calendar

Bumping up security, stability, and adding a few new features, Microsoft's Mac Team announced on their blog today that the first major update for Office for Mac 2011, dubbed Service Pack 1, will be available for download next Wednesday. The major new feature will enable syncing from Microsoft's Outlook to Apple's Sync Services.

Calendars, contacts, notes, and tasks will all be available for syncing to any Apple device, including iPads, iPhones, and iPods. One limitation to be aware of, according to the announcement on the Microsoft Mac Team blog:

Calendar and to-do list applications are incredibly common, so a program of this type has to be really special to stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately, SimBust Calendar Manager Lite doesn't do much to distinguish itself. The program works just fine, but there's nothing about it that really impressed us.

The program's interface is plain and a little dated, with standard-issue menus and icons across the top. The main pane displays a calendar view. Another pane displays a to-do list, and a third lists folders that to-do items are stored in. The only thing remotely useful or … Read more

Ever feel like the stock iOS Calendar app has room for improvement? Like, a lot of room? It's a pretty rudimentary tool, without so much as a week view or the option to sync with Google Calendar.

Needless to say, there are alternatives. I've rounded up three apps that make scheduling and agenda management a whole lot easier. Take a look:

Calendars Readdle's Google Calendar client ($6.99) does it all, syncing with all your calendars and letting you manage them both online and offline. It features day, week, month, and list views, drag-and-drop event management, and one-tap appointment creation. My only complaint with the app is that it's slow at times, but if you're a GCal user, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better solution.

Cozi Family Organizer Cozi is a Web-based calendar manager for families. It's pretty awesome--and so is this companion app. Although the calendar limits you to a list view, it effortlessly stays in sync with the Web version, thus giving you a color-coded, at-a-glance look at who's doing what and when. For busy families, there's no better solution. The app is free, just like the service, and it's available for Android as well (great for cross-platform families).… Read more

Back in November, I tested out NudgeMail, a program that could come to the rescue of any swamped-but-purportedly-organized individual. The beauty of the service is in its simple and straightforward ability to turn any e-mail client into a reminder system, without any registration, plug-ins, or widgets to toy with. Today, NudgeMail is attempting to take easy organization to the next step by pairing up with Google Calendars.

So how does it work? Again, simplicity is key in this relationship. Just send an e-mail to a date (and time, if you so desire) @nudgemaul with the activity in the subject line. … Read more

Repeatedly entering dates or times into documents can be a tedious task, not to mention one that is prone to errors. Calendar is a simple application that can copy the date and time to your clipboard, making it easy to quickly and accurately enter it anywhere you want.

The program's interface is basic and fairly intuitive; it displays a small calendar with a few menus above it and two buttons--one showing the date that's been selected on the calendar, the other showing the current time--below. To copy the date or time, simply click the appropriate button, and the … Read more

A number of iOS users have found that their calendar alarms seem to have stopped working today. This issue has caused a few to wonder if any alarms would work, but Apple Spokesperson Natalie Harrison mentioned to MacWorld that the problem is expected to resolve itself on Monday.

The specific issue only affects nonrecurring alarms, so people can just enable the alarm as a recurring event for it to work as expected. The problem is expected to only be for the first couple of days in January, and alarms set on Monday or later should be functioning properly.

Do not … Read more

Google Calendar is a handy Web-based appointment manager that lets you access your data anywhere you can access Google, which is pretty much everywhere these days. Google Calendar Checker is a free extension for Google's free Web browser, Chrome. It lets you access your Google Calendar page from Chrome with a click.

Installing extensions in Chrome is simply a matter of opening the download page, clicking the link, and allowing Chrome to open and install the software. Google Calendar Checker placed an icon with the rest of our extensions on the right end of the Chrome toolbar. Clicking it … Read more

The synchronization features of iCal are exceptionally useful for keeping calendars in sync on different computers and mobile devices; however, there may be times when problems with the synchronization occur, resulting in more than one copy of the same event being distributed to all devices. Sometimes this happens only with one device, in which case the fix can simply be resetting and resyncing that device; however, at other times it may be impossible to identify the root of the problem.

In this case, the easiest solution is to reset the calendar synchronization data on all but one master device, set … Read more

Calendars and computers go together like bread and butter. Calendar Magic from EuroSoft is the best program we've seen for applying computing power to datekeeping. It can display virtually any calendar system known to science or history. How many calendar programs offer the French Revolutionary calendar; four Hindu calendars; two Balinese calendars; and Julian, Coptic, Hebrew, Yoruba, Ethiopian, Chinese, Baha'i, Bangla, and many other systems? Or can display Christian, Islamic, Jewish, and other holidays, feast days, and significant dates for any year in any calendar system? And save notes, post reminders, and offer 26 extra utilities that do … Read more