This was the case with Spanning Sync. I want all my calendars synced across all my computers and my phone. I had no trouble getting Rainlendar synced to Gcal on my XP machine. There wasn’t an alternative for os X 10.5. I looked into getting GCALDaemon set up, but I couldn’t figure it out.

I finally came across Spanning Sync, which was a cool little piece of software that did the job for me. It worked great. But alas I have come across a free solution!

Recently, Gcal added support for CalDAV, a protocol that “allows multiple client access to the same information thus allowing cooperative planning and information sharing.” Wikipedia This generally means there is now a free alternative to syncing iCal and Gcal. Get setup syncing Google Calendar with iCal using CalDav.

There are it seems a few issues with Gcal CalDAV vs Spanning Sync.

CalDAV cons

• Event reminders/alarms don’t sync
• Event reminders/alarms don’t sync
• iCal errors when changing the calendar name/color
• Unable to create iCal To Dos for Google Calendar
• Unable to create new iCal calendars for Google Calendar
• Google Apps: Room scheduler is not supported
• Google Calendar events don’t appear in iCal

I did a little poking around on Spanning Sync’s Forums and found some advantages of Gcal CalDAV vs Spanning Sync.

Spanning Sync lets you select which calendars you want paired up and
synced. Meaning, I could sync a gCal calendar called “Tasks” with an
iCal calendar named ToDo, for example. In addition, Spanning Sync also
syncs your address book and gMail contacts. Original.

It’ll certainly be interesting to see if Spanning Sync Will remain my choice (since I’ve already got the lifetime license) for syncing iCal and Google Calendar.

Apple has always been known for top notch design of its hardware.  This year they have been winning some prestigious awards for their design.  For years Apple has taken home many D&AD awards, but this year they swept up.  For those of you who don’t know D&AD “is an educational charity that represents the global creative, design and advertising communities.”  

In the product design category they won five pencils for the keyboard, the iMac, iPhone, iPod Touch, and the iPod Nano.  So, I guess there is a reason to pay for well designed devices.  What do you think?

If I’m anything like you, I’m sure you have one too many email addresses. I recently started looking for a way to consolidate several of them to my gmail address. I’m sure like you too you’ve got that old hotmail address sitting around that you still check every so often. Now if you’ve searched for a solution to forward hotmail easily, there isn’t one. Microsoft does allow you to forward your address to other Microsoft owned sites, but what good is that.

So after a little research I found Mail Forward. It allows me to forward my hotmail address to any address I want. Awesome. You can also forward Yahoo, AOL, MSN addresses among others.

Mail Forward can be found here. There is also a Windows version too located here.

CNet used to have a service called Update. The program scanned registry (yes, it was a Window’s app) and determined what programs you have installed are out of date. Then it provided links for downloads for the updates you needed.

I found a app called AppFresh, that pretty much does the same thing, but for Mac. This lets you know what needs to be updated and will even download and install the updated application for you. It is integrated with iusethis, which is “way for you to organize your applications as well as discover new ones. You can also use it to check if your apps are up-to-date.”

I’d recommend taking a look at AppFresh, though it is in beta, maybe there is another app out there that does this that isn’t in beta.

Let me know what you guys think!

Recently I have found something pretty cool.  I’ve been using Remember the Milk (RTM) for the past month and I’m loving it.  At its core RTM is a to do list manager.  The beauty of RTM is the fact that it integrates with everything.  I’ve got it plugged into my iCal, iGoogle and iPhone (if I owned one).  You can take it offline with Google Gears.  Its pretty handy.

The only downside is you have to be around an internet capable device.  BUT I found a service called Jott.  Now I never go anywhere without my cell phone. Jott allows me call their service up and leave voice notes, which are then transcribed.  Jott plays nice via RTM’s API.  So the ‘jotts’ are sent to RTM.

Both Jott and RTM are very similar, you could probably get away with using just Jott, but when you combine both of them it becomes an extremely efficient way to combat forgetfulness and get things done.

Strangely enough, my powerbook is my only computer left. My HP died and I feel like its time for an upgrade on that guy. I’ll be listing that on ebay sooner or later, if anyone is interested send me a comment.

Okay Leopard review…

For day to day usage, nothing has really changed, just add stacks.  I have noticed that my PowerBook runs faster, which is nice since it is an aging computer.

I have a hard time deciding between using firefix or safari.  I like safari because its native and runs faster.  I like firefox because its firefox, but in 10.5, it isn’t unified like it was on Tiger with UNO.  I’ve switched back to firefox  safari since initially drafting this.

Everyone seems to have a major hang up about the new mirrored dock. I’ve never seemed to have a problem with it though.  I can see what programs I’m running even with the dock at its smallest setting.

I’m a fan of stacks, to some extent. I enjoy the download stack, but I’ve yet to figure out how to quick look items in a stack.  I don’t think you can, but I’ve heard rumors of stack fixes in 10.5.2.

Quick look is handy.  Its nothing to get too excited about.

I like the iCal updates, but I can’t resize the calendar list as small as I’d like it.  I may be crazy but when you’ve got 12″ you’ve got to make the most of every bit of screen you can.

The reason that this is happening is because current XP users are upgrading to Vista.

In fact if you look at the numbers you see that there has been a .38 decrease in XP share and a .78 increase in Vista. That’s at least .4% of users who have simply purchased used Vista during July, I know I installed it and immediately deleted it from Parallels.

The data they’ve gathered too is kind of shady too because they take out Intel users from Mac OS users as the report shows. While Intel Macs are newer, you can run Windows XP or Vista on any computer, regardless of how old it is.

Allow me to point out the fundamental difference between Windows and Apple, you can install Vista on anything, almost. An Apple purchase is associated with a piece of hardware, how many people do you know who have gone out and purchased Tiger? Probably none.

Just wait until 10.5 comes out, I’m sure there will be a new iPod, multi-cored Mac Pro, or new laptops that pop up along side the release.

I’d placed the order yesterday for about 144 dollars with shipping. I get a call from them this morning, saying I needed to verify my shipping address. You see my billing address and my shipping address differ, no big deal. They suggested I call my bank and have them add an Alternate address to my account, again, no big deal.

So as it turns out my bank doesn’t have any way of doing this. I’d have to actually change my account address then change it back. This takes five days… who knows why in this day and age, but five days nonetheless. I call back MemoryToGo explain to them my situation. They explain their policy to me, recently they have been experiencing charge backs. Apparently when the shipping and billing addresses don’t match the company can’t get their product back or their money back or something.

Okay well, I explained to them I’d given all my correct info, I’ll accept whatever risk. That turns out to be unacceptable. I’d either have to verify my shipping address or ship to my billing address. Both aren’t really options for me. A polite argument ensued as I’m sure Hawk, Ananth and the rest of the office can attest to.

I then got transferred to a manager. He asked me how far apart my shipping and billing address were, I knew almost automatically he wanted me to drive from one to another to pick it up. I explained to him I didn’t need to inconvenience myself any further by going out of my way for something I asked to be shipped to a specific place. We spoke for a few more minutes and then he told me he’d call back in 10 minutes at noon.

Well its one o’clock now. I haven’t heard back from him. I’ll update on the situation after lunch.

MemoryToGo, your policy is… to say the least stupid and inconvenient for your customers.

I’ve never experienced this in all my days of online purchasing, considering I have NEVER shipped anything to my billing address.

So if you’re looking for pointless hastle go do business with MemoryToGo!

Update #1: I have called back, apparently the manager has been in a meeting since noon. *rolls eyes* I was supposed to get a phone call at 7. I’m not really expecting one tonight. I have since done a little research on the site and I can’t seem to find the Term or Condition I agreed to that I am being forced to follow.

Update #2: I sold out. As I saw it. I had 3 options. First cancel my order and refund my money. Second over night it to me at no cost to my billing address. Finally ship it to my shipping address. Apparently I forgot about this fourth option, ship it to your billing address with a 4 dollar discount. I feel cheated on principle but I do just want my ram.

Originally posted here by me.

My pvr project is going pretty well, I got XBMC installed on the xbox after I modded it. That was kind of a pain. Every xbox modding website is unorganized and aweful. I had about 20 different tutorials all up all saying something different. Zoe gave me her old computer. Its hard drive was dead. I broke one of my hard drives trying to put ubuntu on it. Some how I managed to solder the pins back in and it works now… I don’t trust it a bit. I just need to wait for a paycheck to buy the tv tuner card and massive hard drive. Then I’ll be done with that project.

1. PVR using MythTV and an Xbox.
2. UMD Facebook theme
3. 12″ Powerbook G4 upgrade

The PVR, hopefully will be based on an old computer of one of my very good friends. That is if she’ll let me have it. We’ll see… I’ve got a 320 gb hdd and a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150 to slap into it. The xbox is another one of my good friends. I feel that modding the xbox will probably be the hardest part because Xbox Media Center makes it hard due to legal issues.

The facebook theme is very back burner. I may make it for another extention in the future. Although facebook released a beta api so I’m kind of interested in looking into that, maybe it’ll have some application in the future.

I’m getting a new laptop 12″ Powerbook G4. It may need ram and a new hard drive but definately a battery.