.Mac Sync Changes

[drmacnut]

Google Calendar

Steve said they were going to focus on .Mac...not focus on screwing with VERY faithful .Mac customers.…

A month would have been a positive business gesture for them to do.…

A month would have allowed me to find a new calendar (online perhaps) that would allow my wife and I to keep our very busy calendars synced so I know when and where she is traveling and which days I have to pick up or drop off my children, etc.…

You're right, Johnny; I agree that the timing and management of this .Mac sync change was terrible. I don't have any problems personally with this as all four machines I sync are at 10.4.10. But I know many people who still use 10.3.9 or a mix of both .3 and .4.

Anyway, the point of my email was to recommend that you take a look at Google Calendar. (I don't work for Google or anything like that, just suggesting it as a possible workaround for the time being). I don't actually use it any more, but I did for a month or so to see what it was like. You download the little Google application from their web site (it's a little hard to find I seem to remember, and it's the same one as the "GMail Notifier"). Any calendar you make there is of course viewable on any computer either via a web browser or the mini app.

The thing I found very cool about it was that I could _subscribe_ to it in iCal. So that meant that let's say I have a calendar for my students to use at school, but I don't want them on my personal iCal or using my computer. So I set up a Google calendar for them which they all happily share, and then I merely subscribe to it and get the benefit of seeing what they are doing very easily.

The one downside is that you will not be able to make changes to the Google calendar from within iCal; that has to be done within the Google framework.

Anyway, I hope this helps. Even more so, I hope you can get up to Leopard on all your machines pronto.

Take care.
drmacnut

 

[megfilmworks]

Are you guys losing all the .mac features? Or just calendars?

 

[flyfish29]

drmacnut- thanks for the info- do you know if you can import events from iCal. Because that is a major thing for us to convert all of our calendars to a new calendar program. We have hundreds of events listed just for the next six months.

I am not losing my calendars, but my ability to sync calendars to additional computers...I assume that means I can't sync my book marks or address books either. I guess I can at the very least sync one computer to the net so I can use those bookmarks and addresses when we are out and about and traveling???

thanks again for the advice. (lets hope my principal is putting through that PO for my Macbook sometime soon- that would help the situation at least some!)

 

[72930]

Have you phoned Apple to ask for some money back?

 

[pavelbure]

i wish they would change it so you can upload a 2gb or larger file. what's the point of 10 gigs if i can't use it the way i want.

 

[flyfish29]

So I have been spending the last hour+ trying to get one of our Palm's to sync so I can have our calendar updated at school- still very frustrated with /Apple. The only bad thing is that all I want to do is buy an iPod touch and the last thing I want to do right now is reward apple for making this crack-head change to .Mac on no notice!!!at

 

[drmacnut]

Moving a Calendar From iCal to Google Calendar

drmacnut- thanks for the info- do you know if you can import events from iCal. Because that is a major thing for us to convert all of our calendars to a new calendar program. We have hundreds of events listed just for the next six months.…

Aloha Johnny - sorry it took so long to get back to you. Anyway, the answer is "yes" you can indeed move (export-import) a calendar from iCal to Google Calendars. I just did it to test it out and it works fine.

You'll need to export the calendar from iCal. Select the calendar you want from the calendar source list and then choose File->Export. Let it export and make sure the final three-letter identifier for the file is ".ics".

Then jump to your Google Calendars by using the menu extra next to your clock at the top of the screen (you will need to have Google Notifier running of course). When you have arrived at your calendars online, create a new one using the "Add" button above your calendars list. After you have created the new calendar, go once again to the "Add" button and choose the last option, to "import" a calendar. Follow the dialog boxes and choose your locally exported iCal .ics file.

Keep your fingers crossed as you "OK" and confirm the action. You may even want to have a little salt available to throw over your left shoulder too. Either way, I think you'll be pleased with the results.

BTW, you can also move calendars from Google back to iCal; just follow the Help on the Google Calendar page.

drmacnut

 

[dukeblue91]

So I have been spending the last hour+ trying to get one of our Palm's to sync so I can have our calendar updated at school- still very frustrated with /Apple. The only bad thing is that all I want to do is buy an iPod touch and the last thing I want to do right now is reward apple for making this crack-head change to .Mac on no notice!!!at

Why don't you just wait till friday buy Leopard and put it on all of your Mac's.
You also should call Apple since they just renewed your subscription and now are taking away a major feature.

 

[twoodcc]

Why don't you just wait till friday buy Leopard and put it on all of your Mac's.
You also should call Apple since they just renewed your subscription and now are taking away a major feature.

yeah that's not a bad idea. leopard iCal seems great

 

[wordmunger]

Hmm..

I don't use any of those .mac features, so I guess it's okay. iCal syncing between computers has never worked very well, so I use publish and subscribe.

Oddly, though, I never got the email.

 

[hayesk]

i call you "apple fan"!

i can accept that they have to disable that feature for some technical reason.

but telling us ONE day before that we won't be able to sync our calendars anymore is ridiculous. some people are traveling and can't update their machines. so they won't get "up to date" calendars until they come back.

How much time should they give? What about the people who are travelling more time than that?

And who is adding things to your calendar back home that you are synchronizing to? Why can't you contact them to tell you of new events via email until you get back and sort out the issue?

Is this really a big deal? I can see being upset if you don't see a need to upgrade to 10.3 on one of your machines. But not giving two weeks notice (or whatever you want) isn't that big of a deal.

 

[diablorojo]

Info required on installing Leopard

yeah, must be related to leopard. only 1 week away!

Can anyone help me? I am new to the Forum and not exceptionally computer literate.
I originally wanted the Leopard, but it wasn't available when I needed it, so I have the OSX 10.4.10 Tiger. Now I see Leopard is available for £85 (single, which would suit me). If I get it and install it, will it be an addition to the Tiger, or will it erase Tiger and stand on its own?
Further, I was disappointed to learn that my Tiger does not burn/copy DVDs and I must buy and separate intrument for this. Can anyone recommend one?

John Chaplin
diabloxrojo@yahoo.co.uk

 

[JWFerne]

If you use google calendar and multiple machines, check out Spanning Sync. It could be a good alternative for people that are loosing .mac functionality. Only works with the calendar, no adressbook etc.

 

[megfilmworks]

Can anyone help me? I am new to the Forum and not exceptionally computer literate.
I originally wanted the Leopard, but it wasn't available when I needed it, so I have the OSX 10.4.10 Tiger. Now I see Leopard is available for £85 (single, which would suit me). If I get it and install it, will it be an addition to the Tiger, or will it erase Tiger and stand on its own?
John Chaplin
diabloxrojo@yahoo.co.uk

The new Operating system software Leopard will replace your Tiger Operating system when you install it.

 

[VaDor]

drmacnut- thanks for the info- do you know if you can import events from iCal. Because that is a major thing for us to convert all of our calendars to a new calendar program. We have hundreds of events listed just for the next six months.

I am not losing my calendars, but my ability to sync calendars to additional computers...I assume that means I can't sync my book marks or address books either. I guess I can at the very least sync one computer to the net so I can use those bookmarks and addresses when we are out and about and traveling???

thanks again for the advice. (lets hope my principal is putting through that PO for my Macbook sometime soon- that would help the situation at least some!)

No need to manually change just use GSync is a little app that uses google api and sync's directly (no intermediate server as spanning sync) ical with google calendar (bidirectional ), I tried and was very satisfied, http://www.macness.com/blog/.

 

[flyfish29]

Can anyone help me? I am new to the Forum and not exceptionally computer literate.
I originally wanted the Leopard, but it wasn't available when I needed it, so I have the OSX 10.4.10 Tiger. Now I see Leopard is available for £85 (single, which would suit me). If I get it and install it, will it be an addition to the Tiger, or will it erase Tiger and stand on its own?
Further, I was disappointed to learn that my Tiger does not burn/copy DVDs and I must buy and separate intrument for this. Can anyone recommend one?

John Chaplin
diabloxrojo@yahoo.co.uk

John- I would recommend not putting your email on the web forum- It can increase your chances of getting spam email.

I would create a new thread in the fourm here which states your questions. That way you can get answers based on a thread topic- this is really about syncing .Mac.

(But to answer some of your questions- the software on your computer will burn DVD's no problem, but your machine has to have the hardware which can burn DVD's- it may or may not have this- What machine do you own- when did you buy it, etc. That would be helpful.)_ But again, make your own thread so you get your answers. Good luck.

 

[ingenious]

drmacnut- thanks for the info- do you know if you can import events from iCal. Because that is a major thing for us to convert all of our calendars to a new calendar program. We have hundreds of events listed just for the next six months.

I am not losing my calendars, but my ability to sync calendars to additional computers...I assume that means I can't sync my book marks or address books either. I guess I can at the very least sync one computer to the net so I can use those bookmarks and addresses when we are out and about and traveling???

thanks again for the advice. (lets hope my principal is putting through that PO for my Macbook sometime soon- that would help the situation at least some!)

from the article I gathered you were just losing calendar synching between tiger or leopard and panther... panther to panther does still work (not that that affects you).

 

[flyfish29]

from the article I gathered you were just losing calendar synching between tiger or leopard and panther... panther to panther does still work (not that that affects you).

I wish now my wife had not upgraded to tiger on her iBook at school- then all would be fine.

Apple had the nerve yesterday to send me an emailing saying "hey, need to sync...buy an iPhone..buy this...buy that!!! I can't believe the nerve...right now I don't want to buy anything- I just want my three apple computers we use as a family to all do what they did last week. I could understand if I was using OSX 10.0 or 10.1 or even 10.2...I would have no problem with them saying you are way behind the technology, you need to upgrade because we can't keep supporting something that old...but come on!

I am done ranting...for now at least.

Now I am probably off to shop for at least an iPod Touch.

 

[montecristo]

possible solutions?

I wish now my wife had not upgraded to tiger on her iBook at school- then all would be fine.
.

Possible temporary solutions:
Do you have any of the Tiger disks from your wife's mac? Maybe you can try installing that on your computer just to do a sync? Then you can downgrade back to Panther if you need to. (you may be able to create a separate Tiger boot disk or boot drive, if you have additional partitions or drives).

Or maybe you can create a separate user account on your wife's mac, connect your two computers using target mode, and then clone your calendar file to your wife's mac.

Or maybe you can publish your iCal on your .mac website, and your wife can subscribe to it (and vice versa).

Not sure how well any of these will work but worth a shot...

 

[flyfish29]

Possible temporary solutions:
Do you have any of the Tiger disks from your wife's mac? Maybe you can try installing that on your computer just to do a sync? Then you can downgrade back to Panther if you need to. (you may be able to create a separate Tiger boot disk or boot drive, if you have additional partitions or drives).

Or maybe you can create a separate user account on your wife's mac, connect your two computers using target mode, and then clone your calendar file to your wife's mac.

Or maybe you can publish your iCal on your .mac website, and your wife can subscribe to it (and vice versa).

Not sure how well any of these will work but worth a shot...

Thanks for the possible solutions- I mght try google calendar, but dont 'have time right now to mess with trying it out- that is the most frustrating thing about this- I am in my busiest time of the year with a new job and just needed a calendar to work. Still trying to get my principal to buy me that new MacBook!

 

[vffikoncer]

Yeah, had an experience today between my two Macs that leads me to believe that too.

 

[flyfish29]

I am very happy to report my school gave me a *new* comptuer today- a G4 iBook 1.33 complete with wireless (finally), blutooth (course I have nothing bluetooth), not much memory, but finally I have a machine that runs TIGER!!!! So I can finally sync (for now at least) with my wife's iBook and our life can one again be orgainzed!!!

Thanks to those who gave me options to try and sync our lives. I never got around to it, but I gues me being too busy ended up working out ok.

thanks again!