Google Calendar
it’s about time. Google has finally come through with a beta version of a web-based calendar system. Google’s Calendar is free, just like their other services, but it’s still in the beta stages (then again, isn’t every Google tool in perpetual beta?).
i like 2 things about this calendar system, in particular and i’ll describe these two things in this blog, but the tool has much more than i’ll discuss. it’s worth visiting and learning more on your own.
the main thing that makes this web-based calendar worthwhile is that it offers the ability to collaborate amongst many users. in my program, we share a lot of technology equipment between the 20 sections or so we teach of our ed tech course each semester. for example, we have digital video cameras, digital still cameras, handheld computers, and more and scheduling can be a nightmare. we have been using email for the most part to try and get things scheduled, but a person who decides to change dates never had a place to go and make that change quickly or to even look for open dates and let others know the previous scheduled day is now available. Google’s calendar is easy to use and share and it’s easy to allow many users to view your calendar. so, we should easily be able to implement this tool in our workflow.
the other feature i really like with Google’s calendar is that it appears to integrate well with iCal. i just tested it and imported 2 of my iCal calendars and they showed up moments later in Google’s calendar. very nice.
it doesn’t work great with Safari, but it’s working for me as i fiddle right now, but Firefox is supported. i have high hopes for this web-application.
January 31st, 2007 at 1:25 pm
[…] who has to sync calendars with others and for a person who often uses lab computers, etc. so i switched to Google’s calendars back in April of ‘06. at the time, i noted that Google worked well with iCal. i was wrong. […]