calendars

Google restores offline abilities for Gmail, Docs

After months of delay, Google this week will let people use Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar even when they're offline, a key feature for making the company's cloud-computing vision more practical.

The company is a powerful proponent of the Web-based services, but the practical reality is there are plenty of times when Google's vision falls victim to the practical limits of Internet access. For Google's services to fully compete with Microsoft Office, it must work even in Internet dead zones like subways, airplanes, and rural regions.

And Google knows it. It's been testing the … Read more

Western/Islamic calendar converter

There's no shortage of calendars for Windows if you use the Gregorian calendar, the standard Western date-keeping method. However, millions of people use different systems, such as the Hijri calendar, also known as the Islamic calendar. Hijri-Georgian Calendar and Converter is a small, free add-in for Microsoft Excel that converts dates between the Gregorian and Islamic calendars. It can also export Hijri calendar pages in as Excel spreadsheets or PDFs.

We extracted the add-in's installer, which placed Hijri-Georgian calendar as a tab on Excel's add-in ribbon. When we clicked its icon, Hijri-Georgian Calendar opened as a dialog … Read more

Best app you've never tried: Cozi Family Organizer

There are two apps I can't stop recommending to people. The first is Square, but I usually reserve that one for people who run small businesses. It's a free and dirt-cheap system for processing credit cards.

The other is Cozi Family Organizer (available for Android and iPhone), which, true to its name, keeps your family life in sync.

Literally. The app provides a shared calendar that's color-coded for each member of your family. Thus, you can see at-a-glance who's going where, and when. (This is especially helpful for parents who need to know, say, what time soccer practice is being held and who's supposed to pick up the kids.)

When you add an appointment, you can designate which family members are involved. The calendar gets synced not only with the other members of your Cozi circle, but also with Cozi on the Web (which is where you can manage settings, add users to your account, and so on).

In addition to the calendar, Cozi provides a to-do list, a shopping list, and even a family journal that can include both text and photos (a great way to chronicle a family vacation).… Read more

MultiMi wants to be TweetDeck killer

What happens when you combine social-networking tools like Twitter and Facebook with cloud-based services from Google and make them all accessible from one desktop service? The new program called MultiMi (download) gives you access to all those accounts and lets you share items to contacts across the board using drag and drop.

"The objective of the product itself is to give them one centralized location to receive and manage their information," said Eidan Apelbaum, CEO of MultiMi's publisher, ZBang It.

Pronounced "multi me," the Windows-only program supports a wide range of services out of the … Read more

How to set up Appointment Slots in Google Calendar

Many of us have blocks of time we make available to others people, such as professionals, academics, coaches, tennis buddies--the list is endless. Google Calendar just added a new feature that makes setting aside and scheduling appointment times incredibly easy. Here's how to get started:

Log on to your Google account and open up your calendar. Click and drag an open space in your calendar and select "Appointment slots" from the bubble (Note: this will not work in the Month view.) Give the block a title and select which calendar it lives in, then select the type (… Read more

Calendar spreadsheet

Perpetual Calendar from Vertex42 is an Excel spreadsheet that creates calendars for any year from 1900 to 9999, beginning with any month you like, holidays included. It's extremely easy to use: Simply enter the year, tweak any fields, and click Save or Print. It behaves like any Excel template.

Perpetual Calendar downloads as a compressed file but opens normally in Excel when extracted. The spreadsheet is clearly configured, with a large year display above a 12-month calendar. To the right is a list titled Events or Holidays; it included not only traditional holidays but also tax day and equinoxes … Read more

How to display Android events in your home time zone

Android Gingerbread phones can now display your home time zone for calendar events, even when traveling to another time zone. Here's how:

Step 1: Go into your Android calendar and hit the Menu Key, then tap Settings.

Step 2: Tap the box next to the "Use home time zone" setting to check mark it. Make sure that the "Home time zone" setting, just below, is set correctly to your home time zone.

That's it. Now when you're traveling, you can still see all of your events in your home time zone.

First Take: Apple's iCloud service

The introduction of the iCloud at today's WWDC keynote symbolizes Apple's shift to cloud-based backups, syncing, and moving files seamlessly among all your devices, whether you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac, or PC. Just like Google's offerings (Doc and Calendar syncing, and Picasa, as examples), iCloud lets you sync media, apps, music, documents, calendars, and more automatically. It's important to note that Android has had the download and sync features since February of this year.

As usual at Apple's keynote events, Steve Jobs was not the only person on the stage demonstrating the latest and greatest from Apple. Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, came up to talk about multitouch gestures on the Mac, for example. Craig Federighi, senior vice president of Apple software, then came up to demo some of the new features of full-screen apps. But when it was time to talk about iCloud, it was Steve Jobs who did the talking. In other words, however you feel about iCloud, it seemed to be the "main event" that Apple seemed to be most excited about.… Read more

Back to basics

Calendar software is ubiquitous, with options for everyone no matter how simple or complex your needs. As the name suggests, Classic Calendar falls more into the simple category, with the features you would expect from a traditional calendar and not much else.

The program's interface is plain and easy to navigate, consisting of a basic-looking calendar and an Options menu at the top. The calendar's color scheme is highly customizable; users can select the colors for the main background, date boxes, empty boxes, calendar text, and highlighted days. Users can also select the font they want to use … Read more