CalendarReview

VueSoft has announced the release of VueMinder Calendar Pro 6.0.0, expanding its already impressive list of features by adding full 2-way Google Calendar sync. Google Calendars can be easily added with just a few clicks, and any changes made while offline will automatically sync.

When combined with VueMinder Calendar’s other features, this allows a user to perform many tasks that, until now, were difficult to perform or required several programs. For example, an Excel spreadsheet of event information can be quickly imported into VueMinder Calendar and automatically synced with Google Calendar. The reverse can also be done, taking your Google Calendar events and exporting them to Excel through VueMinder Calendar’s easy-to-use interface.

For those people wanting to keep Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar in sync, but require automatic and instantaneous syncing, instead of the minimum 10 minute interval of the Google Calendar Sync tool, VueMinder Calendar Pro is the answer. It allows the same calendar to be synced simultaneously with both Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook, whenever a change is detected. It all happens quickly and quietly in the background.

And, for people frustrated with the limited number of options available when printing from Google Calendar, VueMinder Calendar Pro adds a huge variety of print layouts and settings, as well as a print preview window that dynamically updates as the various print layout settings are adjusted.

The latest release of VueMinder Calendar Pro also provides a number of other innovative improvements, such as “desktop alert” reminders color-coded to match the associated event. These can now be pinned to any location on the screen. It’s sort of a mash up of sticky notes and reminders, and is seriously cool.

VueMinder Calendar Pro is offered as a free 30-day trial and can be downloaded or purchased online at http://www.vueminder.com. A scaled down version, VueMinder Calendar Lite, is completely free for both personal and business use.

Techcrunch reports that Google Calendar is testing a preview function of the scheduling feature. Gcal will show the schedules of each of the people you’ve invited to the event, and the proposed time for your event will appear as a semi-transparent blue box so you can quickly see where you might have conflicts.

Google added the labs concept (known from Gmail) to Google Calendar. It is starting out with six features that users can add: Next Meeting, which shows how much time is left before your next meeting; Free or Busy to see show who is currently in meetings; World Clock for tracking different timezones; Background Image; Attach a Google Doc; and Jump to Date. As with Gmail Labs, we can expect more features to come — and not just from Google itself, since the company is releasing an application programming interface (API) that will allow external developers to build their own Calendar applications too. Read the whole article on VentureBeat

After almost three years Google Calendar has come out of beta. Why now is not yet clear to me.

This is a breakthrough lot’s of people have been waiting for: Google launched a plug-in that enables Outlook and Google apps to sync calendar, email and contacts. The major pity is that is only available for Google Apps Premier and Education customers.

Now businesses can run Microsoft Outlook on Google Apps instead of Microsoft Exchange, so they can achieve the cost savings, security and reliability of Google Apps while employees use the interface they prefer for email, contacts and calendar.

Since this week it is possible to use Google calendar offline. With Gears you’ll be able to download and access your calendar from your HD. Just access your Gcal and click the offline link in the top right corner. Issues that still need to be resolved are:

• you are not able to edit or add events
• only events between from 1 month back and 3 in the future are downloaded
• you can’t change your Gcal settings
• you can’t search events

All and all a step in the right sirection and I’m sure the issues above and many others will be solved in the near future. For now Gcal offline is just a way to check your Google calendar when you are not connected. Try it out and let me know what you think.

This is an oldy but still valid: Lifehackers calendar poll

Nothing’s more important to your productivity arsenal than a solid scheduling tool, and considering so much of what we do happens at the computer, a good calendar application is just the thing to bring order to your agenda. On Tuesday we asked you to share your favorite calendar application, and today we’re back with the five most popular answers. Keep reading for a detailed look at the top five and to cast your vote for the calendar tool you like best.

Google Calendar now supports CalDAV. That doesn’t mean much to most people but what it basically  means is that you can sync your calendar (Outlook, iCal, Sunbird, Blackberry, Android) easier and two-way with Gcal. Good news but apparently your Gcal doesn’t sync two way with the iPhone. Gcal appointments are read-only on the iPhone.

Presdo just launched their new, innovative event scheduling tool. According to the website, Presdo “takes the hassle out of trying to find the best time to get together with people. Use Presdo to minimize the annoying ping pong of email, texting, and voicemail when organizing the next team lunch or trying to grab coffee with a friend. ”

Presdo is entirely web-based and has a simple natural language interface for entering the information needed to create events. It can export events to many calendars, such as Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar, Yahoo Calendar, and Apple iCal.

The company was started by one of LinkedIn’s founders.

Desktop iCalendar , a desktop calendar for Google Calendar has released a new version. It allows downloading Google Calendar and edit them offline. It is easy to sync local calendar with Google. Local weather forecast is also supported.