I realized a trend yesterday, when Brenda and I agreed that we were going to drop Apple’s iCal and start working my calendar exclusively on the web. That was not an easy decision. iCal is good. However, the frustrations of managing a single calendar from three computers (her iBook, my desktop Mini, and my PowerBook) — and added to that the extreme difficulties of getting the calendar over to my Moto Q smartphone simply meant that something had to be done differently.
We tried Yahoo’s calendar first, because I could bring up single day displays of it with the web browser on the phone. But when I discovered that the ical format calendar that exports from Google’s Calendar imported beautifully and quickly into the Moto Q, the deal was sealed. So iCal’s out, and Google Calendar is in.
Over the past several months, I’ve been running a Google Mail account in conjunction with david@landmark-project.com. However, when I moved my web sites over to the dedicated server, running a separate POP mail account became a challenge — for me, not the techs who use to handle all of that with the shared hosting services I was using. I’m not a techie. I’ve said that before. I don’t want to learn to manage a POP server. So, now, I’m david.warlick@gmail.com. Brenda is brenda.finley@gmail.com. What can I say. I got a court order. It’s legal.
The added plus of Gmail, is that it works beautifully through the web browser of the Moto Q. It isn’t as slick as the mail client that came with the phone. But it is pretty darn reliable.
Finally, the browser. Safari’s been ditched for a long time. Don’t get me wrong. Safari is by far faster, cleaner, and easier to use than anything else. I can hear to ding of those web pages slapping against the glass of my LCD display. But those open source extensions! It makes FireFox a toy — and you know what they say about boys.
I’ve recently switched almost exclusively to Flock. The flickr and del.icio.us integration are great, but it’s simply being able to hit CMMD B and start typing my blog that’s too cool for school. I even figured out how to have the text read to me — but I don’t remember how I did it   :-/
Anyway, the world continues to be connected — as my Dock gets leaner.
technorati tags:warlick, mac, apps, gmail, gcal, firefox, flock
Blogged with Flock
I have been using Flock for some time now. I had to quit blogging with it because it would constantly have errors with my Blogger accounts. Have you noticed any errors like that?
I just gave Flock another shot and it went down in a blaze of glory. It’s a cool idea, but I miss having folders to put all my bookmarks in.
David, as for your calendar, check out my Furl section on iCal solutions here or check out 30 Boxes
I suggest PHP iCalendar if you have any kind of technical know how to get it up and running. I know my server, Dreamhost, has a quick one click install.
~Kyle~
iCal will undoubtedly be updated and play better with others over the next few months.
I like Camino an awful lot as a browser.
Wait until the first time you open up an e-mail in g-mail about meeting someone for dinner some place at some time and g-mail asks if you would like to add it to your calendar? It will automatically create a new appointment for dinner at that time, that place, and with that person.
Sure, g-mail reads all my mail, but they do such cool things with it!
I started using Flock after watching you use it at the SC Ed Tech Conference this past October. The things I like about it are the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds easily, the built-in spell checker, and the Flickr support which helps me in a variety of ways. I have not bothered with IE 7 and I am also adding it to the machines in the school where I serve as Technology Integrationist.
Dave:
Wait until I show you some stuff with Gmail this weekend in Monterey!
It’s is very, very cool!
Kyle Brumbaugh