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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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

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