If I could do that, I could just use Expose’s shortcut (Command + F3 in my MacBook) – or the Show Desktop we’ve discussed before – to show the desktop to see everything that I have to do printed there. Of course, those with large screens will have everything visible at all time even without the trick.

With my recent adventure with GeekTool, everything comes full circle. Now my tasks and events can be shown beautifully on the desktop, and I can look at them anytime I need to with a single stroke of a shortcut key combination.

To be able to show tasks and events from iCal on the desktop, we need help from two freewares: the previously mentioned GeekTool and iCalBuddy.

In short, iCalBuddy is a command-line utility that can be used to query the OS X calendar database for items. Being a command-line based application, iCalBuddy is the perfect scripting solution to be used along with GeekTool.

The installation used to be something that ordinary people would try to avoid – involving working with command lines in the Terminal. But the latest version of iCalBuddy comes with an “install.command” file, which will make the process a snap. All you need to do is double-click it to start the installation in Terminal and then continue the process by pressing any key (or Ctrl + C to cancel).

Now that the installation is done, let’s add some to-dos and events to the desktop

After installing iCalBuddy, displaying iCal’s to-do and events on the desktop is a matter of adding new shell items from GeekTool. This means dragging out shell geeklets from GeekTool prefPane to the desktop and editing the items.

The most important part of the geeklet is the Command pane. This is the place where you write the command line to tell GeekTool what to do. This is the basic command line for iCalBuddy:

/usr/local/bin/icalBuddy *****

The “******” is where you put the customization strings. There are a whole lot of variations that you could use with iCalBuddy’s command line. There are some manuals that come with the installation file of iCalBuddy that you can refer to for further information. You could also access the program’s manual page by running “man icalBuddy” in the terminal to read the documentation for all of the arguments you can use when calling icalBuddy.

As for me, these are the strings that I use for my desktop.

To display iCal’s to-do, I use:

/usr/local/bin/icalBuddy –excludeTaskProps “notes” -nc uncompletedTasks | sed -e “s/*/–/” | sed -e “s/!/!!/”

While to display iCal’s events, I use:

/usr/local/bin/icalBuddy -nc eventsToday+7 | sed -e “s/*/–/” | sed -e “s/!/!!/”

These strings are not mine. I picked them up from a discussion between iCalBuddy users and the creator. So, the credit goes to them. And as you can see, what the customization strings do are:

• removing notes from the tasks (–excludeTaskProps “notes”)
• removing the calendar name (-nc)
• changing the * symbol in front of each item with — symbols (sed -e “s/*/–/”)
• displaying events for one whole week (+7)
• emphasizing the overdue tasks and events (sed -e “s/!/!!/)

You could do your own experiment adding and removing strings (or not).

Beautifying the look

Honestly, I spent so much more time experimenting on the look than on the function; dragging the position, changing the color, adjusting the size, that sort of thing. And here’s the final result (for now).

You could just let your creativity run loose and design your own. But in case you are wondering, I’m using Apple’s standard wallpaper, and Gill Sans – Regular and Thin – for the font. As for the layout, size and color, I think the screenshot has revealed them all.

While doing this article, I also found out several communities of GeekTool users who “show off” and share their desktop designs. If you’ve tried GeekTool and think that your design is cool enough, you could share them using the comments below.

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But recently, I could barely keep up with everything that happened around me just relying on my biological RAM alone. While I’ve tried several free to do applications to overcome my anxiety, I couldn’t find free apps that can match the power of Apple’s iCal calendar.

So I chose iCal Calendars to help me manage my life better. One problem though, adding multiple tasks and events to iCal requires a rather lengthy process, including keeping it open at all time. Luckily, there’s FlexCal. This small application which reside in the System Preferences is designed to overcome that very problem.

The installation and settings

The installation process is quick and easy. Double click the prefPane file and choose which users you want to install this app to. Unless you use your Mac with several other users and don’t want the other users to use FlexCal, choose “Install for all users of this computer“.

Then the System Preferences will be opened. Since FlexCal is still in 32-bit, System Preferences needed to be restarted before you can tamper with FlexCal settings.

There are several things that you should adjust to make FlexCal comfortable to use. First the “Setup” tab. Click the “Start FlexCal” button (obviously) and tick the “Start FlexCal at login” box to make sure that this app will be available at all time.

Then you need to set your own shortcut to be able to access FlexCal quickly. Click on the shortcut field and press your chosen combination.

Don’t forget to choose which window should be opened every time you hit that shortcut key. If you add Tasks a lot, choose “Task Window“. The same thing goes the other way around. But whichever you choose, it’s not that important (and you’ll see why later on).

Next is the “Advanced” tab. This is the place to further configure FlexCal. You could choose to add an alarm to all new Events and how early should the alarm goes off. You could also choose which calendar should be the default place for all tasks and events, and whether you prefer to use Textual or Graphical style to display the calendar.

Using FlexCal

Using this app is a only matter of hitting the shortcut key. If you choose “Task Window” as the default, this window will appear every time the key combination is pressed.

But you could easily change the window to “Events Window” by hitting the combination one more time (and continuously alternate between the two).

Hit enter after typing the task/event and it will be saved to iCal. To cancel it, use the Esc key.

You could move between the field using the Tab key (forward) and the Shift + Tab key (backward), but you couldn’t edit the “Calendar” and “Priority” drop-down menu without using the mouse. The rodent is also needed to change the style of calendar from Textual to Graphical (and vice versa).

I wish the developer would add the ability to use the keyboard to its full extent so the process of adding Tasks and Events to iCal could be done without the need to lift a finger from the keyboard.

Other than that minor annoyance, FlexCal is something that every iCal user should have.

Do you use iCal calendars to manage your life? Do you know better free alternatives to add Tasks and Events to iCal quickly and easily? Share using the comments below.

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Here’s one: iCal syncs your contacts’ birthdays from Address Book and creates a calendar for it. The problem is you can’t edit it to add an alarm in order to remind yourself about your friend’s birthday. It’s a simple issue, isn’t it? There just doesn’t seem to be a “fix” for it.

After vehemently browsing the Web for a free and simple solution, I got nothing. All I want is :

• the ability to add reminders for each contact’s birthday
• iCal to continuously sync with Address Book to update the Birthday calendar

Many users argue that the simplest solution is to manually add your contacts’ birthdays individually. True, it is the simplest but not the most time-efficient solution.

Then I stumbled onto what I’d like to think is the solution. It’s not very direct and requires the use of Automator but it does bring this whole birthday reminder conundrum to a temporary halt.

With the help of some existing Automator actions for iCal, I created my own workflow which in a nutshell, refreshes my contacts’ birthdays in Address Book, adds an editable Birthdays calendar in iCal (with alarms) and sends me weekly email reminders about upcoming birthdays. This workflow is set to run every week by adding it as an iCal plug-in so if there are any changes in Address Book, they will be reflected in iCal automatically after the workflow runs.

Sounds like a handful, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, I’ve written a short tutorial on how you can set this up for yourself. I’ve even attached the workflow at the bottom of this article for you to download and start using!

Step-by-step tutorial

I started by adding an Automator action called iCalBirthdays. This action searches my Address Book for the birthday of every contact and the results will automatically be added to a new calendar in iCal which you can name yourself. I aptly named mine “Birthday Reminder”. It also allows me to add an alert which can be configured to sound on a certain reminder date, the birthday itself or both. With that, technically, the issue is solved. But I went one step further.

Next, I added the Address Book action “Find People with Birthdays” and set it to find birthdays occurring in the upcoming week.

Then, I added the action “Get Contact Information” and checked only the First and Last Names; and the birthday boxes. Make sure “Add Labels” and “Combine Names” are also enabled, this will provide a more pleasing format if you have multiple contact birthdays during that week.

After the information is fetched, it is sent to the next action: “New Mail Message“. Enter your own email address as the recipient and a suitable subject e.g. “Upcoming birthdays”. The content of that email will be the information sent by the previous action.

Keep in mind that you have to select a different account to send this email to yourself. What I mean is, you can’t send this mail and receive it with the same email address. The Mail application will not register any emails sent by your own email address back to itself.

The final touch is adding the “Send Outgoing Messages” action. Lastly, choose “Save as Plug-in” in the File Menu, set a name for it and choose iCal Alarm from the drop-down menu. That will launch iCal and automatically add this workflow as an event in the Automator calendar. Here is where you’ll need to decide when this workflow should run. Set a day and time when your computer will most probably be powered on. Then set it to repeat weekly.

There you go! You have a workflow which is automatically set to refresh your birthday calendar weekly (with alarms) and also receive weekly updates about whose birthdays are coming up that week. The workflow will take approximately 1 minute to complete, depending on how many contacts you have and how many of them have their birthdays inserted.

And here it is, the completed workflow for you to download: Birthday Reminder and Alarm Combo

After downloading, unzip and open it with Automator to configure the “iCalBirthdays” action and don’t forget to input your email address in the recipient field in the “New Mail Message” action. Remember to choose different sending and receiving email accounts. Then continue from “Lastly, choose “Save as Plug-in in the File Menu” as per the instructions above.

I would appreciate any comments about the workflow and how to improve it. Hope this helps those in the same situation as I was in!

(By) Jackson Chung is a full-time medical student attempting to perform a juggling act with relationships, studies and his future.

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This week, I’ll be teaching you how to connect your phone to your Mac and sync data between them. You’ll be surprised how easy it is. The main reason most people sync devices is to prevent data loss and to easily recover data from a backup in any event that your device malfunctions.

The main applications that we’ll be looking at are iSync, Address Book and iCal, perhaps iPhoto as well.

But before we begin, you’ll need to check if your mobile device is compatible with iSync. Apple supports most mobile phones from the major manufacturers but there are some exclusions. Generally, most Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia phones are compatible; on the other hand, Samsung being the black sheep, is a bit of a nuisance – they’ve got only 3 compatible phones. If you’ve got a relatively new phone (around 3 years old) it shouldn’t be a problem but it’s better to check and be sure. Additionally, syncing is performed either over a bluetooth connection (which most newer phones should have as standard) or through a sync cable so have those at the ready.

*In case your phone isn’t supported, I recommend Nova Media plugins for iSync. It’s not free but so far, it’s the only solution if you want to get it to work.

Right, let’s get cracking. The first step to syncing your phone with your Mac is to set up a bluetooth connection (or if you have a sync cable, just plug that in and connect your phone). Enable bluetooth on both your Mac and your phone and pair them.

There will be several interim steps i.e. entering a passcode on the phone and selecting services to use with the phone; have a read to understand what this whole process is about, then just click on ‘Continue’. Once they’re paired, launch iSync.

In iSync’s menu bar, select ‘Edit’ and ‘Add Devices’. It will then search for your phone so remember to keep the bluetooth running. Select your phone from the results to add it to iSync’s list of devices.

On the first sync, you will be asked if you want to merge the data from your phone and your Mac. You must select this option since you have no contacts in your Mac’s Address Book.

Once the synchronization process is over, you’ll be rewarded with your contacts in Address Book and your itinerary in iCal. Easy, isn’t it? Now, to tackle some of the random questions that most newbies may have:

Q: What if I make a change in my Mac’s Address Book and another change in my phone’s contact list? How will this reflect after synchronization?
A: iSync will always only sync the latest changes to each item. If more than a 5% change is detected, iSync will show a confirmation window where you may view the changes which will be made. This alert can be set to show at 5%, 25%, 50% or when any amount of data is modified.

Q: What if I accidentally delete a contact in my phone’s contact list? Will iSync re-sync them from my Mac?
A: Yup. iSync will always merge data to have a copy of each contact in both your phone and your Mac.

Q: Will iSync retrieve the photos I have in my phone?
A: Short answer — no. However, you can transfer them over manually. Here’s how.

• Click on the bluetooth icon in your menu bar and select browse device
• Choose your phone from the list
• A Bluetooth File Exchange window will then pop up allowing you to view the contents of your phone
• Select the files you want to copy over and press ‘Get’. (Usually, the phone’s file structure is pretty simple. From experience, I’ve only encountered folders labelled according to their content i.e. ‘Music’, ‘Pictures’, ‘Videos’, etc.)

So now, what do you do with your newly-acquired data? Well, for starters, you could edit them. Most people won’t bother re-arranging or properly labeling their contacts because their phones’ screens are so tiny and everyone knows how difficult it is to properly type on a numberpad. Now that your contacts are in Address Book, you can clearly see what’s what. Incomplete fields are more obvious. You can also add emails, addresses and birthdays to your contacts and even paste in a contact photo (if you haven’t already). Everything you do in Address Book will reflect on your phone upon synchronization (depending on the model, refer to the bottom of this page).

Your itinerary will also be copied to iCal. If you have always added new events on your phone, you will be relieved to see how easy it is to manage your life with iCal by comparison. Of course, when you’re on the run, you will always need your phone to add meetings/events on a day-to-day basis but once you reach home and after you’ve synced your phone with your Mac, everything will be laid in front of you on your [much] larger screen. Re-ordering and managing your schedule would then be much easier.

In iCal, you’ll have the option to view your events by the day, week or month. If you need to set a reminder for an event, just double-click it and press the ‘Edit’ button. The alarms will go off both on your Mac and on your phone so you’ll never have to worry about being late for a meeting.

If you haven’t noticed, there is a little pin on the bottom right-hand side of iCal — that’s the to-do list. Adding items onto the list will also sync over to your phone. Although, I have no idea how this feature would work on older phones which may not have to-do lists.

It doesn’t just stop on your Mac. Your contacts can be synced over to your iPod via iTunes so you’ll have an extra copy in case your phone goes kaput. Also, you could export your Address Book and calendar and save them online so that you could easily retrieve them from anywhere.

To sum up, iSync will retrieve contacts and schedules from your phone and add them into Address Book and iCal respectively, providing you with a backup of your data on your Mac. Simultaneously, that will also allow you to easily edit that information on your Mac and see your schedule span out on your screen.

(By) Jackson Chung is a full-time medical student attempting to perform a juggling act with relationships, studies and his future.

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Enter Calgoo, a suite of calendar apps which offers an excellent free solution to syncing and sharing calendars across different platforms. Apart from offering its own calendar software, it offers Calgoo Connect and Calgoo Hub which are meant for syncing and sharing calendars respectively.

Calgoo Connect

Calgoo Connect, as I mentioned, is a tool which lets you sync desktop calendars like Outlook or iCal with online calendars like 30 boxes and Google Calendar. It quietly works in the background synchronizing your online calendar with your desktop calendar and any changes you make on one of them reflect on the other.

It supports the following calendar programs :-

• MS Outlook 2003 Calendar
• MS Outlook 2007 Calendar
• Google Calendar
• Apple iCal
• 30 boxes
• And Calgoo’s own calendar program

It’s important to note that although Windows user have some good calendar sync options available, Mac users still don’t have a free solution to sync iCal to Google Calendar. Hence Calgoo connect should be a useful app for them. This could also help you easily sync your iCal with Outlook calendar if you own both a PC and a Mac.

Calgoo Hub

Calgoo Hub does the more difficult task of sharing your calendars with friends who may not be using the same calendar.

As you can see in the screenshot above, it supports most of the popular calendar programs including Sunbird and Plaxo Calendar. Calgoo Hub is basically an online storage for your calendar from where you can share it with your friends or just publish for public view.

Features

1. Publish Calendar Online

Calgoo Hub, as I mentioned, lets you publish your default calendar online. It supports all the popular calendars with a few exceptions (like MS Vista Calendar ). Google Calendar, 30 boxes and Outlook 2003 require you to download and install a plugin to publish to Calgoo Hub.

2. Support For Multiple Calendar Applications

Support for multiple calendar programs is a big advantage and hence you don’t need to worry about the type of calendar which your friend is using while sharing it. Although Plaxo Calendar, MS Windows Vista Calendar and Calendar Hub cannot publish to Calgoo Hub but they can still easily subscribe to a Calgoo Hub calendar.

3. Easily Share Calendars through Email

This is what makes Calgoo Hub an awesome calendar sharing app. You can share it with anyone who has a valid email address. It sends a preview link to your calendar in the email to your friend and also gives detailed steps to add it to his deafualt calendar program.

4. Subscribe to a Calgoo Hub Calendar

Calgoo Hub assigns a specific address starting with webcal:// to your calendar and hence using that address, one can easily subscribe to it in his preferred calendar program

5. Preview in Cell Phone

And finally, apart from giving an online preview option, you can also preview your calendar on your cell phone which means that it is optimized from the mobile internet as well.

Calgoo is undoubtedly one of the most comprehensive calendar software suites which focuses on calendar interoperability rather than just specific tasks like two-way syncing of particular calendars. And since it’s free now, it has become more useful than ever.

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• Synchronize Your Google Contacts, Calendar & RSS In Thunderbird (17)
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• Schedule events, tasks, and alarms,
• Manage multiple calendars,
• Import / export / backup / restore calendar data sets,
• Change visual skins,
• Print event lists or calendar sheets and
• apply Lua scripts.

The pro version supports network sharing and provides support for Outlook and Google calendars. Actually, you can download and use a fully functional pro version for free with only a small limitation: network, Outlook and Google calendar events will carry the string [Unregistered].

Rainlendar2 runs on the standard iCalendar format also used by Apple iCal, Outlook, Google calendar, Sunbird, Facebook, Lotus notes and many others. Hence, you can easily import and add cool data sets to your calendar, i.e. public holidays, sports events, episode release dates for your favorite TV shows, and lots more. The website iCalShare is an excellent source for this purpose.

Following its installation a calendar symbol will appear in your taskbar and the calendar as well as an Events and To Do list will sit in the middle of your desktop. You best start by dragging the three elements to a preferred location on your desktop and then decide whether or not you want to keep them visible.

Right-clicking on either one of the elements on your desktop or the calendar symbol in your taskbar will open a menu with from which you can: add new events / tasks, choose which elements are visible on your desktop, activate/deactivate various calendars, jump to another month, manage events (edit / import / export / backup), refresh calendar skins, and change options (define its look and behavior, select your language, add new calendars or skins, define hotkeys, etc.)

You will find that for most quick actions you won’t need the menu. For example you can go directly to a certain date and double-click it to add, edit or delete an event.

Once you’re done setting up your Rainlendar calendar(s), you might get interested in customizing Rainlendar’s look. A huge collection of skins is available from the Rainlendar homepage, Customize.org and deviantART. As of version 2 skins carry a .r2skin file extension. In Windows double-clicking this file will install the skin or you can drag and drop it over any Rainlendar window for automatic installation. In any case, refresh your calendar before you go into the options menu to activate the new skin.

Skins developed for versions prior to Rainlendar2 will come as .zip or .rar file. When you unpack this archive file you should have a single folder containing the skin’s ini-file(s). Copy that folder into the skins folder normally found under C:\Program Files\Rainlendar2\.
Old skins should be compatible with Rainlendar2, however in some cases the skin simply won’t load or the To Do list won’t show up, even though it’s supported by the skin. So be patient and play around if you absolutely must have one of the older skins.

The great advantages of Rainlendar2 include its small size, ease of use and flexibility. The application is rather low on system resources (~11.000 K), it’s very stylish and decently reminds you of upcoming events, birthdays, appointments etc. You can even put it on your USB stick and make it a portable applicaiton.

The biggest advantage of Rainlendar2 is also its biggest drawback: the tiny size of the desktop calendar. To see a list of events per day, week or month you need to go into the Manager and even here the list looks quite dull unless you print it. Another point to mention is the previously addressed limited functionality of some skins. Due to a recent upgrade in the software older skins are no longer upward compatible and may show bugs.

Taken together, Rainlendar2 is a great tool for keeping a small, simple and easy to update record of birthdays, holidays, events and things to do. That’s what I love it for. It’s clearly the wrong pick if you’re looking for a software to replace your File-O-Fax. For more ambitious users who need a better overview of their appointments and a few more features I recommend KOrganizer or Mozilla Sunbird.

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