Reviews
Web Apps : Google Calendar
Sunday, May 14th, 2006
Google Calendar is the latest app to emerge from the Google factory, but is it just another calendar app or does it bring something new to the table? We took it for a test-drive.
Monday
1000: Meeting with boss. Need to find a suitable calendar system for the new team. Boss fails to turn up - meeting was not in his calendar.
1200: Second attempt. Boss wants new calendar system to support Exchange, Entourage, and Novell Evolution. Boss has also bought himself a MacBook Pro and wants it to work with iCal too.
1900: Still at work, everyone else has gone home. Want to kill self.
1924: Ohh. What’s this? Google Calendar? Hmmmm.
Tuesday
0800: Early start to investigate Google Calendar. So, what can this thing actually do? Turns out it’ll import iCalendar and CSV files exported from iCal or Outlook. A good start. All you need do is import into an existing calendar. Google Calendar looks quite a lot like iCal, to be honest, but that’s not a bad thing. In fact, the Google UI is a lot better than iCal’s, in my experience.
0915: Beginning to get the hang of this now. Each calendar within your Google Calendar (note: small c, Big C; there’s a difference) can be controlled independently of the others. Of the calendars I create, I can choose which ones are to be shared publicly, and which ones are not. Subscribing to public calendars is incredibly easy - search for whatever you’re interested in (Formula 1, XTech 2006), and if Google has a calendar for it, all you need to do is click “Add calendar.” So neat.
1430: Really loving this UI now. It’s got all the features you’d expect in a calendar, like different views for day, week, month, etc. But the search is fantastic, typically Google-fast and with very useful after-search functionality like “More details” and “View on my calendar.” Lovely. Boss is going to like this.
Wednesday
1105: Been experimenting with using Google Calendar in meetings. The keyboard shortcuts are a real help, they’re pretty obvious (especially if you’ve already got a Gmail account) and the Quick Add feature - well, it’s just incredibly useful to be able to tap out something like “Team drinks 4pm tomorrow at Joe’s Bar,” and Google Calendar just automagically turns that into a meaningful event.
1650: The invitations feature could be great for managing group events, from more team drinks (we do seem to have a lot of those here…) to client visits. You can create a new event, then add the email addresses of people you want to invite. They can view the details, even make comments or ask questions. They don’t have to have a Google Calendar account of their own.
Thursday
0810: Last night I was bothered by the thought: what if one of us wants to code something to talk to Google Calendar? I needn’t have worried. There’s an API.
1340: Here’s the thing. Some people who have used Gmail will appreciate this. Searching through a gazillion mail messages in Gmail is faster than searching through local mailboxes on my computer, and Google does a better job of it too. Google Calendar feels almost the same - this is a webapp that outperforms almost all the desktop apps that came before it.
1356: Oooh, alerts. It’ll send me email, or pop up a browser window (hmm, might need to disable the popup killer first), or (in the USA, anyway) SMS me to alert me to something.
Friday
0900: Meeting with boss. Show him all this stuff. He might even like it.
1200: Team meeting. Here’s the plan. Everyone signs up for their own personal Google Calendar account, then creates a work-specific calendar within it which they make available to us via the sharing. The management team creates a shared account which they use as a “broadcast” mechanism for making announcements to everyone in the team. This is shared out to everyone too. When someone wants to book a meeting, they create an event and invite individuals, who simply use the invitation response system. People who need to can sync all this Google Calendar stuff with iCal or Outlook or even Lotus Notes if they have to. And they can grab an RSS feed for any calendar, which will work on any RSS reader on just about any platform or hardware. Nice.
1645: Boss says he’s not sure he can trust Google with all our team information. Loves everything about the app, loves the UI, loves the sharing stuff. Even thinks Google is a pretty cool company. But he’s not willing to hand over everything to them just like that. Same applies to any Google competitors we might have tried, like 30 Boxes. Project suspended.
1700: I was angry for a few minutes there, but I’ve calmed down and I can kind of see his point. There have been scare stories about Gmail accounts just disappearing into thin air, and the Google Terms & Conditions makes plain that they can’t be held responsible for disappearing data.
1730: What a week. I need a drink. What time is team drinks tonight? And where..?
- Software name: Google Calendar
- Maker: Google
- Price: Free
- Rating: out of 5
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Hilarious review. Thanks very much for sharing your findings.
I haven’t looked into very deeply, but couldn’t the worry about disappearing data and giving everything over to Google be overcome by using the API to back up your calendar data?
I too am loving Google Calendar. Only thing that burns me is that I can’t adjust notification details for all calendars (individual notification options are only adjustable for your single “primary” calendar). Once they fix that, I’m completely sold.
“People who need to can sync all this Google Calendar stuff with iCal or Outlook or even Lotus Notes if they have to”
..once I get this sorted, i’ll officially name this the best thing Google has released this week..
it’s impressive.
The best is the integration with iCal. Feels weird though, to leave the calendar public in order to have the posibility to sync it with iCal.
I like the style you wrote this review, it reminds on the way one can describe Personas like Microsoft did that once.
The core point for me is the way to C r e a t e E v e n t s. It’s really simple, just click on a day, type in the event and confirm. That’s what it should be. No dialog-window, no complex input fields. If you want to describe the event more detailed, you can also do this now using the link or later, opening the event again.
(Now) I know that iCal does it in the same way, but the way Google solved that in a webapp is quite nice.
I tried out a small redesign of the Manage Calendars function on my http://interfacedropbox.blogspot.com/
Feedback is welcome :)
Love the “Q” the best. Wish I could manually control invitation responses, i.e., when someone does not “follow the invite response rules properly” by just emailing a text response.
glta
Great job guys…
I love it! Its so great and easy to manage my dates from school, job and the private ones.
“…There have been scare stories about Gmail accounts just disappearing into thin air, and the Google Terms & Conditions makes plain that they can’t be held responsible for disappearing data…”
Surely there are similar risks to losing data stored on a in-house company server as with an online service? In keeping with what Rik Lomas said, how you backup your data is as important (if not more so) as where you store it - in my opinion.
I have experienced google paranoia and I sometimes feel reluctant to give them information about my life but the only other option is to store the iCal on my own server but so far I have yet to find a calendar web client to rival Google in terms of sharing amongst users etc.
Unless anyone can enlighten me?
You don’t have to make the calendar public to see it in iCal - just use the “private URL” to subscribe in iCal
I love Google Calendar, subscribe to all my calendars in iCal, only wish i could truly sync them.
Can anyone surmise the chances they’ll make this Palm Hot-Sync compatible?
[…] Vitamin - Nourishment to Help the Web Grow … I like the style you wrote this review, it reminds on the way one can describe Personas like Microsoft did … Continue […]
Hey,
It looks very nice and everything, but a major problem seems to browser compatibility! It doesn’t support Opera - a standards compliant browser. Now, that’s just annoying. What do you think of this?
Moneeb
Great topic. I was just getting ready to begin finding some tools to do the very same tasks.
The hard part after collecting the data is deciding what’s actionable and how.
[…] Read the Google Calendar review at Vitamin… read more | digg story […]
[…] Google Calendar is an immensely simple item with lots of nooks and crannies, as all good things are. Google can definitely chalk up several flops for itself on the great big board of internet-born losers, but its Calendar is surely not one of them. […]
[…] Paul Glazowski form Profy reviewed Google Calendar. His conclusion: Google Calendar is an immensely simple item with lots of nooks and crannies, as all good things are. Google can definitely chalk up several flops for itself on the great big board of internet-born losers, but its Calendar is surely not one of them. (No Ratings Yet) Loading … […]
two-way sync tool between Google Calendar and iCal: http://gcaldaemon.sourceforge.net
An alternative open source Google Calendar / Apple iCal sync tool:
http://jinsync.com
I haven’t been able to find a reliable sync to use with this and Lotus Notes. Any recommendations?
[…] Google Calendar is an immensely simple item with lots of nooks and crannies, as all good things are. Google can definitely chalk up several flops for itself on the great big board of internet-born losers, but its Calendar is surely not one of them. […]
[…] Google Calendar is the latest app to emerge from the Google factory, but is it just another calendar app or does it bring something new to the table? We took it for a test-drive.read more | digg story […]
The SMS functions works outside the US. I have my calendar notifying me and I am based in New Zealand.
Hi Giles. You need to use the premium edition. It has an SLA for your data. It will work just like outlook exchange within an office environment, sharing events and contacts on the domain.
[…] read more | digg story […]
Great account of testing GC. I use it but on a personal level with the family. Although as a much cheaper alternative to buying and implementing Exchange I would give it some serious consideration.
I to worry about the fine print that says they do not take responsibility for lost data. I have been using Gmail, GReader, GDocs and Gcalender for sometime now and have ZERO problems. I like being able to access my files from any internet capable computer.
Thanks for the write up very nice.
And don’t forget GooSync which, stupid name aside, let you sync your calendar with any SyncML compatible device (i.e. mobile phones, PDAs etc.) in both directions and for free!
I kinda wish they’d roll out the sms support to the rest of the world though.
google what
thank you
I think we’re moving to iCal server from Google calendars since we upgraded to Leopard.
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[…] Keeping track of all the things I do when I feel the need to “audit” how I am spending my time. There are all kinds of useful features available with Google Calendar, such as integration with Gmail, Managing invitations and reminders, supporting multiple calendars (e.g. one calendar for work, another for home), sharing calendars, etc. These benefits have been described elsewhere. Instead I wanted to discuss how I have synchronized my Google Calendar with my desktop calendar. […]
[…] Google Calendar, sua agenda para dominar o mundo - Fonte: Google Calendar - Vitamin Reviews […]
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