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Google 'winding down' Labs, likely due to meddling older sister
Google Labs, that breeding ground for the wacky, sublime, and sometimes useful experiments that Mountain View's scooter-loving employees are so fond of, is getting ready to "wind down." The software giant announced today that the experimental forum for testing out potential features is being sidelined, in order for the company to focus on bigger picture ideas. Some of the more useful experimentation for properties like Calendar and Gmail will stick around, as will the Labs experiments that eventually made their way into the Android market. Google has promised to keep us all in the loop during the transition, so perhaps we can pick up a few secondhand test tubes for our own collections.
Blotter for Mac puts iCal on your desktop
Back when I was in corporate America, an annual tradition was to order new calendars for the desk. I preferred the "day at a glance" type, but many of my fellow wage slaves liked these large desk blotter calendars that displayed a full month. Now there's a Mac app from WireLoad, Blotter (US$9.99) that turns your iCal events and tasks into the electronic equivalent of the desk blotter calendar. Blotter After you purchase Blotter from the Mac App Store, an app icon appears in your Dock. I have enough icons in my Dock, so I usually drag 'em off, and that was the case with Blotter. Not to worry, though -- once you've launched Blotter, a tiny menu bar icon appears for setting preferences and creating new events and tasks. Blotter can be set to auto-launch at login, and that's the way it should be. The main feature of Blotter is the beautiful translucent calendar that appears on your Mac desktop. By default, it shows the current week, but can be set in preferences to show the seven days or only weekday dates. The current date is listed as a large number, with the month, year, and day of the week listed below. There's also a list of To Do items, as well as a "Right Now" mini-view showing the next four or five hours at a glance. I have my Blotter calendar set to fade out after 60 seconds -- a quick click on the menu bar icon brings it back to full intensity. %Gallery-127505% Blotter isn't meant to replace iCal. Instead, it is meant to work with iCal so that you don't need to actually open your calendar to look at it. It's always there on the desktop for you to see if you need it, much in the manner those desk blotter calendars were on our real desktops in the past, soaking up coffee spills and giving us a look at what was coming up in the next few days or weeks. If you use Google calendars, no problem -- as long as you're subscribing to those calendars in iCal, they'll show up on Blotter. The calendar can be set to take up a lot of screen real estate or a smaller area, and in the smaller views it is movable to various locations on your desktop. There's a "narrow" mode that displays just the date, To Do list, and the Right Now mini-view, but it seems to defeat the purpose of Blotter for me. On my 27" iMac I tend to always have a lot of windows open, so they obscure the view of Blotter and also defeat the purpose of the app a bit. However, it's possible to hide windows temporarily by pressing Command-H repeatedly while in the Finder, and that makes it very easy to hide windows very quickly, glance at the Blotter calendar, and then return to work without taking my hands off of the keyboard. Within the Blotter preferences, there is a setting for displaying all iCal calendars or just a selected few. One of the few negatives I see with this app is that for some reason, the color of one of my calendars -- which is orange in iCal -- came over as a sickly olive color in Blotter. The two main calendars (home and work) showed up in their proper colors. What about adding new events and tasks to the calendar with Blotter? The app would be worthless without this capability, and Blotter makes it as easy as either clicking on the menu bar icon and selecting New Event or New Task, or by setting up a keyboard shortcut. In either case, a small dialog appears for entering in the scheduling information on the fly. Conclusion Blotter is a very attractive Mac utility for displaying iCal events and tasks on otherwise unused space on your Mac desktop. I fear, though, that Blotter might be made obsolete by Lion. While testing the next version of Mac OS X, I've found it useful to place iCal in full-screen mode. From any screen, it's available with a gesture and a click; much faster and easier than clicking on my desktop and hitting Command-H until I can see Blotter. Still, the translucent Blotter calendar is much sexier than even the Lion calendar in full-screen. Apple should take some design cues from the Blotter developers for the future. Don't just take my opinion about Blotter. I've included a video review of the app by friend and frequent TUAW TV Live guest Doc Rock, who was the person who turned me onto this amazing utility.
Google Sync adds mail server search, appointment confirmation to native iOS apps
Google Sync has pushed Gmail messages, calendar updates, and contacts to iOS since its launch in 2009, but this half-baked solution previously lacked some key functionality. Beginning today, users can finally perform mail server searches and confirm appointment requests from their iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This means that you'll be able to search for messages in your entire mailbox, not just for emails stored on your device -- a feature that first appeared with iPhone OS 3, but without Google Sync support. You can also respond to calendar invites from within the Calendar app. Fancy that! A third update brings support for sending messages from other addresses listed in your Gmail account, though only the first two features worked when we took Sync for a spin this afternoon. (Curiously, Google omitted a "Send Mail as" screenshot on its blog, so this last update may not actually be available yet.) This latest trio of updates is available for both gratis and Google Apps accounts, so head to the source link for set up instructions and the full feature rundown.
Google adding Netflix, Hulu support, offline Gmail, Calendar and Docs to Chrome OS this summer, prices hardware at $20 per month
Google's currently in the process of detailing Chrome OS' latest improvements and there are a couple of big 'uns: Netflix and Hulu support will be available right out of the box for the pair of new Chromebooks -- one from Samsung and one from Acer. An improved file manager has also been added to the upcoming version of Chrome OS, plus offline versions of Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs -- all will be made available for Chromebook users this summer. You can learn more about these improvements in the video after the break. Far more monumental, Google's also just announced the cost of these Chromebooks and there's no upfront payment to speak of. Instead, Chrome OS laptops will be distributed on the basis of a recurring monthly subscription, which will cost $28 per user for businesses and $20 per user for schools. That includes regular software and hardware upgrades. Hardware as a service, folks! %Gallery-123369%
TUAW's Daily Mac App: CalendarBar
For most office-bound people, checking their calendar is one of the biggest chores of the electronic world. On the Mac, we've got many great options for managing calendars, including iCal, but what about a fast way to check your schedule from your desktop? That's where CalendarBar comes in. This little gem of a Mac app sits in your menu bar, ready to tell you what's coming up at a moment's notice. Click the icon, and a menu showing all your up-and-coming appointments and important dates drops down for easy viewing. CalendarBar will integrate with iCal, meaning you can view any calendar you can sync with it. Even if you're not an iCal user, CalendarBar can connect with Google Calendar and even Facebook for events and birthday integration. Clicking an entry will launch the appropriate application and take you to that specific event. In iCal's case, it'll launch and bring up the properties for the event. For things such as a birthday reminder from Facebook, CalendarBar will launch your default browser and show you the person or event of interest. Tasks from iCal are also displayed, with the ability to limit them to a set time period and clear them right from CalendarBar. Reminders can be sent via Growl. The menu bar icon can show you the current date or display the number of calendar entries. The drop-down menu also has extensive customization options, with the font, style, width and dates all adjustable. If you're someone who has all their dates, meetings, birthdays and reminders plugged into an electronic calendar, and you need fast at-a-glance access, then CalendarBar is an absolute no-brainer. It's small, simple, slick and fast for US$4.99.
Samsung WiFi-enabled RF4289 fridge cools, eats and tweets; we go hands-on
Other brands may view networked fridges as the key to going green, but it seems Samsung is more interested in letting users access Pandora or tweet while grabbing a snack. At least that's the impression we got from its staff while playing with the RF4289 fridge at CES, which the brand touts is the first of its kind to feature integrated WiFi. To be fair the unit provides a few pragmatic features too like the ability to view Google calendars, check the weather, download recipes from Epicurious, or leave digital notes -- though we'd have been more impressed by functions such as remote temperature adjustment or food spoilage alerts. We also found that the stainless steel exterior made reading the 8-inch LCD touchscreen screen difficult from more than a few feet away. Otherwise, further details on the software and definite pricing are nonexistent at this point, but we do know the appliance will be available to cutting-edge Canadians sometime in May. For more details check out shots of the UI in the gallery below, and hit up Samsung's vague press release after the break. %Gallery-113980%
Fluid lets you embed webpages as your desktop or in menu bar
I refer to my calendar a lot during the day, but I don't always have my calendar program running. Most of the time I just want to glance at something to confirm the time/date of an upcoming event, or just double check a date: "What is the last Sunday in May? Oh right, the 30th." It occurred to me today that I could make life a little easier if I could have my calendar embedded in my Desktop. Those of you who remember Microsoft Windows' "Active Desktop" feature may shudder in fear at the idea because, at least in my experience, Active Desktop was a complete and utter disaster. It never worked well, if you could get it to work at all. There are extremely geeky ways of doing this but MacOSXHints.com had a simple solution I didn't even know was possible: Fluid.app. Now I've used Fluid.app for a long time, but I never knew what the "Embedded SSB" or "MenuExtra SSB" actually did. Turns out that either of them are a potential solution, not just for calendars, but for any web page. [Editor's Note: Fluid just recently went open source, and though the blog hasn't been updated yet, we're told the SSB creator is now open source as well.]
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Google brings Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and Talk out of beta (updated)
Guess what, internoodle? Google Apps is officially out of beta. Do you know what that means? It means that Gmail, Docs, Calendar, and Talk are losing that "beta" signage / language you've come to know and loathe. It also seems to mean that Google will be taking a much more direct and serious approach to courting businesses for its Apps suite. At first blush, it looks like the company has all but squashed the "Standard Edition" free hosted Apps package that many now use, though that isn't the case (yet). We say "all but" because while it looks like the pro bono package has been zapped out of existence by the magic raygun of capitalism, a tiny link to the service still exists on an arcane page buried deep in the casefiles of one T. Google Merryweather III. Or just Google. To be completely clear, however, regular old Gmail will still be freely available to anyone and everyone who wants a crack at it. At any rate, you'll be happy to know that the beta tag will be scuttled later today, and you can start getting righteously mad at Google for not taking care of their proper, released products immediately. Now maybe they can get to coding up nice native versions of Gmail for the iPhone and webOS... eh?Update: The folks at Google, bless 'em, have posted a quick note on their blog stating explicitly that the Standard version of Apps isn't going anywhere. In their words, "We have no intention of eliminating Standard Edition, and we apologize for any confusion." Nice!
Gmail gets pushed to select BlackBerrys
There's a new push purveyor on the mobile scene, come to show the competition what's what -- despite being completely dependent on that competition, at least for the moment. Hot on the heels of RIM adding a push API, Google is enabling some BlackBerry users to get their Gmail and Google Calendar goodies shoved straight to their handsets. However, there are a number of shortcomings here that make this addition somewhat limited in usefulness. For one thing users have to be connecting to BlackBerry Enterprise Server instances, and furthermore those instances have to be backed by Microsoft Exchange. Additionally, only 250 users per Enterprise Server instance can get their mobile Gmail on, changes made to appointments on a handsets cannot be pushed back to Google Calendar, and to top it all off searching for Gmail messages still requires a separate app. Updates and improvements are coming, but until then it's caveat emailor.
Gmail gets pushed to select BlackBerries
There's a new push purveyor on the mobile scene, come to show the competition what's what -- despite being completely dependent on that competition, at least for the moment. Hot on the heels of RIM adding a push API, Google is enabling some BlackBerry users to get their Gmail and Google Calendar goodies shoved straight to their handsets. However, there are a number of shortcomings here that make this addition somewhat limited in usefulness. For one thing users have to be connecting to BlackBerry Enterprise Server instances, and furthermore those instances have to be backed by Microsoft Exchange. Additionally, only 250 users per Enterprise Server instance can get their mobile Gmail on, changes made to appointments on a handsets cannot be pushed back to Google Calendar, and to top it all off searching for Gmail messages still requires a separate app. Updates and improvements are coming, but until then it's caveat emailor.
Exporting guild calendars from the Armory
Reader Bob sent us a neat little tool a while back that will help you get your guild's calendar off of The Armory and on to another calendar program, like Google Calendar or iCal. This little script he built (which unfortunately will probably get beat up as soon as this post goes live, so give it a break if it's down) will give you a link for your guild's calendar, which you can then take over to Google Calendar (in the Other Calendars box, click Add, and then "Add by URL") or any other calendar service that accepts ICS data by URL, and put all of your guild's raids and events right into the calendar app that you actually use every day.However, there are a few hitches. Because the information you need lies on the Armory, you'll have to enter a Battle.net password into your calendar app to access that (which as Bob says, should be fine, but if you don't trust it, don't do it). Also, Blizzard is apparently not that happy with people accessing this data on the Armory either -- they've removed links to scripts like this off of the forums before. It's probably not a bannable offense (they probably just don't want tons of calendar queries into the Armory's servers), but if you try to connect this stuff together, you'll do it at your own risk.Still, it's a shame Blizzard isn't more open with this guild data -- it would be extremely useful to easily export guild information out to an .ICS file or even an RSS feed (for bank and join/quit info). We're not sure what all of their concerns are, but given that the info is already updated on the Armory, there has to be a way to more easily get it out of there and into more places where we can use it.
New Mobile Google Calendar on the iPhone too
Hot on the heels of the new version of Gmail Mobile for the iPhone comes a new mobile version of Google Calendar leveraging some of the same technology. The previous iteration was frustratingly feature-poor, allowing you only to view your appointments and add new ones using a natural language interface which could be frustrating with the iPhone's keyboard. Thankfully the new version has a more typical appointment entry screen. Better appointment entry is nice, but the big new features in the new version of Google Calendar for the iPhone are the ability to edit existing appointments, invite other people to events, and the ability to manage appointment invitations and attendance statuses. Although the official announcement on the Official Google Mobile Blog inexplicably downplays it, Google Calendar now has a modicum of offline functionality on the iPhone and Android phones. Now even if you have no network connection it can still show you appointments that you've previously viewed, though you can't edit them. Hopefully this matures into a true offline capability in future versions, but it's sure nice to know that you can get to your appointments if you need to when you're without a network connection.
SEVEN brings Google Calendar to legions of handsets
Mobile software vendor SEVEN may not be bringing any huge news to Vegas, but it's still making a small-to-medium sized splash by delivering Google Calendar access to millions of handsets. The access is being delivered via an update to the company's Integrated Mobile Messaging Platform, and any current mobile supported by SEVEN can take advantage. The improved calendar access is an extension of SEVEN's true push technology, and aside from giving users the ability view calendar requests, it also gives 'em the ability to update their calendar, create and delete appointments and more -- right on their phone. We'll be hitting the floor at CTIA to see what the fuss is all about, so be sure to keep it locked for more.
BusyMac announces BusyCal
BusyMac, makers of the awesome BusySync, has just announced its newest offering: BusyCal. BusySync is a great way to share and sync calendars across a LAN and sync with Google Calendar. BusyCal is a calendar application with the BusySync technology baked in. The screenshots have BusyCal looking very iCal-esque (BusyMac's website even says to think of BusyCal as "iCal Pro"), but with some additional features: Display graphics, icons and themes Add sticky notes to your calendar and share them across your network Live weather feeds within the calendar Rich text support Multi-user editing/offline editing Sync with the iPhone via iTunes and Mobile Me Sync with Google Calendar Sync with other Macs on your network with Bonjour So the inevitable question is, "Why not just use BusySync or Google's Calaboration utility?" Because iCal's To Do lists don't work with Google Calendar. Specifically, you can't create a To Do for a calendar that is set to sync with Google Calendar. So if you are like me, that means you have to maintain separate calendars (often an identical calendar) just to keep a To Do list or have a calendar integrated with a GTD app. The beauty of BusyCal is that you can add more stuff to your desktop calendar without losing support for MobileMe or Google Calendar or Sync Services. BusyCal will require OS X 10.5 Leopard and will debut this Spring. Pricing is $40 US, but if you use BusySync already or buy it before BusyCal is released, the upgrade will be just $10 US. BusyMac is at Macworld 2009 and we'll be sure to stop by the booth and take a closer look.
CalDAV support comes to Google Calendar
I'm a pretty big user of Google Calendar, because I like how I can automatically sync it with my BlackBerry. The problem for me has been that on my desktop, I really prefer iCal's interface. Syncing the two can be cumbersome. We've written about third-party programs that can sync iCal and gCal together in the past, and although those are great -- I have still wanted a native way to sync the two calendars together.Well, fortunately, Google has just quietly introduced CalDAV support to Google Calendar. CalDAV is the protocol that iCal uses to transmit data over the web. Although some other mail and calendar programs support CalDAV, right now Google Calendar is only compatible with iCal. Finally, iCal and Google Calendar can sync without having to use third party programs!After following Google's detailed instructions, you can add your Google calendar account to iCal. Any changes you make in iCal will be transferred over to Google and appear in Google Calendar within about 15 minutes. Likewise, any changes made in gCal will be updated immediately from iCal. If you use a BlackBerry, which also syncs directly with gCal, those changes will be updated on all sides as well.So does this mean that third-party syncing utilities have no place? Well, just based on my initial tests this morning, they are safe for at least a little while. Although sync support works perfectly, you have to create a new calendar account for each individual calendar you want to access. Additionally, if you have a calendar called "Home" on your Mac and a different calendar called "Home" in gCal, you can't just sync those two together. You'll need to either import all your iCal data into Google first, and then sync with the new calendar, or transfer the information over from one calendar to the other within iCal. Programs like BusySync and Spanning Sync allow syncing of designated calendars with one another.Still, this is a huge step in the right direction and I'm just happy that I can import my mobile calendar onto my desktop without having to run a background utility. CalDAV support for Google Calendar requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard's version of iCal. The Google Calendar service is free.Thanks to everyone who sent this in.[via Google Operating System]
Linden public events calendar announced ... then pulled
Corr Linden today posted the announcement of a Google Calendar on the official Linden Blog today. The posting remained up long enough to hit the public feeds and the Web newswires, and to start attracting user comments before the post was yanked from the site. It was up long enough for the post (though not the comments) to be cached and copied nearly everywhere, so here's the link to the calendar if you missed it. At present it only seems to contain Linden staff in-world office hours. We've no idea at this stage why the post was yanked. It doesn't seem to contain any secrets, sinister or otherwise. You can add the calendar to your Google Calendar account by adding PublicEvents@lindenlab.com.
BusySync 2.0 Public Beta
The BusySync 2.0 public beta is now open. We've blogged about BusySync 2.0 before (and we even managed to snag an interview with the developer during Macworld this year), so no doubt you are aware of the big ticket item: bidirectional syncing between iCal and Google Calendar.When BusySync 2.0 leaves beta it will cost $24.95, which is a $5 increase to the price, however, if you buy it now you get the old $19.95 price (and users of BusySync 1.5 get the upgrade for free).Thanks, Benni.
Show floor video: BusySync
BusyMac had a good thing going with BusySync 1 and 1.5: seamlessly share and edit calendar info across your home or business LAN using iCal. Version 2 (due next month) features sync via the cloud-- so you can sync a work and home computer, even if you don't work at home. There's also Google Calendar support in BusySync 2, which could be the holy grail many of us have been looking for. Mike does a quick run through in the video.
BusySync 2 to include Google Calendar to iCal capability
If you're iCal-based for your scheduling needs and you want to share calendars with family or colleagues, you're probably already hip to BusySync and the delights of iCal syncing Mac-to-Mac without a .Mac account. Now the BusySync team has announced a key feature for 2.0, shipping in February: Google Calendar synchronization. You should be able to share calendars across the internet with other Google Calendar users, and if they have BusySync on their machines the Gcal data will slide neatly into iCal for them.BusySync 2.0 will ship for $24.95 per computer, a $5 price increase -- if you buy a BusySync 1.5 license today for $19.95, you can upgrade for free to the new version. There's also a public beta on the way if you want to check it out.
Google calendar receives an iPhone makeover
Google has released their iPhone makeover for Google Calendar. It's pretty nice. Simply point your iPhone to calendar.google.com and sign in. You'll see each of your color-coded calendars displayed in a iPhone-friendly layout. Touch any day to view its details, and move from day to day with the navigation buttons at the bottom of the page. I did notice one problem. The "Quick Add" field is at the bottom of the page, and when I touched it to enter some text, the iPhone's keyboard rose to cover it, so I couldn't see what I was typing until I had hit "Done." I'm sure this will get fixed before long, but until then, brush up on your iPhone keyboarding skills.[Via David Chartier. Hm, that name's familiar...]
