Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with calendar

There's a widget for that

chrisinseoul — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:17:06 -0800

There's-a-widget-for-that-filter: I need a write-once, run-anywhere events widget to keep the world updated on what's happening. I run a moderately successful blog in Seoul, South Korea (for reference purposes: chrisinsouthkorea.blogspot.com). One of my more popular posts is an 'events' post that gets published at the beginning of every month. I'll hand-type this thing after hours of researching and formatting - and there's GOT to be an easier way.

Ideally, I want a widget (with HTML code / script people can copy and paste anywhere) that can:

A: accept new event listings from selected users (or pre-registered users)
B: be displayable with filters (location, date, price, etc.) anywhere the code is placed.
C: Write-once, run-anywhere so other bloggers can contribute and post the same widget.
D: Is free / open source.

Google Calendar is the only application I'm familiar with that MIGHT produce something like what I'm thinking about. But Hive Mind, you are smarter than that. Any help would be great. Thanks!

Yes, I do in fact need to know when Ramadan, Samhain and Yom Kippur fall next year.

MasonDixon — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:38:30 -0800

Looking for a nice wall calendar that displays all the major religious holidays from Animist to Zoroastrian. Help? I can find plenty of online listings and online calendars, but not doing well finding a nice wall calendar. Any leads?

Setting up an online driving schedule

JannaK — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:48:03 -0800

Help me create an online driving schedule for friends/family to get a patient to and from far-away medical appts. Is there a better system than Google calendar? My uncle has chemo every other week, lives far from the hospital and has many friends and family willing to help him get to appointments. I've offered to help set up a calendar and "sign-up" system for driving him.

My current plan is to set up a Google calendar. It would be visible to all family/friends and a few of us could edit it. Then I'm thinking I would e-mail the group every couple months, have people look at the calendar, e-mail me with the shifts they could take and I would update the calendar. Then, I would have a reminder set up in Google to remind them a couple days in advance.

Has anyone else done this before? Am I overlooking major details? What worked and what didn't for you? Is there a better system than Google to work with? Did you allow edit access to all viewers or have them go through you to take a driving shift?

Thanks!

i want i want i want my calendar size...

sandra_s — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:25:27 -0800

What would be the 3 most popular widescreen resolutions to offer wallpaper at? I offer a download-able calendar (fetish pin-up style) each year. For 2010 it was designed/formatted for widescreen monitors.

It exists in 1920 x 1200 resolution. and fits nicely on a 28" monitor. However I realize thats kinda big.

I was thinking of offering it at 1680 x 1050 for 22" widescreen monitors.

Anyone have any suggestions on what sizes they would prefer if they were looking for wallpaper, or what they think is the most popular sizes of widescreen monitors?

Thanks in advance.

P.S. I prefer to offer them in a native size, rather than having users download the big one and letting their OS resize it because this is a really popular download each year of the adult and tends to be a bandwidth hog. That and instead of offering 1 image to cover 12 months, this is 1 image per month.

What's the best online shared calendar that doesn't have an admin?

ali.perelman — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:25:56 -0800

I'm looking for the best shared online calendar that doesn't require that I act as an admin and/or have any special rights or responsibilities. I'm happy to set it up, but I don't want to have to approve updates, invite people to view it, etc... I just want it to be available to and update-able by anyone who wants to use it.

Help me get out from under all these piles of to-do lists!

lunasol — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:52:37 -0800

I'm looking for a productivity app that can help me manage both my projects and my time. I use google for email and calendars (my employer uses google apps, plus I have a personal gmail account). I use two computers, both of which are PCs, and an iPhone.

I have a job where I have up to 10 different projects going on at any given time, all with varying timelines and complexity, and many involving other people. My current system of making to-do lists of the things that have to get done today is really not going to cut it anymore.

Here's what I'm looking for in a productivity app:

- Something that can sync across all the platforms I use on a daily basis (iPhone, gmail/google calendars, PCs)

- The functionality to easily take big projects and break them into smaller tasks. For instance, if the project is "Go grocery shopping with Susan," I could break it up into: "ask Susan what time works best for her," "make a meal plan for the week with needed ingredients," "Check pantry to see what I already have," "make shopping list," "go shopping."

- The ability to give these tasks a deadline and/or schedule, and then integrate them into my calendar. So if something needs to be done at a specific time, it automatically goes on the calendar at that time. Bonus points if I can easily take a day's to-do list and slot the tasks into empty spots in my calendar (drag and drop, maybe?)

I'm willing to pay a bit for such a program if necessary. Also, I'm already mucking around with Remember the Milk and Evernote - both of these are appealing, but don't have the ability to easily break projects into tasks and neither integrates the way I'd like with calendars. Although I'm new to both, so let me know if there's something I'm missing!

iPhone not syncing calendars, photos, and triplicated my notes. Help?

scazza — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:02:40 -0800

iPhone not syncing calendars, photos, and triplicated my notes. Help? I am looking for help with this issue AND/OR great resources to help. There are tons of forums, its difficult to find my answer.

It started with my photos. First iTunes would not sync my selected album. I would sync over and over, and it would say it synced but on my phone it would say "no photos or videos." Then it stopped showing any options or albums under "Selected albums."

Then I noticed that it triplicated my notes.

Most importantly, since I really only got this phone years ago for the calendar and never had problems until now, it has stopped syning my calendar. Like iPhoto it has stopped showing any options under "Selected calendars." I am afraid to restore because I don't want to lose the information on my phone. It says it's backed it up, but obviously it's lied to me in the past.

It looks like there's a communication breakdown between iTunes & these other programs; like iTunes can't see my calendars, photo albums, & notes. Do I downgrade my software? I never had problems before. I upgraded to the latest Mac OS as well and that has made a lot of programs crash that never crashed before, my computer crashed 3x yesterday. My calendar is the most important, vital part of having this phone at all. I am starting to panic. My phone is 3G and I'm wondering if Apple is just dropping the ball on supporting not the latest model of their products.

An app to track completions?

phritosan — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:37:17 -0800

An app for that? I want to give my iPhone a list of things I want to collect data on. "How many of the last n days have I completed x" is exactly want I want to know. It's not a goal, it's not a habit, I'm not trying to hit a target weight, and I'm not trying to quit smoking. Touch Goal is close to what I want, but it has a horrible interface.

GoalKeep is close to what I want, but I don't want to drop $4 if there is a better choice that gets it all correct. The calendar with check marks is a step up from Touch Goal, but I cannot track that I did something more than once in a day like Touch Goal does.

Habit Factor and HabitCheck are not what I want. I don't want it to hold my hand, I don't want encouragement, I don't need quotes.

I have a to-do app that I'm happy with. I don't want a list app with check boxes I clear each day. I have a calendar program I'm happy with.

I want to track data.

Outlook Web Access calendar subscription

lake59 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:09:57 -0800

How to access two outlook exchange calendars from completely different domains side-by-side i work for two independent organizations. One of them has provided Outlook 2007 via Exchange 2003 and the other has provided OWA via Exchange 2003.

Each Organization provides a calendar. One is accessed as an exchange account in Outlook 2007 using and . The other is via OWA at https:///exchange//calendar.

I would like to access via outlook 2007 as well so I can easily compare the two calendars. I tried to subscribe to in Outlook using this address: webcals:///exchange//calendar but Outlook wants the subscription to include a specific file name like ical in order to work.

Any Ideas how i can get these two calendars side-by-side?

Thanks!

I've got a syncing feeling this may not be possible.

dan g. — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:19:33 -0800

Are there any verizon non-smart phones out there that could syc via bluetooth (or some other non-internet way) with a google calendar? Wife and I are looking at replacing our very old school verizon phones with new non-smart phones. we don't want any data plan or internet function on the phone but would like to be able to sync up the calendars on the phone with a google calendar we share.
Has anyone else tried to do something like this?
I'm not opposed to a hack of some sort to get it working, but the day to day syncing would need to be pretty straightforward or I think it would become an annoying burden.

Any and all advice welcomed and appreciated.
Thanks!

My kingdom for a usable calendar.

mecran01 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:53:19 -0800

Does your college campus have a really great, usable calendar? If so, could you post a link? I'm on a committee that is discussing our current calendar system, and I'm looking for examples of really great campus calendars. It would seem that most of them, by their nature, are rather cumbersome and clogged with many events which are hard to navigate.

Reminder - everything changes 17 years from today

cashman — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:37:24 -0800

What game changing reminders is my future calendar missing ? I recently started adding notable, possibly world changing future dates to my google calendar as reminders. I have Thursday, June 1, 2017 as "Last of the JFK documents should be released" & "World Ends" for Thursday, December 20, 2012. It helps me in not focusing on the past to have possible world-changing events upcoming, even if they are a couple years out. What other popular prophecies, promised confessions, projected cataclysms or things of that nature should I add to my calendar?

What is the date, Gates?

fish tick — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:29:42 -0800

Windows clock/calendar annoyance: why does the date appear only sometimes when the mouse pointer hovers over the taskbar clock? It seems to be the same with XP and Vista.

compressed day

parallax7d — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:05:02 -0800

Is there any way to vertically stretch out google calendar, so it displays the range of time that coincides with my workday? I can do this in iCal, but would like gcal to do this too, if at all possible.

Where can I find the Ordnance Survey desktop wallpaper for May 2009?

vogel — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:37:12 -0800

Can you help me find the Ordnance Survey desktop wallpaper for May 2009, please? Preferably 1024x768 size but anything very gratefully accepted. The very splendid UK official mapmakers, the Ordnance Survey, give away desktop wallpaper each month. There's a nice photo of somewhere in the UK with a calendar for the month. I have an almost-comprehensive collection, but like a fool I missed May and, whereas they used to be archived on the site, they've now pulled the archive so if you miss a month you've had it. Copyright problems, I guess.

I found somewhere on the web where people were discussing this and claimed to have archives so I mailed them very politely asking for help. Silence. I'm stuck.

Yes, it is rather OCD-ish of me, but what the h*ll. I like having them, is all. Any bright ideas please? I am pretty sure OS themselves will not be able to help, but I am dropping them a line just in case. But really I think my best hope is someone else who's been as obsessive as me - but more efficient! :)

Seeking the wordpress of calendars

wo — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:56:51 -0800

Looking for an open source, web-based calendar app. Does there exist any decent open source software for calendaring with a web interface? Basically I am looking for the WordPress of calendar software. That is, I want software I can run on my own server. Functionally, Google Calendar would be perfect; I just don't want to give Google (or anyone else) personal information if I can avoid doing so. Thanks :)

Giant Public Calendar in NYC

DavidNYC — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 12:33:07 -0800

NYC Filter: Looking for a large, public display which shows the current date (not just the time). Our third anniversary is on Sept. 9th, and my wife and I would like to get photographed in front of some giant calendar/billboard/whathaveyou that reads "9/9/09." Manhattan is preferable. Thanks!

Sync Outlook calendar and Google - with only generic blocks of busy/free time?

VeniceGlass — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:34:02 -0800

Sync Outlook calendar and Google - with only generic blocks of busy/free time? I've seen the utils out there, but can't see which, if any, would offer a way to publish an Outlook calendar without the actual appointment details. Just want to be able to list busy/free times from Outlook into a Google Cal.

I have a question about calendars

CollectiveMind — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:55:08 -0800

Can anyone see any benefit to a calendar that (1) identifies those months within a range of years that share the same days of the week and dates of the month, and (2) identifies those days of the week within a range of years that have less than 53 occurences in any particular year?

Google Apps calendar and gmail.com calendar: can they get along?

zippy — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:44:45 -0800

How do I work with both my Google Apps Calendar and my Gmail calendar? Bonus points: on a G1/Android phone. I have a G1/Android phone linked to my @gmail.com account. I consider this identity my primary one for everything but work, and all of my important calendar events are linked to it.

I now have a Google Apps account for my company, foo@example.com. I am the admin for this domain, so can edit permissions company-wide.

I do not want to use the web interface to visit the two calendars separately. I want one destination where I can see and edit every event I care about (i.e., for both my example.com and gmail.com accounts).

Also, I have a co-worker on @example.com who sends me and customers invites. I do not want my @gmail.com address to show to customers.

Bonus points if:

1) there's a way to make this work with my G1/Android phone's built-in calendar.

2) the solution isn't too disruptive, and I can continue to use my gmail.com calendar as my main interface. I have family members who share their calendars with my @gmail.com address.

What hasn't yet worked:

I have tried sharing my @example.com calendar with my gmail.com address, but this only shares free/busy status and doesn't let me edit from gmail.com. I believe I have set sharing correctly from the Google Apps @example.com admin panel, but it doesn't seem to work.

How do I properly sync Outlook with Google?

mr_silver — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 06:58:51 -0800

I'm trying to find a way to synchronize Outlook Calendar (on Windows) with Google Calendar that actually works - as my current solution doesn't. Bonus points if I can sync contacts as well. I want to synchronize Outlook with Google and then use Google's Exchange support so that I can get this information on whatever phone I'm using at the time.

At present I use Google Calendar Sync and a periodic export and import of a CSV containing my contacts.

This sucks for several reasons but the main one is that the Google application is buggy and has a habit of randomly deleting appointments. This is a well known bug and no fix seems to be coming any time soon. It's happened enough times for me to want to get away from the application.

The second major one is that exporting a CSV from Outlook and then importing it into Google isn't really syncing, a pain in the backside and prevents me from making any changes on the go because they'll just get lost.

I've done a search on the internet and there seems to be quite a few options - none of which appear to be free and several of which that want you to pay a monthly fee.

So, my question is - can you recommend any Windows applications which are free and sync calendar and contacts with Google?

Seeing Google Analytics Off-Site?

sjuhawk31 — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:58:30 -0800

The boss has assigned me a project that boils down to a marketing "dashboard," the two key features of which are viewing our Google Analytics and an advertising calendar in one space. How can I pull it off? I thought iGoogle would be a great starting point, but it looks like all the Google Analytics gadgets have died off in the last few weeks. Another option I considered is using Analytics' XML output to create some kind of RSS feed, but viewing the Analytics graphs on the same page as the marketing calendar seem like a big part of the assignment. Help me impress the boss!

After years of frustration, help me find the planner I really want.

skypieces — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:22:25 -0800

Daily Planner Question: need a two-page-per-day, "classic" (5 1/2 x 8 1/2) size. Have used DayTimer and Franklin (Covey) alternately for years. Standard packages from both either have extraneous materials that I don't need renewed each year or force me to order a base package that is insufficient and supplement it with specific things a la carte, driving up the price. Details inside. Suggestions? (Note: this is not so much about exploring different formats for better organization. I know what I want. Just need help actually finding it. Print-your-own materials are not feasible for me.)

Format: 2 page per day

Size: 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" ("half-page")

Monthly tabbed dividers must be two-page (one-page is too tiny to write in)

Do not need more contact pages (have many left over from previous years of ordering)

Do not need more "goal setting" and "mission writing" materials; no more pages of hotel and rental car numbers, mileage/expense forms, etc. Have plenty left over from past years if I want them.

Do not need another binder. My real leather binder is still in great shape after 10+ years.

Only need one year of filler with two-page monthly dividers. My layout is:

Right-handed

Prefer a long "to do" column on the left page

Prefer an "appointment" column on the left page

Prefer a "phone numbers" section for calls to be made each day

Prefer another "expense" or such section each day (I personally use this to list additional items I need to bring with me each day, a "don't forget this" list)

The right-hand page is usually exclusively "diary". I would entertain the notion of moving some of the smaller sections I want to that side. I don't usually use even half of the diary side, and when I would, I have supplementary lined pages I can insert for special needs.

The products I have used include DayTimer's Reference edition and also Covey's Leadership edition.

The Covey does not include the phone number and expense ("don't forget this") sections, But, two-page monthly tabs are stock for this edition. Trouble is, it includes all the crap I don't need (about a fourth of the package)

Daytimer has a good layout, but the monthly tabs are one-page only and I have to order the two-page separately. Plus, it too includes a bunch of extraneous stuff.

Every year I tell myself that there must be something out there that has just what I want, but I don't find it in time to order. I hereby beseech the Hive Mind for suggestions to settle this conundrum once and for all.

Any Recommendations For Appointments Calendar?

partner — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:21:21 -0800

I'm looking for a good appointments calendar for use in our office of eight people. It might be located online, or based on our server. It doesn't need to be very fancy (or expensive), but it should be searchable, printable, and usable/viewable by more than one person at a time. Any ideas?

Making a monthly events calendar using seat-of-the-pants design!

soviet sleepover — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:54:27 -0800

I need to make a template for an in-print events calendar, and I'm not sure what the best way to approach this project is. Advice please! I've offered to create a monthly calendar template for a fantastic small nonprofit that I've worked extensively for in the past. My usual design style is a seat-of-the-pants combo of cut&paste and ill-suited Microsoft products, but because I have to hand this over to someone, I'd like to make it a little less haphazard this time. Help me figure out the best way to accomplish this!

The end result should be a monthly calendar to be distributed in print & maybe .pdf form. It needs to be designed in a commonly available Microsoft product (or open source equivalent; i.e. InDesign won't work), and should automatically populate the calendar with correct dates (probably a pony feature, I know!). It doesn't need to look glossy or high-dollar (their extant aesthetic is decidedly scrappy), but it'll serve as publicity for the organization, and needs to look eye-catching and interesting. So I can't just point them in the direction of a free Microsoft Word calendar template available somewhere online. Data can be entered "by hand," or drawn from iCal (there are few enough events that either are fine).

I'm reasonably tech-savvy (for someone who doesn't own InDesign, I guess), and so are the people who'll be updating/creating the calendar on a monthly basis. So kludges and workarounds are totally fine as long as they're simple (we're all familiar with--and do a pretty good job of--low-fi graphic design).

I'm not sure where to start, so I'm mostly interested in gathering ideas for how to work within the limitations (my own knowledge gaps, creating a simple low-work resource for whoever updates it in the future). Any suggestions or advice would be fantastic! So would any points in the right direction, any anecdotes, any chatfilter disaster stories of your own!