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Latest Lion build features iCal, iChat redesign
The latest Lion Developer Preview (released yesterday) features some cool new redesigns of a few of Mac OS X's built-in apps. First up is a completely redesigned iCal. The new iCal now closely resembles the Calendar app that you find on the iPad. It sports a leather header, complete with strips of torn away calendars. The overall look and feel of the new iCal, like its iPad counterpart, now closely resembles a physical desktop calender. Another redesign, though less noticeable than the new iCal UI, is an updated iChat UI that combines AIM, Jabber and Bonjour contacts together in one window. This is a welcome tweak, as iChat previously separated all your different contacts into separate windows. With the above changes, and the fact that Address Book in OS X Lion already got a similar overhaul so that it closely matches the Address Book app on the iPad, I wouldn't think it's too much to hope that Game Center for the Mac App Store and iBooks for OS X is too far off. [via 9to5Mac]
QuickCal for Mac: natural language events and todos for iCal
QuickCal has been one of my favorite ways to add items to iCal. It started with a Dashboard widget that let me use natural language to add calendar events. I loved it (actually wrote about it back in '09). Then it became an iOS app, QuickCal Mobile, and I was able to add entries with blazing speed while on-the-go, as well as view all of my upcoming appointments within the app. It currently has a place on my iPhone dock for instant access. Now, QuickCal is a desktop application, available in the Mac App Store, and it has some cool new capabilities. The natural language engine is pretty smart to begin with. You can type things like "Dr. appt 4p" and an event is created for today at 4:00pm titled "Dr. appt." You can also get more verbose, adding locations and start and end times. It does todo items, too. "todo - Get something done by wed" will add a task to iCal with a due date. That's not working for me in the current version, but I've seen video of it working splendidly in the upcoming 2.3 release. You set a default calendar to add to, but you can change the target calendar by typing part of the calendar's name in the entry box. It can run menubar only, dock only or both. You can also set it up to launch directly to entry mode and quit after you finish one event or todo. That's perfect if you just want to run it from Quicksilver or LaunchBar and not have it running permanently. The menubar offers a dropdown showing all of your upcoming appointments and todo items. You can click an entry to open it in iCal, but you don't really need to. You can see everything you need to -- and in the upcoming version you can also check off tasks and see priorities and days until due -- from that little icon up there. Once the new version is approved by Apple, it will actually turn iCal into a much handier todo list than it normally would be. Smart reminders automatically set alarms based on the distance away an event is, and the duration of the event. If you set a day long event for a month away, you'll get reminders at configurable intervals up to the date. If your new event starts in an hour, you can automatically set just a 15 minute alarm. You can turn this off, but it makes setting reminders a breeze. Sound good? Grab it fast, it's only US$.99 while the upcoming version is in review with Apple. It could be days, it could be hours ... who knows? But it's cheap right now, and handy for anyone who uses iCal.
New birthday icon for Calendar in iOS 4.2
The release of iOS 4.2 has brought us a nice little surprise in the form of the new icon shown in this post. If you're tracking birthdays in your Contacts application, those birthdays will appear in your iCal calendar with a little gift package icon. It's a nice little touch to the friendly organizer application, and it helps you visually spot that special day for your loved ones. No one's made a big deal about this being a new feature in iOS 4.2, of course, since it's such a small detail (much as the new Voice Memos icon is a small detail). But for those of us who rank reaching out to loved ones to say "Happy Birthday" as a priority in our to-do list, this little touch might be a favorite change in iOS 4.2. In order to set up this functionality, pull up the Contacts record for the person whose birthday you want to track. Select Edit in the upper right hand corner, scroll to the bottom and tap "add field." Then enter the birthday, and the date will show up in your calendar app. Updated to correct iCal/Calendar app mixup. Thanks to Ryan for the tip!
Alarms helps out with 'productive procrastination'
I started playing with a new app called Alarms yesterday, and it's already become indispensable to me. It's rare that something fits so perfectly into my workflow that I don't think twice about the space it takes up in my (already frighteningly crowded) menubar. What is it, you ask? It's an unobtrusive means of scheduling tasks on a timeline, seeing your upcoming tasks and taking care of things one at a time. Alarms isn't a replacement for a full-fledged task management system, but it's perfect for remembering to reply to emails that you aren't ready to tackle at the moment, honey-do items, turning the fish filter back on 10 minutes after feeding ... anything that just needs a gentle reminder at a specific time. Read on for more details.
TUAW's tips for gifting an iPad for Mother's Day
Still searching for that perfect Mother's Day gift for your mom or wife? Why not get her an iPad? Buy Mom a computer? You're kidding me, right? The iPad's versatility lends itself to some computer-like comparisons. And a natural response to this would be: "Who would want a computer for a Mother's Day gift? That's tacky." This would be similar to Al Bundy buying Peggy a bowling ball, only because he wanted it for himself. Except that it isn't just a computer. As a consumption device, the iPad can also be seen as an appliance. No matter where you put it, it doesn't seem too out of place, and blends in with its surroundings well. This versatility, coupled with its ease-of-use, could make it an ideal gift for mom. Now getting an iPad alone would be tacky. There's little thought behind it. Why not go the extra mile and customize an iPad for her? This will take some legwork, however. But who cares. This is for Mom, right?
Ask TUAW: Clocks, screen guards, MacBook hard drive replacement, NFS automount, and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we have questions about replacing a MacBook hard drive, refreshing a NFS mount, getting a simple clock on screen, improving iCal's note handling, and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Leave your questions for next week in the comments section at the end of this post. When asking a question, please include which machine you're using and what version of Mac OS X is installed on it (we'll assume you're running Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify), or if it's an iPhone-related question, which iPhone version and OS version you have.
iCalShare relaunches
After a long absence iCalShare.com has relaunched with new search tools and an improved user interface. iCalShare is a site dedicated to sharing calendars for use in applications like iCal, Google Calendar, or Outlook among dozens of other web and desktop apps. The site contains over 3,500 calendars across 40 different categories from Academics to Television. Calendars are free to download and can be used with any desktop or website application that can import iCalendar files. How it works: Just search the site for a calendar of your choosing, click "subscribe" and that calendar will automatically be added to your iCal. Since it's a subscription-based calendar, it will automatically update whenever the author edits the calendar. You can also create and share your own calendars on iCalShare for free after registering with the site. Whether you're a Harvard student, a DC Young Democrat, or a movie buff, there's a calendar for you. iCalShare was first launched in 2002 and spotlighted by Steve Jobs during his 2003 keynote speech. The site was created by Patrick Crowley, a technologist and long-time Mac user.
Ask TUAW: Silencing iPhone notifications, remote control a PC, printing over the internet, and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about controlling a PC over the internet, silencing iPhone email notifications at night, replacing a MacBook Pro SuperDrive with a hard drive, printing over the internet, setting iCal as the default calendar, and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Leave your questions for next week in the comments section at the end of this post. When asking a question, please include which machine you're using and what version of Mac OS X is installed on it (we'll assume you're running Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions.
Ask TUAW: Joystick as mouse, remote access, PC friendly zip files, and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about using a joystick as a mouse, remotely accessing a Mac from a PC, creating zip files without the Mac-specific metadata, replicating certain Windows features, and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine and which version of Mac OS X you're running (we'll assume you're running Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions.
Add Apple's free Backup.app to your backup toolbox
When most people think about Apple and backups they probably think about Time Machine or perhaps even Time Capsule. But Apple has a lesser-known application which you might consider using. The app, simply named Backup, was originally available only to .Mac users, but is now openly available on Apple's website. It lists "MobileMe account" as one of its requirements. If you do not have a MobileMe account, each backup is limited to 100 MB. The good news is that for what I am suggesting, 100 MB will be completely sufficient for most people. Follow along as I use Backup to create a complete and scheduled backup of personal data and settings on my Mac. First, install and launch the application. Choose Plan > New Plan from the menu. If you have a MobileMe account, choose the "Personal Data & Settings" option (second from the top), click the "Choose Plan" button, and then skip the next paragraph.
BusyCal is out and just as awesome as BusySync
Let's face it, data sync is the real Big Bag of Hurt in our brave, digital world. But since I started using BusySync over a year ago, much of my calendar sync issues have dissolved away. BusyCal, the successor to BusySync, was recently released and it is just as amazing as BusySync at keeping your iCal and Google Calendar data in sync. In fact, it is much, much better than BusySync because it is an iCal replacement. The idea is simple: you want to have 2-way sync between your iCal stuff, your Google calendar stuff and any local Macs. Simple, yes, but so complicated very few do it right. There's MobileMe if you stick with Apple's solution, and Google Sync if you are a devout Gmail user, but there's still the issue of 2-way sync when it comes to subscribing to calendars. And let's not forget that MobileMe data has to go to Apple's servers when you could sync between computers locally, right? BusySync fixed all of this for me. Local Macs used Bonjour to connect and sync, and my Google calendars appeared in iCal with seamless 2-way sync. Calendar data is a tricky thing, and the last thing you want to happen is to have all your appointments and reminders vaporize in an instant. However, I can report that BusyCal doesn't nuke anything. Like 1Password, you can always go back to Apple's default tools. Enter BusyCal as a full application. Why replace iCal? I have to admit, I was a little skeptical. BusyCal is iCal evolved, providing a better experience in several key ways. First, one feature I have longed for in iCal is a list view, a simple top-down view of every appointment within one or more calendars. This makes is much easier to make decisions about nuking an entire calendar at once, and is very handy if you have too many calendars or no time to go month by month, scanning for the right color or words. Second, there's a lot more UI finish to BusyCal, with easy-to-access panes for adjusting event info. Even Snow Leopard's iCal, which reduced the number of clicks it took to edit an event, doesn't allow you to edit events this easily. For you UIX geeks: a frickin' non-modal floating window OR an embedded entry window. What a concept! Adding to the ease there are some nifty extras, such as seeing your to-do's grouped logically or moon phases and the week's weather in your calendar. Of course, these options are all configurable, as is the Google sync option. More than nifty are features like rich text, adding images and stickies to events, a more advanced alarm window, and offline editing. BusyCal has, in less than 24 hours, become a mission-critical application for my Mac, both at home and at work. If you are a BusySync user, you can upgrade for $10, or buy new for $40 (per computer). It is well worth the price if you deal with lots of calendars. Be sure to check out our previous coverage here and here. I would also be remiss in pointing out Spanning Sync, which also syncs Address Book with your Google contacts, but works a bit differently.
Ask TUAW: Syncing, custom keyboards, sharing iPhone apps, and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got lots of questions about syncing, as well as customized keyboards, sharing iPhone apps, managing iTunes, and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions
First Look: Minimalist time tracking on Mac using Minco
Mauritius is a minimalist island nation in the Indian Ocean, and from that tiny set of spots on the map comes a new Mac time-tracking application for anyone who needs to keep track of how much time they spend on tasks. Minco, now in public beta from Celmaro, is a minuscule Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard app that works with any application that supports iCal. When Minco is launched, all you'll see is a tiny clock icon in the menu bar. Clicking the icon opens a glossy transparent black display that shows either the time you've spent on a project or the revenue you've gained from doing billable work on that project. Clicking on the time or revenue counter starts the counter, which then disappears from view. When you stop the timer, a new calendar item is placed into iCal so that you can keep track of how your day was spent. The iCal integration works the other way as well. Creating a To-Do item in iCal adds it to your Minco timer so that you can start tracking time. When you start up the timer, the iCal item shows up in your calendar with the phrase "...working" attached. Publishing that calendar could be used to show co-workers or clients what you're currently working on. If you want to keep a log of what you do during your work days, Minco also writes your time log to a standard .csv file that you can import into Numbers or Excel for analysis. The company is considering writing other export adapters, although the existing adapter is amazingly flexible. Celmaro provides a 14-day free trial download, and the software is available for US$9.95. I found it very unusual for a company to be charging for beta software, but then again, Minco is much more stable and usable than a lot of beta software I've used.
iCal all-day events causing MobileMe calendars to hiccup?
We received a tip from a frustrated reader this morning noting that when he published a calendar to MobileMe with iCal, it wasn't showing up if there were any all-day events in the calendar. I sorted through a few different examples and was able to verify that any calendar with 'all-day' events just doesn't publish. Of course, you'll end up with a URL, but it will go to Apple's default 404 page for Mobile Me. A quick browse through the Apple support discussions will tell you that it's not an isolated incident... the thread can be found here. We're being told that Apple is currently working on a fix for this problem, but we thought it would be a valuable heads-up for our readers. If you have to publish to MobileMe, we'd suggest removing 'all-day' events from your calendars (or changing them to fixed-duration events) until Apple fixes this issue. Thanks, Bob!
Snow Leopard and Microsoft Exchange first impressions
One of the things touted in this latest incarnation of Mac OSX was its ability to work with Microsoft Exchange using Apple's Mail, Address Book and iCal applications. Well, I'm happy to report that Snow Leopard does, in fact, work pretty well with Exchange 2007. Granted, this is only after limited testing, and it doesn't, as yet, work as well as Outlook for Windows, but it is a step in the right direction. One thing to consider before we go on is the fact that Snow Leopard will only play nicely with Exchange 2007 so if you don't have it or are not planning on having it, these new Exchange features in Snow Leopard won't work for you. You'll have the same access to Exchange 2003 from Mail (via IMAP) and Address Book that you did under Leopard. That said, these new features of Snow Leopard offer a nice alternative to using the previous version of Entourage or the new Web Services Edition. Fortunately, if you are running Snow Leopard and Exchange 2007, setup could not be easier. All you need to do is launch Apple's Mail and select "Preferences" from the "Mail" menu. Read on for more...
The iConcertCal app gets you to the show
iConcertCal is a new app for the iPhone that lets you track where and when all your favorite musicians are performing. Using some of the new features in the APIs of iPhone OS 3.0, it reads all the artists in the iTunes library of your iPhone, uses the built in GPS to find your location and then displays results dependent upon how far you are willing to travel. A while back we reviewed the non-iPhone version of iConcertCal which, acting as an iTunes visualizer, created an iCal calendar of the artists in your library while creating a separate calendar appearing when the visualizer is launched. This new app takes that technology and brings it to a new level. After setting a location either through "use my location", or choosing from a number of pre-set cities, and setting how many miles should be searched, finding a concert is a snap and can be done a number of ways. Choosing "My Shows" displays a day-by-day list of all matches found in your iTunes library. Choosing "All Shows" brings up a list of all concerts in your specified area, and tapping on "Venue" lists all music venues in your area along with how many shows are scheduled. Tapping on a venue, affords you a list of all of those concerts. When you find something you like, you have the option of buying tickets, which takes you to the authorized ticket seller site, emailing the information, bringing up a map to get you to the hall or getting transferred to the iTunes store to buy some of the artist's music. This alone is cool enough, but the best trick isn't immediately apparent. What happens if you have many songs on your computer that aren't on your iPhone? Or what happens if your largest iTunes library lives on another computer? They've got you covered. By going to their site on the computer containing your largest library, and setting up an account, all artists on that computer will be indexed. Next go to the app and use the same settings. Automatically all the artists on the computer will be transferred to the iPhone app whether or not the artists are on the iPhone, and that information will be used by the iConcertCal app. With over 60 gigs of music on my MacBook Pro and deciding to have my iPhone 3GS sync to my MacBook holding around 10 gigs of music, I authenticated my MacBook Pro and now the iConcertCal app shows me all the artists my the 60 gig library. Sweet! Take a look at the gallery of screenshots and see if you can figure out which band I'm seeing four times this week from seat DD 6. %Gallery-69003%
Beta Beat: BusyCal from BusyMac
The BusyCal public beta is out! I got a preview of BusyCal while at WWDC this year, and have been anxiously awaiting the chance to put it into action. As the developers state on the homepage: "Think of it as iCal Pro." The next step from the makers of BusySync, BusyCal offers a full calendaring system with Bonjour and Google Calendar sync, iPhone sync via iTunes or MobileMe, full read-write access for multi-user calendars, and a plethora of other features and goodies. Dated to-dos are embedded in the calendar, optionally carrying forward if not completed on their due date. You can add recurring to-do items with the same carry-forward functionality. There are customizable views, including sortable list views, plus shared sticky notes, customizable graphics, live weather and forecasts (with sunrise/set times and moon phases), all in an easy-to-grasp, iCal-like interface. If you've ever thought, "Gosh, I like iCal, I just wish it had about 20 more useful features and could sync across my LAN and the internet," take the public beta of BusyCal for a spin. BusyCal will cost $40US per computer, or $10/computer for BusySync owners. Doing the math, BusySync is $25, plus the $10 upgrade is $35, so you could save yourself $5 taking the upgrade path, even with a new purchase of BusySync.
Use iCal to tweet automatically
Recently, the question came up of how to automatically "tweet" a birthday message to a friend or loved one on their special day. After thinking on this question for some time I finally came to a solution. As it turns out, intrepid TUAW blogger Dave Caolo wrote a Mac 101 article all about attaching AppleScripts to iCal events. Additionally, Brad Linder over at Download Squad put together a nice little tutorial for posting to Twitter via the command line. It wasn't obvious at first, but these two articles together formed a dynamic duo of birthday tweeting proportions. If, dear reader, you are interested in setting up a system for sending out some birthday tweets then follow along as we travel the mysterious world of iCal events and command line tweeting. Read on for a somewhat technical tutorial on how to set up some pre-scheduled tweeting goodness. (If you're looking for a service to take care of all this for you, here you go.)
Mac 101: iCal calendar subscriptions
iCal has always been an elegant program. Though it has a "subscribe" function for public calendars, it hasn't always played nicely with other devices and other calendars. This limitation forced many a user to seek greener pastures elsewhere, like Google Calendar. Calendars created in Google's web app permitted a better cross-platform solution for home and mobile use, but made iCal clunky and hard to use, even when you only subscribed to your own Google calendars. Recently, Apple enabled CalDAV subscriptions on the iPhone (which also play well with Google Calendar); that made me dust off my copy of iCal and take a second look. If you're not using iCal at all, you may want to take a moment to learn about what you can do with it. The idea of calendar subscriptions is simple: store a calendar event database somewhere online, and then provide a link in a common format for calendar programs such as iCal to access. The calendar program then imports the calendar data and puts it in your calendar, updating itself at a frequency of your choosing. Online databases of public calendar links abound, and you can add calendars from your local little league schedule to stargazing guides to the galaxy in your area. The format that Apple uses is the "ics" format, and you'll see calendars with that extension all over the web.
Mac 101: iCal alarms
iCal is the calendar software that ships with every Mac. When combined with a MobileMe account, it's quite handy. In fact, iCal is the only calendar I use.New users are often unaware of how much iCal can do. In this post, I'll focus on the types of alarms you can create. With a few simple steps, you can go beyond a simple beeping message.First, create a new event. Simply double-click the proper time on the proper day and an hour-long event appears. Double-click the event, and the edit window appears. From here you can name your event, identify the location and duration (all day vs. timed), set repeat options and the target calendar if you maintain more than one (I don't). Now for the fun part. Below the calendar option you'll see "Alarm." Clicking it reveals several options: None (kind of self-explanatory) Message (presents a dialog box on your Mac and iPhone/iPod touch if synced via MobileMe) Message with sound (same as above with plus a system sound) Email (send an email message to a given address) Open file (Open a file on your Mac) Run Script (My favorite. See below) The first three are self-explanatory. When selecting a message and/or system sound, you have to option to display it minutes, hours or even days before or after the event. Likewise, you can chose any system sound you like.The email option is nice as well. For instance, once the mini at my day job has completed its daily task, I have it send me an email as a confirmation. As long as I see that message, I know that everything's A-OK. The option to open a file is handy, too. I'm using it to open a Keynote file right now, but you can have it launch a kiosk application, perhaps a broadcast app like Nicecast, etc. Finally is run script. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not Applescript pro, but even I see the powerful potential here: Have iCal run any script you can write up at any time. Awesome! Finally, you can set more than one alarm to an event. For example, display a message and send me an email, just to be sure I make that meeting.As you see, iCal can do much more than store your appointments. Now go be productive and have fun!
