Some users on the other hand may not have an Android or iOS smartphone that they can sync their events with. Those users can however configure Google Calendar to send SMS notifications to their phone. This needs to be set up before the option becomes available.

Setting up Google Calendar SMS notifications

Open the Google Calendar website and locate the options button in the upper right corner of the screen. Click on it and select settings from the context menu.

Switch to the Mobile Setup tab in the Calendar Settings menu. It should display the message that phone notifications are currently disabled for the computer. To enable them, you need to enter your mobile phone number and country into the form on the page. Once you have done that you click on send verification code to receive an SMS code that you need to enter on the same page to finish the setup.

It is not clear why Google is not using the existing mobile phone number, or even suggests to use it. Carrier costs may apply, and a link leads to the supported carriers.

Once done you are taken to notifications where you can configure SMS notifications for the following event types.

• New Events: Receive a notification when someone sends you an invitation to an event.
• Changed events:Receive a notification when someone sends an update about a changed event.
• Canceled events:Receive a notification when someone sends an update about a cancelled event.
• Event responses:Receive a notification when guests respond to an event for which you can see the guest list.

It is not possible to configure SMS notifications for the Daily agenda though.

Each calendar has its own notification settings, and you may want to check the calendars listing to make sure they are all set up correctly.

Please note that this changes are valid for each calendar. Some users may want to configure SMS notifications only for specific events, and not all of their events in the Calendar. This is done by editing events directly. If the event exists, click on it and select edit event from the options.

Locate the reminders entry and switch from Pop-up to SMS there.

And that’s how you configure SMS notifications in Google Calendar. Have anything to share, success stories or stories where this did not work at all? Then post a comment below.

Probably better than that is the integration of Google Calendar information into the Lightning add-on as it integrates better with Thunderbird. The requirements are the following: You need Thunderbird 8 or later at the moment as Lightning is only compatible with that version of the email client currently. The developers however have stated that the next version of Lightning will again support previous versions of Thunderbird as well. Lastly, you need a Google account with Google Calendar enabled as a service.

Installing Lightning

Install Lightning in Thunderbird by dragging and dropping the downloaded add-on file into the program window. You can alternatively click on Tools > Add-ons to open the program’s add-on manager. Click the small options icon next to the search and select Install Add-on from File. Locate the Lightning add-on on your computer and select it to install it in the email client.

Restart Thunderbird after you have installed the calendar add-on.

Setting up Google Calendar

Go to the Google Calendar website and log into your Google account. Click on the options icon in the upper right corner of the screen next to the profile picture and select Calendar settings from the menu there.

Switch to the Calendars tab under Calendar Settings and locate the calendar that you want to sync with Thunderbird. Click on that Calendar and scroll down until you Calendar Address and the Calendar ID listed there.

Syncing Google Calendar with Thunderbird

Click on File > New > Calendar to create a new calendar. In the next menu select On the Network from the available options and click Next.

Select CalDAV from the available options and paste in the following url:

https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/[Calendar-ID]/events

with Calendar ID being the ID listed on the Google Calendar page.

You are then asked to enter a name, color, alarms and an email address for the calendar.

If everything has been done correctly the Google login credentials need to be entered on the next page. Once done the new calendar will be displayed in the Lightning calendar in Thunderbird.

With the release of Thunderbird 8 came the release of Lightning 1.0. We already mentioned that in the Thunderbird release review we posted yesterday.

Lightning in terms of compatibility has made a step backwards. The calendar only supports Thunderbird 8 and later versions, which can be a serious problem for users who do not just jet want to upgrade to the new version of the desktop email client.

Mozilla has this to say about Lightning:

Lightning 1.0 is the fully integrated calendar Add-on for Thunderbird that lets users organize their schedules and life’s important events as a natural part of their email experience. Lightning gives users the ability to manage multiple calendars, create daily to do lists, invite friends and colleagues to events and meetings, and subscribe to publicly available calendars. With over a million active users, Lightning 1.0 is the calendar solution that users rely on to help them manage their daily lives at work and at home.

When you look at the release notes of Lightning 1.0 you will notice that there are not really that many notable changes to report. Most of the changes are bugfixes that resolve issues of previous Lightning versions. Lightning 1.0 has received some cosmetic changes, most notable new user interface styles for all calendar views.

When you install Lightning in Thunderbird you will notice – after a restart – that it adds a column on the right side of the program. Here you see the current date and calendar week as well as events for today, tomorrow and “soon”. Lightning adds the Events and Tasks menu to the top menubar.

An import option is available supporting iCalendar and Microsoft Outlook comma separated value files. It is furthermore still possible to synchronize Lightning with Google Calendar and other remote calendar locations (via New > Calendar > On the Network).

New Lightning users should take a look at the known issues highlighted on the Lightning 1.0 release notes page.

Are you using a calendar application? If so, which?

If you look at Google these days, you might have read that the company started pushing out offline modes for some of their products. The crux? Offline modes are only available for Chrome versions. Not for Firefox, not Internet Explorer, and definitely not for Opera.

You may remember that Gmail offline access was available before for both Firefox and Internet Explorer. This was made possible by Google Gears, which has been discontinued earlier this year. Some of the Gears features have made their way into the Chrome web browser though.

Gmail users who want offline access to their emails and data need to install the Offline Google Mail extension from the Chrome Web Store.

With it they can read and respond to mail, search and archive emails without network access. Gmail Offline ” will automatically synchronize messages and queued actions anytime Chrome is running and an Internet connection is available”.

To start Offline Gmail after installing, open a new tab in Chrome; In the new tab pane you will see a Gmail Offline Icon. Click on the icon, and Offline Gmail will load.

For Google Docs, it is even easier. Just click on the settings icon next to your profile picture on the Google Docs website and select “Set up Docs offline” from the context menu.

A new popup window opens up on the screen where you need to allow offline docs access. You still need to install the Docs Chrome web app in the process, but everything is handled directly from within Google Docs.

While not announced officially yet, Google will offer offline access for Google Calendar as well in the future.

Google Calendar and Google Docs let you seamlessly transition between on- and offline modes. When you’re offline in Google Calendar, you can view events from your calendars and RSVP to appointments. With Google Docs you can view documents and spreadsheets when you don’t have a connection. Offline editing isn’t ready yet, but we know it’s important to many of you, and we’re working hard to make it a reality. To get started using Google Calendar or Google Docs offline, just click the gear icon at the top right corner of the web app and select the option for offline access.

The question remains: Do you think that Google should offer offline support for other web browsers as well? Let me know in the comments.

In this article I will introduce you to Kontact and help you decide if it is ready to usurp your current tool.

Installation

If you are using KDE 4 you will likely have Kontact installed. To find out go click on Start > Applications > Office and see if it is listed. You might also notice that the constituent parts of Kontact are also listed. That is because you can start each component individually and not have to fire up the who shebang. But let’s assume you do want to fire up the whole kit.

Features

Here’s what Kontact includes:

• Summary page: Shows the summary for everything you have upcoming.
• Mail: Your email client.
• Contacts: Your contacts.
• Calendar: Your personal calendar (integrates with the Akonadi server)
• To-do list: Your tasks.
• Feeds: RSS feeds.
• Journal: A personal journal
• Notebook: A simple note taking tool.
• Popup Notes: A reminder tool in the form of popup notes.
• Time tracker: Keep track of your time.

That’s a lot of features compared to your standard groupware suite. But does it measure up? Just about any user (especially users reading Ghacks) can walk themselves through an application like this and figure out just how to  use it. What I want to do is take a look at the KEY components (Mail, Calendar, Contacts, To-do) and see how it stacks up to the competition. Where does it hit, and where does it miss.

Mail

The biggest miss here is a lack of Exchange support. GNOME’s Evolution already has the ability to connect with multiple versions of Exchange. With Kontact I have found various solutions to this problem (most of which involve a shell script-type solution that no new user would want to try), but nothing built in. The only way you can connect to an Exchange server’s email component in Kontact is if the Exchange server has IMAP support turned on.

On the plus side, Kontact’s email cleint (Kmail) does have very nice integrated Anti-SPAM and Anti-Virus tools, each in the form of a simple wizard. You open this by clicking Tools > Anti-Spam Wizard or Tools > Anti-Virus Wizard.

Calendar

Again, the biggest miss here is the lack of Exchange integration. But I have also found Kontact lacking a simple Google calendar plugin.The problem is, This is not to say that Kontact’s calendar application isn’t worth using. It is. If you are looking for a single-user calendar application that doesn’t need to be easily shared, the Kontact Calendar is outstanding. But the minute you need to share that calendar, or add a Google or Exchange calendar, you will soon find the weaknesses of this tool.

The Calendar tool does have some unique features that might appeal to you. In particular are the Time Spent and Timeline views of the calendar. And , when in the Calendar application, you can choose to add new calendars and the list of possible calendars to add looks impressive. You can add from a Kolab server, OpenXchange server, GroupWise Server, local files, and more. But until Kontact has a simple solution for Exchange and Google, it’s missing out.

To dos

There’s not much you can do wrong with a to-do list. It simply a listing of what you need to do. Like most other to-do lists in groupware suites you can take an email and convert it into a task. And you can convert to do items into calendar items.

Verdict

I was hoping to be able to start using Kontact when KDE 4.5 hit the streets. But truth be told, the lack of integration with critical tools leaves Kontact wanting…seriously wanting. Kontact has a long, long way to go before it is ready for anyone in a business environment. A single user? Sure…Kontact is a great tool for you to use. But the minute you need integration you’re most likely going to have to return to Evolution.

In this article you will see how this calendar is used so you can continue making your decision if Xfce 4 is the desktop for you.

Features

The Orage calendar won’t blow you away with features. But it does have a nice set:

• Runs from notification area.
• Import/Export iCal files.
• Alarms.
• View selected date/week.
• Archiving.
• Popup notification for alerts.
• Daily event listing.

Installation

Orage does not automatically install with Xfce. Instead you have to install it manually by following these steps:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool.
2. Search for “orage” (no quotes).
3. Mark orage for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.

That’s it. Once installed you can start Orage by clicking Start > Office > Orage. When you start Orage you might be surprised at the size of the main window (see Figure 1).  Figure 1 shows Orage with the Event Window. Even with both panes, in comparison to  the rest of the desktop, the application takes up little screen real estate. And, if that is still too much for you, you can run Orage from the notification area.

Setup

Figure 2

To set up Orage so it will run in the notification area (or system tray…or systray), you have to open up the Preferences window. To do this click Edit > Preferences. In the Preferences window click on the Display tab and make sure Show in systray is checked (see Figure 2).

There are a few other preferences you might want to take a look at. In the Main Setups tab you can set your Archive threshold. What this will do is automatically archive your calendar when it reaches the set threshold. So if you set your threshold for 3 months, every three months you calendar will archive. If it is set to 0 auto archiving is turned off.

Import/export

One of the features that made me decide to cover this tool is the Import/Export feature. Before I get to far with this, there is not auto-publishing feature for Orage. All of this is done manually. But if you are migrating from one calendar to another, it is helpful.

Figure 3

Orage allows you to Import and Export .ics calendars. This means you can import/export to Google calendars (if you use them). It’s very simple to do. Click File > Exchange Data and then (from the Exchange Data window – see Figure 3) you can import and export your .ics files.

Now you may notice the Foreign files tab in the Exchange window.  This is different than the Importing feature. The import feature actually imports your .ics files into your main Orage calendar file. The Foreign files feature allows you, basically, to add new calendars so that Orage is reading multiple files. This way you don’t have to combine calendars. If you think about it, this would also allow you to share out calendars with other users. What you would have to do is have those other users’ calendar files set as Foreign files and add them from a shared directory. You can set these caledars as read-only if you like.

Final thoughts

Orage is a nice little calendar application. It won’t blow you away with it’s features and tricks, but it will work and work well for you. The ability to import/export ics calendars add “external” calendars is quite nice as is its tiny footprint. If you are looking to use Xfce, you will want to take a look at Orage and consider it as your calendaring application.

The Google Calendar features can easily be activated in the labs section and Google just announced the addition of three new Calendar Labs applications that users can activate in their account.

Event Flair is the first Google Calendar Labs app. It can be used to add specific icons to individual Calendar events, like a cake for a birthday or a plane for traveling. Users who are invited to the events do see the icons as well.

The second addition, Gentle Reminders, is currently only available if the Google Chrome web browser is used as the Internet browser. It changes the way event reminders are shown to the user. Instead of browser alerts, which can interrupt the users workflow tab and title reminders are shown. They will start blinking.

It is furthermore possible to configure the reminders as floating desktop notifications instead. An option that can be configured in the extension’s settings.

The third and final Calendar lab application is Automatically Declining Events which can be used to define periods in time when all event invitations will automatically be declined. This can be very useful during holidays or work related travels so that other users are informed immediately about a person’s absence.

Google Calendar users find the new features in their Calendar application.

There has not however been a way to integrate other Google services that are related to Gmail into Thunderbird. The Google Calendar Tab add-on for Thunderbird 3 changes this. It basically only displays the web interface of Google Calendar in a new tab in Thunderbird.

And since the extension uses the same account all information from that Google Calendar account are already available in Thunderbird. It is possible to view, edit and add events to Google Calendar which are then also visible on the Google Calendar website. If the calendar has been configured to show popups then they will be shown in Thunderbird as well.

The extension for the email client supports both Google Calendar and Calendar for Google Apps. Google Calendar Tab is an interesting add-on for Thunderbird that aids Google Calendar users who work with Thunderbird to integrate their calendar into the email client. There are other options to do that. IIRC it is possible to integrate Google Calendar into Lightning as well.

Google yesterday announced that they have added a new feature to Google Calendar which they call Interesting Calendars. Currently three different types of these calendars are available, namely holidays, sport schedules and misc. Holiday calendars make it easier than ever to add holidays of a specific country automatically to the Google Calendar. Available are a few dozen countries including the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Spain or India. This category includes Christian and Islamic holidays as well.

The sport schedules calendars offer a variety of popular sports that can be added to Google Calendar. Available are baseball, basketball, football (that’s American Football), Hockey, Rugby and Soccer. A click on any of these sports will open a larger list with leagues that are supported by Google Calendar. Soccer for instance contains all major European and South American leagues plus competitions like the European Champions League or the World Cup.

A click on any league will display the sport teams that are part of that league. It is then possible to subscribe to one or multiple teams. The team schedules are then added to Google Calendar. The misc section lastly contains three different options. The first is to add contact birthdays automatically to Google Calendar while the other two add moon phases and star dates to it. Check out Google Calendar to explore the new options for yourself.

In this article you will learn how to configure the open source groupware client, Evolution, to sync to your Google account so you can keep track of all of those calendars in one, easy location.

I am going to assume you already have Evolution installed. You will need an Evolution installation >= 2.12 in order to have both read and write access to your Google calendar. If your Evolution installation is pre-2.12 you will only have read access to your calendar. This does little good because you will not be able to add events to your Google calendar through Evolution. So if your installation is < 2.12 you will need to upgrade.

Setting up Google

Before you get into configuring Evolution, you have to make a small change to your Google account. You will first need to log onto your Google account (or Gmail account). Once logged in click the Settings link. Within the Settings window click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. For Evolution to be able to retrieve your email you are going to use IMAP to connect. Enable this by clicking the check box for “Enable IMAP”. Once that is finished click “Save Changes”. Now you’re ready to move onto Evolution.

Setting up Evolution for Gmail

We will first set up evolution to connect to your gmail account. Go to the Edit menu and click on Preferences. From within this window you will see the Mail Accounts “tab”. Click this tab and then click the “Add” button, which will open up the mail account wizard. This should be fairly straight forward. Here is the pertinent information you will need to configure for Evolution to be able to work with your Gmail account:

• incoming server: imap.gmail.com
• outgoing server: smtp.gmail.com
  
• username: use your full gmail address
  
• outgoing serer authentication type: Login

Outside of the above configurations, everything else will be configured as you would for your standard account. Once the wizard is complete you can make your Gmail account your default if you choose. By doing this, all outgoing email will default to this address (unless you select a different email address from the From dropdown.

Setting up Evolution for Google Calendar

Figure 1

Configuring a Google calendar is just as simple as is the email account. The first thing you need to do is right click the area that contains the listing of your calendars. When you do this you will see a new pop up menu.  Click “New Calendar” from this menu (see Figure 1) will open up the calendar wizard.

The first thing you will want to do is select Google Calendar. In this same window there are a few items to take care of (see Figure 2):

Name: Just a name for this calendar.

Username: Your Gmail address.

Calendar: Here you will want to click the Retrieve List button to get a list

Figure 2

of your available Google calendars. You will need to supply your gmail password for this to complet. Once it is complete you can select which calendar you want to add from your list of Google calendars.

After you complete the configuration click OK. You should, almost immediately, see your Google calendar populate your Evolution calendar.

And that’s it. You are now ready to interact with Google mail and calendar with Evolution.

Final thoughts

Evolution is one of the finest PIMs available. And if you are a Gmail/Google Calendar user, Evolution is just the solution to keep all of your accounts easy to manage.

Google Redesigned (via Lifehacker) changes the style and layout of Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Reader. It places an icon in the status bar of the web browser that can be right-clicked to deactivate the extension for each service individually but also to view the source code which leads to the latest CSS file located on the servers of the developers. This is probably only interesting for a handful of users though. The Google websites that are supported will look completely different beginning with the login screen.

But also the main pages of the services have been redesigned.

The functionality of the Google services is not changed in any way. Some element dimensions have been changed to provide a better experience to the user but if it was there before it will be there after the installation as well.

Google Redesigned is a work in progress. It will appeal to users who do not like the default design of Gmail, Google Reader or Google Calendar. Users should not notice any page loading time differences.

Both options are compatible with Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 and the Windows XP and Windows Vista operating system.

1. Using Google Calendar Sync To sync Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook

Google Calendar Sync is an official software program by Google that has to run in the background to sync Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook. Download and install Google Calendar Sync from the download link above. The syncing options can then be configured in the main interface which looks like the following:

Enter the Google email address and password for the account that you want to sync Microsoft Outlook calendar with. Syncing options are provided in the same interface. It is possible to select a 2-way sync which will sync new and changed calendar entries both way or single-way from either Microsoft Outlook to Google Calendar or vice verse. Lastly the time between syncs can be defined in minutes. The application will run in the background on the computer system. It will use about 10 Megabytes of computer memory while running in the background.

A right-click on the icon can be used to access the options and to initiate a manual syncing process.

2. Remote Calendars To sync Google Calendar With Microsoft Outlook

Remote Calendars is an add-in for Microsoft Outlook that can be used to subscribe, reload and delete a generic remote iCalendar. Google Calendar is actually offering access to iCalendar in the options on their website. The process would look like the following:

• Install Remote Calendar
• Go To Google Calendar and copy the private ical link. (Select the calendar in the drop down box in the start page, click on Settings, then again on the name under Calendar in the opening page. It should display an entry called Private Address: at the bottom and next to it the iCal icon. Right-click the icon and select copy link from the options.
• Open Microsoft Outlook. A general options screen should show up that can be used to edit the options of the add-in. Close the options once you have finished configuring them.
• You should notice a new toolbar on top that is displaying various options, one of them is to add a new ical calendar.
• Click that option and paste the ical link into the Remote calendar’s url.

Please note that this option will only add Google Calendar entries into Microsoft Outlook. If you want to sync the items both ways use Google Calendar Sync instead.

Every add-on that is added to Mozilla is an experimental add-on at the beginning which basically means that only registered users may download and install the add-on. It is no indication of the quality of an add-on which is important to note.

Google Calendar will be displayed in an overlay that resembles a popup only that it is only visible in the tab where the button was pressed. The website below is shown at the edges and a click on that part will close Google Calendar again and display the website fully. A second click on the status bar button has the same effect.

All buttons and functions of Google Calendar can be accessed in the overlay as if it would have been opened in its own tab. That’s a great and convenient way to check the calendar or add a new entry to it. The overlay is still available even if the user switches tabs. The links to other Google services will load in a new tab but everything that is related to the Calendar will open just fine in the overlay.

Update: The add-on has been pulled from the Mozilla add-on repository. There is no comparable add-on available. The closest are the Google Calendar Notifier add-on and GoogCal.

If you want an awesome style for your Google Calendar take a look at the sleek design by Globes Designs innovatively called Google Calendar Redesigned. If you like a darker theme with a bit more contrast this is definitely for you. User styles are not always implemented well with choppy bits everywhere, but this design is totally beautiful.

You will be glad to know they have a Gmail design as well (in fact this spurred the calendar design) called Gmail Redesigned. This is essentially the same thing for your favorite email client, so you can have the same design throughout these two Google services. I you know any more cool user styles please let us know, I’d love to take a look at some!

What you need to do is add the mobile version of Google Calendar to your bookmarks, right-click the bookmark, select properties from the menu and check the “Load this bookmark in the sidebar” option.

Whenever you load the bookmark from then on it will be displayed in the sidebar displaying the current and upcoming events. This is great if you look at your entries frequently.

Read More:

Google Calendar Mobile
via Firefox Facts

All information you need are already at your hand. You have to enter your Google mail address, your timezone (the one you specify when you create the calendar) and the public / private feed url of your calendar which you can look up in your calendars settings. When the extension is installed you have an icon in the Firefox taskbar and if you move your mouse above it you see a popup with today’s events.

Update: The Google Calendar extension has been discontinued and is no longer available at the project website.

A search for Google Calendar at the Mozilla Firefox add-on repository listed the following alternative:

• Google Calendar Notifier [link] – Offers notifications for today’s events and upcoming all day events.
• Google Calendar Watcher [link] – Combines notifications of upcoming events with the ability to add new calendar events easily.

This extension provides robust notifications and display of your Google Calendars for today, as well as showing any upcoming all day events for…

The extension basically offers a similar functionality in all regards to the now defunct Google Calendar extension for the Firefox web browser.

Please note that Google Calendar Notifier has not been updated for a long time. I suggest you download and install the more recent Google Calendar Watcher extension instead which seems to be in active development.