So after a couple of weeks working with the current arrangement for keeping all my calendars in sync, how is it working? There are still occasional synchronisation goofs, particularly the problem with timezones when all-day appointments come through from Entourage onto the Exchange server that I mentioned in my previous posting. There are also periodic problems with contacts, usually getting duplicated. The other odd problem is that periodically the PDA and ActiveSync seem to suffer from amnesia, announces that this device has not been synced before, and do a new sync. That in turn generates a stack of duplicate appointments that then get deleted. As the current set-up is somewhat on the complicated side, I thought I’d put together a diagram of where my calendar currently goes in order to get it everywhere I need, which you can see here. You can click on the image to see a bigger version.

Whilst on the subject of calendars, and my previous grumble about how difficult it was to synchronise them, I recently came across a great blog by Scot Mace, called Calendar Swamp, which focuses on the entire subject area of electronic calendars and their interoperation. His apt analogy is that the world of computer calendars is like a swamp, and alongside that when a new bit of software, or possible solution comes along, he awards points for how well, or otherwise it succeeds in draining the swamp. If you like me are mired in the same swamp trying to keep everything in sync, it is certainly a site to keep an eye on.

Of course, one much anticipated addition to the arena is Google Calendar, with speculation going back more than a year, much of it expecting Google to really shake things up. As of this week, Google Calendar finally arrived, even being reported by the BBC.

I have to say that as a Mac user, aside from the close integration with GMail, and natural language parser (which they are not the first to do – see this comparison of 30 Boxes and Spongecell), the rest of the calendaring was a bit old hat, even down to the look. The similarity to iCal, that ships as part of MacOS X in both operation and functionality is very noticeable – but then they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! Having said that, the fact that this is essentially a web based version of iCal, even down to sharing the same industry standard file formats is good, as it does provide a well known ready made location to publish shared calendars. Also with Google and a number of other online calendar providers pushing the format, Mozilla basing their calendar on the same format, and even some limited iCal support in Outlook it might make interoperability a bit less of a pain – we live in hope!

As to whether I’m going to be changing from my current solution, I think not. I’ve had a play around with both 30 Boxes, and Google Calendar (see here for a good comparison) but since both are pushing on with online editing features, and I’m looking primarily for a synchronisation solution, they’re not really what I neeed. Having said that both might be good for publishing schedules for Youth Group, Choir, and other groups like that.