The calendar syncing model.

I’m living in a lifestyle where time management is very important, you know, working in shifts that requires work at different timeframes within a week and can always have last-minute changes.

In turn I’ve came up an almost free solution that has kept me updated automatically and all my gadgets in sync. My implementation of this solution is based on a Mac environment, but is also possible on Windows.

Around me, I’ve got my desktop, laptop, a mobile phone and iPod touch, all’s calendars need to be sync together.

Before everything, the basis of my solution is Google’s calendar service, so you’ll need to sign up for Google account first and set up the calendars – for example one for Work, one for Personal, and then set the preferences of the calendar like location, time, display, etc.

Setup Google Calendar.

When the Google Calendar‘s ready, let’s look at the desktop and laptop. Both of these computers are Mac and are running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Again you’ll need to get to use the calendar, this time is Apple’s own iCal, set up your calendars, just be the same as what you’ve set for Google’s, this will make process later easier. When that’s ready, move on to the next stage to get the two parts connected.

It’s Spanning Sync, the little but bit pricy app (US$25/yr, $65/lifetime) that helps keep your iCal’s and Google’s calendars in sync. I’ve been using it since it’s beta stage, through there’s still some bugs and long syncing time, it’s still the best solution so far you can find on the Internet. Lucky that you can enjoy the full feature trial free for 15 days before you really make the decision to pay.

You’ll need your Google account email and password to get started. Once ready, Spanning Sync will pull your Google Calendar data. Go to the Calendar tab, you’ll see a side-by-side view of your calendars locally on your mac and those on Google. Now link those calendars together in order to let them sync. By the way don’t forget to check the Sync Calendars checkbox!!

Spanning Sync's preferences main screen.

Setup Spanning Sync's connection with Google Calendar.

Beside calendars, you’ll probably notice that Spanning Sync can also sync your address book, it’s the same process to get that work. This will connect your mac’s Address Book contacts to Google Contacts, accessable at Gmail.

Okay once all done, it’s time to get things really workin’. Select the sync inteval you want, I prefer sync once a week as my shifts only updates once a week and this makes less likely to a bug (I will explain later on). Then you can hit Sync Now to get workin’. The first sync will take a bit longer time.

Once done, try adding events on any calendar you like (like Dinner with Lady Gaga), either on Google or iCal, and hit that Sync Now button again to test. When you see that event you’ve just created appear on either side, congratulations you’ve successfully done… for part one.

It’s time to move on to get your mobile devices like your phone, iPhone or iPod touch join the syncing party now, don’t leave them in the cold. I have a Nokia S60 smartphone and an iPod touch, so I will show you how to get the two work.

Both devices share one thing, it’s the fact they both support Microsoft Exchange Activesync, this is the technology behind what people calls “push email”, “push calendar”. It can be set to sync your devices sync once connected to Internet.

Beforehand, you’ll need to signup for one more thing, it’s NuevaSync, the “bridge” between your devices and Google. NuevaSync acts like a free Exchange server and pulls data from your Google account and pushes the data to your mobile devices. The service can be paid or free, fee-paying one adds email push and let you sync more calendars. However I think the free one is enough.

After signing up for NuevaSync, login, and you can then setup the service. Enter your Google login information to authorize NuevaSync to pull your Google calendar and contacts data. Back to the main info screen, when things are entered correctly, you’ll able to see a green dot indicating everything’s working as it would.

Now I’ll setup my iPod touch first. Back to NuevaSync’s main info page, you should see a link as “Need help configuring your phone?”, and then you should see how to get your iPod touch or iPhone rockin’. Once done, open the Calendar app of your i-thing (getting tired to type the i-names again and again), the calendar should start syncing immediately and you should soon see “Dinner with Lady Gaga” pop onto the screen.

NuevaSync's main info screen.

One little note before moving on: enabling Exchange Sync on your i-things and mobile phone will override your current data (including calendar and contacts) synced by other methods, unless you chose not to sync a specific type of data, e.g.: Set to JUST sync the calendar but left the contacts untouched.

Then it’s my Nokia S60 smartphone, the process should be similar on other smartphones, check with your phone manufacterer’s website and search for “Microsoft Exchange” if you are not sure. You’ll have to download Nokia’s Mail for Exchange software onto your phone, that’s Nokia’s client for Microsoft Exchange. Install it, and set it up as you’d for the the i-things (back to NuevaSync’s site for instructions). Once ready you can hit sync, and you’ll then again see “Dinner with Lady Gaga pop on to your phone’s screen.

If you have new devices need to join the syncing party later on, just do the same above – for desktop or laptop macs, go to Spanning Sync, for mobile devices, go to NuevaSync. It’s easy!

Before finishing this “tutorial”, I must tell you a bug of this system. On Spanning Sync, after several months of use to sync Google Calendar, it will occasionally report the “Over Quota” message, that is, it has over used Google’s quota to sync, this message will keep appearing everytime Spanning Sync syncs. This is the issue between Spanning Sync and Google – it says Google put a limit of how much events can be on each calendar, once the limit has hit, you must give some time rest for Google to “swallow” the over populated data – let the old things go first and give room for new ones, and this process is lengthy for about two weeks or more, depending how “full” your calendar is. I think this is annoying and it shouldn’t be happen, as one set the service like this up it should be ready for things comes and goes quickly, or it should display the quota limit clearly. This bug even so far not seen from NuevaSync yet. So I really hope the guys at Spanning Sync and Google will eventually fix this bug. By the way, Spanning Sync regularly releases update for the client on your mac, you’ll not know until you open up Spanning Sync’s preferences. So I strongly regularly open the preferences, have a look and install every updates.

Beside this bug, this is still a best solution for me. Now you should get your desktop, mobile devices and Internet all connected together. Just create, modify an event or contact on any of your networked party, and they’ll all synced together right away. In my implementation is that when I got my shift timetable, I will enter it and set up the alarms, then get all of my devices synced, so when there’s time for me to work, the alarm will go off as it should and wake me up, it’s no more excuses for myself to get late because of forgetting to set an alarm for work!