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Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine Vol 01 Issue 08
------- Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine -------
Vol 1, Issue 8
I'm heading out today on a business retreat. I'll be up in
Traverse City through Friday taking some time to work *on* my
business instead of working *in* it. When I get back, I've got
meetings set up with several clients and a networking event or
two to attend. Oh, and there's a birthday or two coming up and,
of course, we can't forget Fathers Day! How do I keep track of
it all? Why, with one of my favorite Web applications, Google
Calendar. More in this week's article.
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In This Issue...
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1. Article: Sunrise, Sunset -- Keeping Track of it All
2. Blog Posts
3. Shameless Self-Promotion
4. The Fine Print
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1. Article: Sunrise, Sunset -- Keeping Track of it All
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We all have our own particular ways of keeping track of doctor
appointments, business meetings, and family birthdays. Some like
one of the tried and true day planners. Others opt for the
ever-popular paper calendar on the wall (usually with images of
cute puppies or kittens). Still others go the electronic route
and make use of Microsoft Outlook or one of its siblings. Me? I
couldn't live without Google Calendar (http://calendar.google.com/).
In it, I've found a versatility which matches my lifestyle.
Of course, Google Calendar does all that you would expect of a
calendaring system. You can easily create events which last a
few hours, a day, or a range of days. Nothing particularly new
there. You can maintain multiple calendars, breaking down events
to fit different areas of your life. Personally I keep about six
or seven different ones -- for work, exercise, travel, personal,
etc.
One of the aspects that works well for my wife, Lisa, and I is
the capability to share calendars. We can see each others travel
calendars and we have a mutual one to keep track of birthdays for
family and friends. I'm sure you can see how this would be
helpful for groups of any kind -- business, social or family.
Reminders (email and/or text message) for individual events,
a tie-in with Gmail (a more-than-capable Web-based email
application), connections with Google Maps, a responsive and
clean interface -- it's all very nice, but nothing particularly
out of the ordinary. So, what's the new cool stuff? Why should
you consider switching to Google over any of those other methods?
For me, two things really set this system apart. The first is
that Google has created an application programming interface
(API). What this means is that you can request the contents of
your calendar inside another program. Why is this important? Do
you have an organization which has a calendar of upcoming events?
Your webmaster can set up a feature on your website to retrieve
that information from a Google calendar. Once that is in place,
you can maintain your calendar without having to know how to
program a web page. I just completed such a system for one of my
clients, cellochan. You can see the results at
http://cellochan.cyberdatasolns.com/events.php (soon to move to
http://cellochan.com/events.php).
The other brand new feature which really is a kicker for me is
that Google finally got the calendar interface working for
hand-held devices. If you have a cell phone or a PDA which can
access the Internet, you can probably see your Google calendar
anywhere and anytime you can get a connection. You can even add
new events to the calendar using the same hand-held interface.
It's like the old Palm Pilot calendar without the need to
synchronize at the end of the day.
So, for me anyway, the efficiency and flexibility of Google
Calendar has really made it my platform of choice. So, the next
time you see me, let's set up a date for coffee. I've got my
schedule right in hand. Do you have yours?
Copyright 2007, Greg Peters
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2. Blog Posts
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Links to posts on the "Clearing Up the Confusion" Blog from the last year:
Tuesday, March 06, 2007 -- Catching Up
http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2007/03/catching-up.html
Thursday, March 08, 2007 -- Toothpaste!
http://clearing-confusion.blogspot.com/2007/03/toothpaste.html
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3. Shameless Self-Promotion
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The "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-Zine is a production of Greg Peters,
owner, chief cook, and bottlewasher of Cyber Data Solutions. CDS has
been helping nonprofit and charitable organizations develop their web
presence for more than a decade. Visit us on the Web at
www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your organization.
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4. The Fine Print
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