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How to switch to Google Calendar

By Fei on February 16, 2011

By Lex Friedman
February 16, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO – I want to sync my calendar across all my Macs and iOS devices, give my wife access to my calendar (and have access to hers), and do it all without paying for Apple’s MobileMe. For that, Apple’s iCal just won’t do. Still, I like the iPhone’s Calendar app. With the free Google Calendar, I found a scheduling solution that lets me keep myself organized, continue using the iOS Calendar app, give my family and coworkers easy access to my availability, and easily add new appointments from anywhere. Here’s how I set things up:

Step 1: Create a Google Calendar

You can use Google Calendar with your existing Google account, or with a free or paid Google Apps account.

Create a user name and password. Then log in to Google. You’re presented with a big blank calendar as soon as you click into the site.

To add an event, click on the day in question. In the Event pane that appears, add the event’s name. Click Edit Event Details to open a window where you can type in the time and other information. Click on Save when you’re done.

Step 2: Give it its own window

You could simply load up Google Calendar in your favorite browser every time you need to check your schedule. My preference, however, is to keep a window entirely and exclusively devoted to my calendar open at all times.

To do so, I use Todd Ditchendorf’s excellent Fluid (free). With Fluid, you can create what’s called a “site-specific browser,” which is a stand-alone app dedicated solely to the site in question. To set up your Calendar Fluid app, follow these steps:

a) Download a good Calendar icon. Chris Ivarson provides a great, free Google Calendar icon here.

b) Launch Fluid, and fill out the single form with the URL for Google Calendar (http://www.google.com/calendar/), a name (I use “Calendar”). When you reach the Icon menu, choose Other and then navigate to the custom icon you just downloaded. Click Create. Fluid will place your newly-created application in the folder you choose (Applications, by default). Find it and then drag the icon into your Dock for easy access.

Step 3: Import your old iCal events

Were you previously an iCal devotee? If so, you can import your old iCal events into Google Calendar pretty painlessly:

a) Open iCal. Go to the File menu and choose File -> Export -> Export. (You’ll need to do this once for each calendar you have in iCal in the On My Mac list.)

b) Save your exported data on your Mac.

c) Go back to your Google Calendar, click the Settings menu, and choose Calendar Settings.

d) On the Calendar Settings screen, click the Calendars tab.

e) Click the Import Calendar link, and then choose the exported file you generated from iCal. Depending upon how many events you have to import, this might take a short while, but it’s the last step.

Step 4: Sync the calendar to your iOS devices

Now that your calendar is all set up on your Mac, it’s time to get it synced with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Google now offers free support for Microsoft Exchange. (All the iOS devices have supported multiple Exchange accounts since the introduction of iOS 4.) That means that even if your iPhone’s already linked to an Exchange account for work, you can still sync your Google calendar with Exchange as well.

The advantage to doing so, of course, is that keeping your calendar synced with Exchange means that you can add events anywhere, and have them appear on all your devices almost instantly. That way, you can tap in the details of an upcoming doctor appointment from the receptionist’s desk with the Calendar app, and it will show up in Google Calendar on the Web seconds later.

To get Exchange working, you’ll need to replace your existing Gmail account on your iPhone, or create a new one. To do so:

a) If you’re a Google Apps user, make sure that your administrator has enabled Google Sync. Either way, as a precaution, make sure to backup your iOS device before you add the new account.

b) On your iOS device, launch the Settings app and tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars.

c) Tap Add Account and select Microsoft Exchange.

d) Type in your e-mail address twice, once in the Email field, and again in the Username field. Leave Domain blank, and of course enter your password. Then, tap Next at the upper right.

e) At this point, you’ll most likely encounter an error message (“Unable to Verify Certificate.”) Choose Cancel, and don’t sweat the error. This is most likely a by-product of how Google implements Exchange, and not an actual security problem.

f) A new Server field will appear that wasn’t on the screen before. Type m.google.com into that field, and then tap Next again.

g) Now, you’ll be able to choose which Google services you’d like to sync. I sync Mail, Calendar, and Contacts, but you only need to enable Calendar for the purposes of this tutorial.

h) You may be asked what you’d like to do with existing data on your device. Unless you want to completely overwrite your data, choose Keep On My iPhone.

As long as you have Notifications enabled, synchronization will start very quickly. (On your iPhone, tap Settings and then Notifications. The slider switch should say On.) If you already have lots of data in your Google calendar, it could take several minutes for the sync to complete.

Step 5: Take advantage of extras

Now that you have Google Calendar setup on all your devices, take advantage of a few niceties:

Mini calendar in Gmail Keep an eye on your obligations in Gmail by adding a miniature version of your calendar to the page. In Gmail, click on the Settings link, click on the Labs tab, and then enable the Google Calendar gadget. You’ll see a list of events to the left of your message list. Click on Options and choose Show Mini Calendar.

Easier appointment adding At the top of your calendar there’s a link that’s easy to over look–Quick Add. Using this, you can create new appointments in plain English. For example, type Meeting with Jason at 4pm next Thursday and a new event will appear on your calendar, with that name, at 4 p.m.

Menubar access If you want to get really fancy, you can create a second Fluid program. This one will live solely as a Menu Extra–in other words, it will provides access to a slimmed-down view of your upcoming events from your Mac’s menubar at the top of the screen. You’ll also be able to use the Quick Add option from here. Launch Fluid, and create an app called Mini Cal that points to http://google.com/calendar/m. When you run the newly-created program, go to the Mini Cal menu and select Convert to MenuExtra SSB.

Step 6: Share your calendar

My wife and I find it helpful to see each other’s calendars. (That way, we can more sanely schedule repairmen or doctor appointments for the kids.) With Google Calendar, you can subscribe to your spouse’s calendar–or to anyone’s calendar as long as they give you approval.

To share a calendar, click on the Settings link, choose Calendar Settings, and click on the Calendars tab. Choose the calendar you want to share from the list, and then click on Share This Calendar. You’ll see the option to either Make This Calendar Public or to Share With Specific People. If you choose the latter, type his or her e-mail address in the Person field, set Permissions, and then click Add Person.

You can choose which calendars sync to your iOS devices by visiting http://m.google.com/sync from each device. I sync my wife’s schedule, along with calendars for US Holidays and the Philadelphia Eagles game schedule. From the same Calendars tab you use to subscribe to other calendars, just click the Browse Interesting Calendars link to find many Google-provided calendars that you can add.

Congratulations! If you’ve made it this far, you’re completely ready to go with Google Calendar. All that’s left to do now is remove iCal from your Dock.

5 Awesome Free Tools For Small Businesses

By Fei on November 15, 2010

By Keir Thomas
November 15, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – These are frugal times for business, and an organization starting out might have very little money to spend on IT. Even if you’re part of an established business, you’re probably feeling the pinch.

Here are five extremely useful computing resources that are free of charge for small business users–unlike some “free” services you might see that are only for home users. These choices have few if any restrictions, and are established services unlikely to shut up shop anytime soon.

1. Google Apps For Business

If your organization has under 50 employees, then Google Apps for Business (formerly called Google Apps for Domains) is for you. It offers free e-mail under the umbrella of your own organization’s domain name (You can pay Google $10 to reserve a domain name, if you don’t already have one). You can also have your own private Google Docs system along with your own Google Calendar system.

In use, the e-mail system looks and feels just like regular Gmail, except that your own organization’s e-mail addresses are used rather than a Gmail one (such as, bob.smith@yourdomain.com, rather than something like bob.smith1964@gmail.com). One nice touch is that the e-mail address book is shared automatically amongst your users.

It’s all hosted on Google’s computers, so you won’t need your own mail server computer. You’ll benefit from almost zero configuration and maintenance, plus a promised 99.9 percent uptime guarantee. Put simply, Google takes care of everything for you. The spam filtering is the same excellent system as Gmail, which is to say your employees just won’t be bothered by anything dodgy.

There are some limitations on the free version. As well as the 50 user limit, each user account can send e-mails to only 500 recipients per day. This won’t be an issue for most of us, but it’s easy to imagine an enthusiastic sales person hitting that ceiling now and again. You also can’t send attachments larger than 25MB, although this will only be an issue for those working in the media industries who have to ship around large photographs or video files.

Even if you have to pay to upgrade to the Premier Edition, which allows unlimited users and a host of other benefits, it’ll only cost $50 per year. Who can argue with that kind of value?

Some service providers, such as Dreamhost, offer free-of-charge one-click configuration of Google Apps for any domains you have registered with them.

2. Dropbox

Dropbox is a sync and backup tool that makes use of the cloud to remotely store files. Once the Dropbox software is installed, you’ll find a new Dropbox folder on your hard disk. Anything stored in this folder is instantly transferred to Dropbox’s cloud storage system. This is done invisibly, and using the Dropbox folder is just like using any other folder on your hard disk.

The benefits are that you can then install Dropbox on another computer and, using the same login details, recreate your Dropbox folder. Anything saved in the folder on computer A will automatically appear in computer B’s Dropbox folder, and vice versa. Indeed, you can add-in computers C, D, E, and so on, and even mobile devices can get in on the action. There’s a Web interface that allows access to files, too.

Perhaps the chief benefit for business is that, should a notebook get stolen or lost, restoring its files is as simple as installing Dropbox on a new computer, entering the username, and letting it sync the contents (provided your employees have been trained to always save their files in the Dropbox folder, of course).

Dropbox offers free 2GB of storage per user, which is enough for hundreds of modest office documents, and I couldn’t find any restrictions on business users signing-up for free accounts. All you need is to download the client software and sign up during the installation process, using your e-mail address.

Before you ask, yes, it’s massively secure. SSL connections are used to make the transfer of data to and from the cloud, and all data is stored using AES-256 encryption. Even if a stranger were to somehow pull your data from the cloud, it would be gibberish.

Each user can make the leap to 50GB of storage for $10 per month, or 100GB for $20. This isn’t a huge amount of money, although it could add up once your organization starts to grow.

My colleague Rick Broida discussed a similar new service called SugarSync, which offers 5GB of free storage – 3GB more than Dropbox. However, my personal preference is to stick with the long-established Dropbox.
3. Microsoft Security Essentials

License fees for antivirus software are taxing for those who use Windows. We’d rather not pay, but there’s no way of getting around it. Most free antivirus products, such as AVG, are free only for home users.

However, Microsoft has recently opened-up its Security Essentials software for free small business usage (It was previously free only for home users.). Alas, the license agreement states you can only use it on up to 10 computers in a corporate environment, but this is still better than nothing. If nothing else, it means that you’ll have 10 fewer antivirus licenses to pay for. (For larger organizations, Microsoft offers its Forefront product range, which has various licensing systems.)
The new Security Essentials looks good. It’s certainly good at spotting viruses, although it can be a little slow when scanning compared to competitors. However, considering the $0 price tag, I’m sure we can all live with this. Security Essentials is available for all recent versions of Windows, from XP up.

4. Linux

Don’t worry. I’m not going to advise you switch to Linux on your desktop computers. From a purely financial standpoint this has rarely made much sense for smaller businesses, considering they usually pay for Windows licenses without any choice when they buy a new PC.

Instead, I’m going to recommend Linux for your file servers. This avoids the need to pay for expensive Windows Server licenses. If you go with something like Ubuntu, the most popular form of Linux, you’ll pay nothing at all for an installation serving an unlimited number of client computers.

Ubuntu’s other chief advantage is that, as a popular form of Linux, support is never far away. Googling any problem will almost certainly reveal somebody else who’s had the issue, or you can head over the hugely popular Ubuntu Forums to ask for help.

In terms of technology, Ubuntu offers Samba, which can effectively recreate a modest Windows-like file and printer sharing setup. Both Macs and Windows computers will have no problems connecting, and will be unaware that they’re not connecting to a Windows server.

If you have an old PC you can mess around on, try downloading Ubuntu Server and giving it a try. You might have to reach back into your memory to remember those Unix 101 classes, but there’s a wealth of free documentation out there to help you get started.

5. Go-OO office suite

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you probably already know about OpenOffice.org, the open source (and therefore free-of-charge) office suite. This keeps getting better with each release and is now a definite contender for lighter-weight office tasks. If you haven’t looked at it recently, it’s well worth a trial.
I find it very useful for those upgrading from an older version of Office and who are confused by the ribbon-based user interface, found on recent releases of Microsoft Office.

However, it’s been a busy time in the world of OpenOffice.org, and Oracle’s acquisition of Sun–owners of OpenOffice.org–has dropped a bomb from which the dust is still settling. The LibreOffice project has picked-up the reins but is still in beta testing stage, so at the moment I recommend the existing version of Go-OO as the best free-of-charge office suite around. Based on OpenOffice.org with some useful tweaks here and there, its chief advantage is support for Microsoft’s newer XML-based file format (such as the DOCX, XLSX, and PPTX file extensions), which is the default in all recent releases of Microsoft Office.

Stay on top of a to-do list

By Fei on July 14, 2010

By Adam Pash
July 14, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Your life is busy, and you have got enough on your plate without needing to remember to move your car every week, pay oddly timed bills, or show up for one-time weekend appointments. Luckily, a finely tuned calendaring system can help.

Take a service like Google Calendar. With the right setup (which we’ll detail below), you can access it from any Web browser, plug it into your favorite desktop calendar, and manage it from your phone so you can quickly add any item to your schedule no matter where you are.

Of course, scheduling is just one half of the picture. Remembering your appointments is the other. And that’s the best part of this system: You’ll receive alerts reminding you of all your scheduled events, no matter where you are or what you’re doing.

The Setup

In this article, we detail a three-tiered approach to managing your schedule from the Web, from your desktop, and from your phone, so you’ll have a bulletproof system for keeping on top of your schedule. The glue that holds this system together is Google’s free calendaring application, Google Calendar. If you don’t already have a Google account, you’ll need to sign up for one before you can use Google Calendar.

First, let’s take a minute to get familiar with Google Calendar and some of its handier features.

Use Quick Add to Translate Your To-Do List

No matter how streamlined a calendar is, you won’t want to add events through the normal steps, which require you to give your event a title, hunt for the right date and time, and set up notifications to remind you of the event.

Rather than go through this time-consuming process every time, do yourself a favor and get comfortable using GCal’s Quick Add feature. Type any plain-language appointment-related text–such as “Pick up dry cleaning from A1 at 1pm next Tuesday”–into this box, and Google Calendar will translate that notation into an event on your calendar, with the proper date and time.

Next, to ensure that you don’t forget, you could manually edit the event and set a custom notification to remind you when the event is approaching. But suppose that you’re prone to forgetfulness–or just have too many things going on every day–and you want to have some type of default reminder set up for every event of your calendar.

Go to Google Calendar; click Settings, Calendar Settings, Calendars; find the calendar you want to adjust default notifications for; and click Notifications. Once there, you can set up one or more default reminders for any new event that you subsequently add to your calendar.

For most events on my calendar, I like to get a reminder a day ahead of time, just to make certain that an appointment is on my radar; then I like to receive another reminder an hour before the scheduled event time.

Likewise, you can set up your own defaults to suit your preferences. Bear in mind that you can override the defaults if you prefer a different sort of notification (you may want more advanced warning to make sure you move your car in time, for example) or if you decide that you don’t want any reminder at all.

Use Calendar in Your Other Google Apps

If you’re an avid user of Gmail, Google’s e-mail program, Google Calendar can save you even more time. Gmail automatically recognizes when the text of an e-mail suggests an event or appointment and provides you with a Quick Add link that you can click to automatically populate a new Google Calendar event with may of the event’s details–the what, where, and when–already filled out.

Similarly, if you’re a fan of Google’s relatively new to-do list, Google Tasks, you’ll appreciateTasks recently added integration with Google Calendar. Now, when you set a due date on a to-do item in Tasks, it will automatically show up as an event in Google Calendar. (If you don’t see your Tasks in Gmail already, make sure that you’ve clicked the Tasks calendar under the My Calendars sidebar.)

Remember Recurring Events

Whether it be a birthday, monthly rent payments, bimonthly bills, quarterly taxes, or even meet-ups on the third Tuesday of every month, Google Calendar can help you quickly and easily create recurring-event notifications so you’ll never forget another repeat appointment.

To set up a recurring event in GCal, either add a note

about the recurring activity to your quick-add text (e.g., “Move car every Tuesday at 8am”) or click the Create Event button in Google Calendar and set your recurring schedule in the Repeats section.

Stay Synced With Outlook

Google Calendar by itself is fine and dandy if you’re comfortable living your life in your browser, but if you prefer to keep your data local and accessible when you’re offline, you can take advantage of most of the great things Google Calendar has to offer without giving up your desktop calendar.

If you use Microsoft Outlook, just download Google Calendar Sync. Enter your Google Calendar username and password, and it will take care of syncing your calendar data back and forth between Google Calendar and Outlook.
The nice thing about syncing your calendar between Google Calendar and Outlook is that you get the best of both worlds. If you’re away from your main PC, you can access your calendar from any Web browser, on any computer through Google Calendar; if you’re on your main computer, you can stick to scheduling with the Outlook you know and love, whether you have an active Internet connection or not.

Connect Your Calendar to Your Cell Phone

Since you’re not always sitting in front of a computer, being able to access your calendar only when you’re at a computer isn’t all that useful. Imagine that you parked your car in the morning, but you have to move it by 5 p.m. to make way for street cleaning or you’ll get a ticket. It’s easy to forget to add an item like “Move my car by 5pm” to your calendar if you have to wait until you get to a computer to add it. The solution to this problem: Hook your phone into your calendar.

There are several ways to do this, whether you own a cutting-edge smartphone or a bare-bones (but functional) “dumb” phone. Let’s start with the smartphones and work our way down.

Sync With Smartphones

If you use an Android phone, this is a no-brainer. Android works seamlessly with Google Calendar (both are Google products, after all); you merely log in to your Google account on your Android device, and it will automatically set up your phone’s calendar to sync with GCal. Any events you add from your phone will automatically sync with Google Calendar wirelessly.

If you have an iPhone, BlackBerry, Nokia S60, or Windows Mobile phone, syncing your phone’s calendar with GCal is similarly easy when you use the free Google Mobile Sync tool for your particular phone. Head over to the Google Sync page and follow the setup instructions for your device.

Check Your Calendar and Add Events Via SMS

Don’t have a fancy smartphone? No problem. You can still receive event notifications, check your calendar, and even add events to your calendar from any phone that supports SMS messages.

First, head into your Google Calendar settings and associate your cellphone with Google Calendar. (To do so, select Settings, Calendar Settings, Mobile Setup, and follow Google’s instructions for validating your phone.) Once you’ve validated your phone number, Google Calendar can send you event notifications via e-mail or SMS.

You can even add an SMS reminder as one of your default notification methods, in which case you’ll always receive notifications for upcoming events, regardless of where you are, as long as you have your phone on hand.

Now for the really cool part: After you’ve associated your cell phone’s number with your Google Calendar account, you can check your itinerary and create new events by sending text messages to Google Calendar’s GVENT (48368) number. Want today’s schedule? Just text “day” to GVENT.

Even better: You can create new events by texting GVENT, and it supports the same plain-language input that GCal’s Quick Add button does. So if you text GVENT “Move my car at 4:30pm,” GCal will translate that into a new event on your calendar. For complete details on GVENT commands, check out this Google Calendar help page.

Conclusion

The system described above isn’t the only calendaring method possible under the silicon sun, but Google Calendar is the best free way to create a fast-syncing schedule minder that you can access from virtually anywhere. And with all your reminders correctly set up, you’ll never forget to move your car or pay a bill again.

Sync Outlook with your Google Calendar

By Fei on July 9, 2010

By Rick Broida
July 09, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – One of the things I love about Google Calendar is that it requires no desktop component. Sure, you can sync it with Outlook, but not everyone needs or wants a program like that just to manage appointments.
Indeed, more and more people prefer to keep their calendars on their mobile phones, just as they do their address books.

If you do use Outlook, you’ve probably already configured it to sync with your phone. If not, or if, like me, you’re trying to migrate away from that unwieldy beast, look no further than Google Sync–a free service that syncs mobile phones with Google Calendar.

And not just Google Calendar, but also Google Contacts and Gmail. The service works with BlackBerry, iPhone, and Nokia S60 devices. (Why not Android? Because Google’s mobile OS already syncs with the various Google services, natch. As for the Palm Pre and Pixi, they can sync with Google right out of the box.)

Google provides all the instructions you need for configuring and using Google Sync, so I won’t rehash them here. My goal is simply to explain why it’s a good idea.

If you’re already a Google Calendar user, it should be pretty obvious: Sync brings a copy of your schedule to your phone–and keeps both versions up to date. Handy!

If you’re not a Google Calendar user, Sync effectively gives you an online backup of your schedule–something that could prove invaluable if your phone gets broken, lost, stolen, etc.

Plus, there’s much to be said for having a calendar that’s accessible from any Web-enabled device (desktop, netbook, iPad, etc.). Same goes for your contacts.

Simple Tips Banish Computing Hassles

By Fei on April 29, 2010

By Rick Broida
April 29, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – About a year ago I introduced some of PCWorld’s less tech-savvy readers to the Undo function, which can be lifesaver when you need to reverse whatever unintended (and/or unwanted) action you just took.
Most often, that’s something like an accidental paragraph deletion in Word, or clicking the wrong option in a pull-down menu.

Earlier this morning I was reminded that Undo–by way of its universal keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-Z–can do more than just fix typos and reverse errant clicks.

For example, let’s say you just deleted a file you didn’t mean to delete. Instead of opening up the Recycle Bin and poking around until you find the file, a simple press of Ctrl-Z should restore it to the folder window from which you deleted it. The same applies to batches of deleted files.

Also, a very common boo-boo is when you inadvertently rename a file. Can’t remember the old filename? No problem: Just press Ctrl-Z (before you close the folder containing the file) and presto, it reverts to the original name.

Needless to say, Undo is your go-to function for undoing unwanted actions and changes. Once you start using Ctrl-Z on a regular basis, you’ll wonder how you got along without it.

Use Text Messaging to Add Events to Google Calendar

Google Calendar is the single best cloud service I’ve used. It’s been around for years, but I know plenty of people who still don’t see the point of a calendar that lives on the Web.

Trust me: Once you start using it, especially for things like keeping tabs on family members’ hectic schedules, you’ll wonder how you got along without it. And talk about convenient: You don’t need to be sitting at your PC to do things like adding new events. All you need is your mobile phone and a few seconds to tap out a text message.

In other words, Google Calendar lets you add events via SMS. (Standard messaging rates apply, natch.) All you do is compose a plain-English message (see below), then send it to GVENT (48368).

For example:

Lunch with Bob at Crunchy’s 12:30pm tomorrow.

Brendan Benson concert at Blind Pig 9pm June 3.

Send a text like that and presto, Google Calendar creates a new appointment with all the pertinent details.

Before you can take advantage of this slick feature, however, you have to configure Google Calendar to work with your phone. Here’s how:

Sign in to your Google Calendar account and click Settings. Click the Mobile Setup tab. Enter your phone number, click Send Verification Code, and wait for a message to arrive on your phone. It should get there in just a few seconds. Find the verification code within the message, then type it into the corresponding field and click Finish setup.

That’s all there is to it. Now you can add stuff to your calendar just by texting the details to GVENT. Neat, huh?

Work Around Windows 7′s Wide Taskbar Icons

Reader Keith has a bone to pick with the pinned icons on Windows 7′s taskbar. He says they’re too far apart, and he’s looking for a way to close the gap between them.

I can understand that. The taskbar does leave a fair amount of empty space on either side of each icon. If you have a netbook or run your monitor at a relatively low resolution, you may find yourself running out of space down there.

Surely there’s a way to change the width of those buttons so that the icons sit closer together? Sadly, no–not that I’ve found, anyway–but there are several workarounds worth considering.

For starters, I did find a Registry hack for changing the button width, but it narrowed them only when the programs were running. Plus, the icons themselves got clipped or disappeared altogether. Not a good solution.

Here’s a better one: Move your taskbar to the side of the screen. That not only frees up valuable vertical space, but also puts your icons a bit closer together. (Each button is wider than it is high.)

Alternately, switch to Windows’ small-icons view, which you can do by right-clicking an empty area of the taskbar, choosing Properties, and then checking the Use small icons box. Click Apply to implement the change immediately–and see if you like it. If not, you can always uncheck the box and go back to the previous size.

Finally, considering ditching those taskbar icons altogether (some of them, anyway) and using a keyboard-powered launcher like Launchy. Granted, you’ll miss out on Windows 7 perks like Jump Lists, but you’ll also free up more space on the taskbar.

Use Text Messaging to Add Events to Google Calendar

By Fei on April 23, 2010

By Rick Broida
April 23, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO – Google Calendar is the single best cloud service you’re not using. It’s been around for years, but I know plenty of people who still don’t see the point of a calendar that lives on the Web.

Trust me: Once you start using it, especially for things like keeping tabs on family members’ hectic schedules, you’ll wonder how you got along without it.

And talk about convenient: You don’t need to be sitting at your PC to do things like adding new events. All you need is your mobile phone and a few seconds to tap out a text message.

In other words, Google Calendar lets you add events via SMS. (Standard messaging rates apply, natch.) All you do is compose a plain-English message (see below), then send it to GVENT (48368).

For example:

Lunch with Bob at Crunchy’s 12:30pm tomorrow.

Brendan Benson concert at Blind Pig 9pm June 3.

Send a text like that and presto, Google Calendar will create a new appointment with all the pertinent details.

Before you can take advantage of this slick feature, however, you have to configure GCal to work with your phone. Here’s how:

1. Sign into your Google Calendar account and click Settings.

2. Click the Mobile Setup tab.

3. Enter your phone number, click Send Verification Code, and wait for a message to arrive on your phone. It should get there in just a few seconds.

4. Find the verification code within the message, then type it into the corresponding field and click Finish setup.

That’s all there is to it. Now you can add stuff to your calendar just by texting the details to GVENT. Neat, huh?

Google removes ‘Beta’ labels from Gmail, Calendar, other services

By Jon on July 7, 2009

By Tom Spring

Google is removing the “beta” label from many of its key services, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Talk, and Google Video for Business. The move is seen as a way to attract large businesses to Google Apps, its suite of messaging and productivity applications.

For most users of Gmail and Google Calendar, today’s news is little more than a lifting of the “beta” label for these already-reliable Google services. But Google says removing the “beta” label is a big deal for the businesses that it hopes will switch to Web-based Google services — and away from software-based services offered by Microsoft and IBM.

Bye Bye Beta, Hello New Features
Google says it has beefed up the Google Apps suite by adding offline access to e-mail and calendars and streamlinging access to Google Apps for BlackBerry users. Google also says that its Web-based messaging platform is now more compatible with Microsoft Outlook and it has improved contact management for Google Apps.

Google hopes large businesses will now feel more comfortable about entrusting Google with its core communications services. A Google Apps Premier Edition account, which includes Gmail, instant messaging, documents, and spreadsheets (among other apps) cost businesses $50 per user per year.

“We’ve come to appreciate that the beta tag just doesn’t fit for large enterprises that aren’t keen to run their business on software that sounds like it’s still in the trial phase,” wrote Rajen Sheth, senior product manager, Google Apps, in a blog post announcing the changes.

Google: The Little Guy
“No business is going to rely on a ‘beta’ service for something as important as e-mail,” says Matt Cain, lead e-mail analyst with market research firm Gartner. But, he adds, just by lifting the beta label does not guarantee Google success.

Google may be a giant in the search engine space, but the company is only a bit player when it comes to providing e-mail to businesses. Microsoft owns about 70 percent of the e-mail market, followed by IBM with 17 percent, according to Gartner. Cain says Microsoft and IBM don’t have any serious competition yet, but can expect nipping at their heels from Web-based services such as Google and a new offering from Cisco expected as a result of the company’s purchase of PostPath. These services are cloud based, meaning companies don’t have to host servers on site and any heavy infrastructural lifting is done by the provider offsite. Google’s pitch for its communications suite also includes a claim that Google Apps can save companies 50 to 70 percent compared to “other e-mail solutions.”

In recent months Google has stepped up its battle against Microsoft to win over the enterprise business market. Last month Google released a new plug-in that allows businesses to switch to Google Apps. The utility can migrate a company’s e-mail, calendar, and contacts to Google’s cloud while retaining the interface of Outlook.

“Google has listened to what enterprises want, and it has delivered much of that,” Cain says. Google says it manage 15 million business inboxes and “tens of millions” more consumer Gmail inboxes.

Cain doesn’t anticipate cloud-based e-mail management to pose a threat to offerings provided by Microsoft and IBM for another two to four years.

Bring Back the Beta!
Google representatives say by no means does the removal of the beta label mean Google will stop innovating and experimenting with new features offered through Google Labs for Gmail, Google Calendar, and other Google App services. It says existing Google Labs users can re-enable the beta label for Gmail from the Labs tab under Settings.