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Screencast of endo's ability to handle event feeds
The endo blog today linked a well-produced screencast (.MOV link) of endo's ability to handle event feeds, an RSS microformat. The screencast walks through endo's feed discovery, pin-pointing a specific event feed from a blog, and then endo's ability to add these events to iCal, complete with a choice of which calendar receives the event.This is a really slick and powerful feature that I haven't seen in other newsreaders, not even the mammoth NetNewsWire. Kudos to Adriaan (endo and ecto's developer) for being on the cutting edge.
Hack iCal to present alarms through Growl
If you're a Growl fanatic, or maybe iCal's alarms just aren't cutting it for you, a forum thread at cocoaforge might provide you with some options for getting iCal and Growl to shake hands. Discussion has included various methods of using AppleScript, hacking the innards of iCal and even replacing the GUI option of emailing a reminder with sending it to Growl. Either way, it doesn't sound like any of the methods are for the meek of heart, so if you don't feel like digging around in application bundles and AppleScript, you might want to wait for a prettier solution.[via Hawk Wings]
Children's Week: Starting Tomorrow!
Starting this Tuesday and lasting for a week, Children's Week allows you to temporarily adventure around Azeroth with an orphaned child. We'll see what exactly the quests and events are (and whether they're any different from last year's) tomorrow when the event opens!
Quicksilver plug-ins for Google Calendar and Gmail
While tinkering in Quicksilver's plug-ins panel this morning I came across two new plug-ins that should fit right in with my new Borg Google-infused daily activities: a Gmail Module and a Google Calendar Module. Both are actions that allow you to type in a string of text, then select either of these modules as an action, and off you go.The Google Calendar module seems to use their Quick Add syntax for adding events. For a quick tutorial on this: invoke Quicksilver and then hit period so you can begin entering plain text. Enter something like "Apple Store Opening Saturday 10 am," then hit tab to move to Quicksilver's second pane to chose an action. If you have the Google Calendar module installed, the action is titled "Google Calendar Event" (using 'gcal' works just fine for me). Hitting enter will send the event, and for bonus points, if you have Growl installed and Quicksilver using it to give notifications, you'll receive a Growl alert upon successful completion.The Gmail module (pictured) allows you to compose a message (or at least part of one) using the same method as both the Google Calendar and Mail.app compose actions. Once you type some text, tab over to chose the Gmail action, you'll receive a 3rd pane that allows you to specify an Address Book contact to send to. Hitting enter will create a Gmail compose window with all the information you chose from Quicksilver already inserted. Awesome.
So long iCal, hello Google Calendar
Call me crazy, but I think Google is using some kind of mental suggestion on me while I sleep, as I am slowly falling for their products one by one (maybe I should shut my Mac off at night so they can't get to me?). I've been hanging out at Google News more often, I haven't started Mail.app in almost a week in favor of Gmail, and now iCal has been kicked out of my Dock in favor of a Quicksilver trigger that takes me straight to Google Calendar.That's right, as a .Mac customer and lover of 3-plus years, I am tossing iCal and its syncing ability aside for the innovative and ultimately easier to use beauty that is Google Calendar. Sharing calendars and events is so much simpler on the gCal side of the fence, especially since the invited guests can leave comments on the event right at Google Calendar without the need for some obnoxious service like Evite.More to the meat of the matter, Google Calendar's 'Quick Add' takes the chore out of adding an event to my schedule, inviting me to do it a little more often to make I stay all the more on top of things. In gCal, I can hit the letter 'q' to open a small dialog box into which I can type an event name, time and date almost as if I were telling someone about it in an email: 'dinner with Jessi 6 pm 4/22' adds the event right where it should go. As icing on the Quick Add cake, date spanning works too: 'Half Life 2 Therapy Camp April 22-24' creates an event that spans properly. No obnoxious tabbing around to set dates and times right, and no mousing to drag little event boxes. Call me crazy, but I'm starting to believe that some desktop app developers could learn a few things from this kind of simplicity that is found in many of today's web-based apps and services.Google Calendar's multiple and customizable notification features sealed the deal for me. Email, SMS and popping up the browser window (if gCal is open) are all available for various notification types like events, new, changed or canceled invitations, replies to invitations and even a daily agenda email reminder that sends you a roundup of the day's events. Hawk Wings points to a blog post by Jeff Hobbs who puts it quite nicely: "it’s like Google just hired a personal secretary for everyone on Earth." Sweet, I've always wanted a secretary. Unfortunately, there is one seriously lacking feature in Google Calendar's 'secretary factor': as of yet, there is no 'pick up a latte from Starbucks' option. Maybe someone can whip up a Greasemonkey script or plug-in?Caffeine addictions aside, you can top this all off with the 'access and edit from anywhere' factor since Google Calendar is web-based, and Gmail automatically parses email for events to add to Google Calendar (*ahem* iCal/Mail.app engineers!), and I'm already forgetting what iCal looked like.
Drag and drop calendar items from Entourage to iCal
I don't know how long this secret affair has been going on, but apparently MacOSXHints caught a calendar event from Entourage sneaking over to iCal! Mmhm, that's right. Allegedly, it's possible to drag and drop *gasp!* a calendar event from Entourage right onto the iCal window.While it sounds like the event will retain all of its information, I'm not sure if that includes an alarm, if set. The event will also default to being an hour long once dropped onto iCal, so depending on your workflow and your typical schedule, this might or might not be handy.
WWDC Student Scholarship Program now open
TUAW reader Nolan B noticed that ADC (Apple Developer Connection) student members can now apply for a scholarship to WWDC 2006, Apple's annual World Wide Developer Conference, being held August 7-11 this year in San Francisco. Scholarship winners receive a free ticket which includes total access to all technical sessions and special events - a $1595 USD value in all.Applications are due April 28th, so you'd better get crackin'. Check out the scholarship rules and WWDC FAQ sections for more information, and then wait patiently until June to find out if you'll be attending WWDC on Apple's dime.
Create clickable URL/file events in iCal
MacOSXHints has a slick tip on creating clickable iCal events that are either URLs or links to files. Sure, you can add a URL to an event's description, but with this simple method you can create an event itself that is click-able from iCal's main day/week/month calendar view.All you need to do for a URL is either drag it (or its icon) from a browser's address bar onto a time slot in iCal, or add a URL to an event's title and surround it with carrots like this, sans-quotes: "." To create a click-able link to a file, you'll need to use a web browser (such as Firefox) to surf your file system, then simply drag a file or folder from the browser into iCal in the same way as a URL. Don't try it with Safari, as it apparently doesn't do local file/folder surfing.This has already has become a darn handy tip for me, as I constantly add URLs to iCal events for upcoming local shows, and this takes one step out of the "so what is the site again?" process. The one thing I haven't tested yet is whether these would be click-able in iCal's pop-up reminder window. Anyone?
