine