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.

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.

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