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I've figured out, I think, how to run my calendar locally, inside my laptop, and still share it on Google Calendar. It's really rubegoldbergian.
I'm probably going to use Evolution for now. Unless someone can give me a compelling reason to use the two different-but-same(!) calendar apps, Sunbird and Lightning.
That I have to do this at all annoys me, it should be unnecessary. Google should just run iCal, iCalDAV, and SyncML services for their calendar and mail apps. Then all the ordinary folks with Outlook, Outlook Express, assorted other PIMs, assorted PDAs, smartphones, and not-so-smartphones would Just Work.
The GData protocol is pretty neat, but almost nothing uses it, and conviencing the Google's competition to use it, and convincing all the various makers of smartphones and PDAs to use it, is just a non-starter.
I'm probably going to use Evolution for now. Unless someone can give me a compelling reason to use the two different-but-same(!) calendar apps, Sunbird and Lightning.
- Maybe GCalDaemon?
- It's a neat design. It speaks gdata out, and listens on a local port to speak iCalDAV.
- But I have to be online to use it. Hard to work "disconnected".
- It requires Java. Yuck!
- It requires Java 1.5 or later, and gij on FC6 is 1.4.2
- So I'm not going to use it
- Maybe the Google SoC project creating a gdata plugin for Evolution?
- But it's not ready yet.
- So the solution right now is...
- get a free ScheduleWorld account
- config ScheduleWorld to sync to gcal, it knows how
- install SyncML for Evolution
- configure that to sync with ScheduleWorld via the SyncML protocol
- Profit!
That I have to do this at all annoys me, it should be unnecessary. Google should just run iCal, iCalDAV, and SyncML services for their calendar and mail apps. Then all the ordinary folks with Outlook, Outlook Express, assorted other PIMs, assorted PDAs, smartphones, and not-so-smartphones would Just Work.
The GData protocol is pretty neat, but almost nothing uses it, and conviencing the Google's competition to use it, and convincing all the various makers of smartphones and PDAs to use it, is just a non-starter.
WantToDo: GCal iCalDAV adapter
Jul. 25th, 2007 04:39 pmI want to write a little daemon that runnings locally and listens on a localhost port, which "speaks" iCalDAV, and then connects out to the GCal service. This way existing iCalDAV clients such as Evolution or Apple iCal can 2way interop with Google Calendar.
Just noticed a fix to Google Calendar
May. 13th, 2007 06:55 pmGoogle Calendar has fixed the annoyance in their UI, where if something spans over midnight, it doesn't appear in the hourly scheduling grid.
Finally!
Thanks, Google.
Finally!
Thanks, Google.
Currently on Slashdot there is a story titled Google's evil NDA. One of the things mentioned is that it "forbids you to 'mention or imply the name of Google' in public ever again.".
Amazon has the same problem. I've signed an NDA with Amazon A2Z, and I deleted that particular paragraph before I signed it, because I thought it was stupid and pointless, and had nothing to do with protecting AZN/A2Z's trade and tech secrets. They accepted that without complaint.
But recently I've been asked to sign another agreement with Amazon, concerning the selling them the work of the white paper that I'm writing about adding AWS auth to libcurl. It had the same stupid paragraph, and I struck it again, and this time their laywers noticed and rejected my change. We're at an impasse.
I'm sure that Google and Amazon are not the only companies with this particular piece of standard stupidity written into their NDAs and their work contracts.
Trademarks have plenty of existing protection in statute, precident, and treaty. Trying to turn trademark protection into something that it isn't, is, at risk of repeating myself, stupid, a lie, and evil.
Always read the contract. Read your NDAs. Read your work contracts. And don't let big stupid companies try to grab more than they should.
Amazon has the same problem. I've signed an NDA with Amazon A2Z, and I deleted that particular paragraph before I signed it, because I thought it was stupid and pointless, and had nothing to do with protecting AZN/A2Z's trade and tech secrets. They accepted that without complaint.
But recently I've been asked to sign another agreement with Amazon, concerning the selling them the work of the white paper that I'm writing about adding AWS auth to libcurl. It had the same stupid paragraph, and I struck it again, and this time their laywers noticed and rejected my change. We're at an impasse.
I'm sure that Google and Amazon are not the only companies with this particular piece of standard stupidity written into their NDAs and their work contracts.
- "Oh, that's just boilerplate" is a stupid thing to say, and I will call it out as stupid. Boilerplate is part of the contract.
- "We don't enforce that" is also a stupid thing to say. If you don't enforce it, don't put it in the contract!
- "The lawyers require it" is also a stupid thing to say, and I will call it out as stupid. Lawyers are to do what they are told, not the other way around.
- "It protects our trade secrets" is a doubly stupid thing to say, and I will call it out as stupid. TRADEMARKS ARE NOT TRADE SECRETS, and trying to conflate them is is a lie, and a damn lie.
Trademarks have plenty of existing protection in statute, precident, and treaty. Trying to turn trademark protection into something that it isn't, is, at risk of repeating myself, stupid, a lie, and evil.
Always read the contract. Read your NDAs. Read your work contracts. And don't let big stupid companies try to grab more than they should.
