Google Calendar Adds Event Colors

Google Calendar still doesn't offer support for labels, but you can now pick a color for each event. By default, each event inherits the calendar's color, but you can change it by clicking the event and using the small drop-down displayed next to the event's title.

"Color Coded Events lets you assign specific colors to certain events: put pink on your daughter's soccer practice or make your lunch dates red. It's a great way to stay organized, keep track of recurring events, and add a little flair to your calendar. Color coding is private to you and anybody who can edit your calendar," explains Google.



If you want even more options, go to Google Calendar Labs and enable "Event flair" to be able to add icons to your events.

{ Thanks, Brahm. }

Google Calendar's Favicon Changes Every Day

When Google Calendar changed the favicon, many people wondered why it only shows 31. "Does it mean that starting today, every day will be the 31st ? Serously, favicon should be changed everyday to match the date," suggested a Google Calendar user.

Google listened to the feedback and the favicon will now change every day. "When you look at the Google Calendar icon at the top of your browser window, it will no longer always display 31 but will instead change to reflect the current day of the month. Today's date is now always a short glance away."


Google Calendar is the first Google service that has a dynamic favicon, but you can change Gmail's favicon to show the number of unread messages.

Quickly Edit Google Calendar Events

You no longer have to double click on a Google Calendar event to edit its name. Now you can just click on the event's name and quickly edit it from the description balloon.


{ Thanks, Maarten. }

Google Calendar Sound Notifications

Google Calendar has a Labs feature called "Gentle reminders" that replaces pop-up reminders with better notifications. "When you get a reminder, the title of the Google Calendar window or tab will happily blink in the background." If you use Google Chrome, you can also enable desktop notifications in the settings.



Google has recently added sound notifications. You can enable this feature by going to Settings > Gentle reminders (labs) and selecting Play a sound notification together with reminders (requires Flash).

{ spotted by François Beaufort }

Google Calendar's Event Scheduling Feature is Back

Last year, Google Calendar tested a feature that made it easier to schedule events with guests. The "sneak preview" was only available for a few months, but now it's back. Google calls it "find a time" and you can use it when you create an event. "If you're able to view your guests' calendars (via sharing, Google Apps shared access, or because they've made their calendars public), you'll be able to compare schedules and pick a time that works for everyone," explains Google.


Google Calendar redesigned the page that lets you create events and added a more intuitive dialog for repeating events. "The old interface for creating recurring events was clumsy and took up too much space on the screen," admits Google. "Now you'll see only a summary of your recurring event on the main event page; if you want to edit it, you can use a window that opens when you select the 'Repeats' checkbox."

New Google Calendar Favicon

You might have noticed that Google Calendar has a new favicon that replaces a monthly calendar with a daily calendar.


Google Calendar is not the only Google services that has recently updated the favicon: Google Sites and Google Translate have new shortcut icons and it's likely that many other Google sites will use the colorful images from this page.


{ Thanks, James, Bastian, Matt, Lasse, Gamer and Neil. }

Google's iPhone App Adds Notifications for Gmail and Google Calendar

I rarely use the native email clients from Android and iPhone. Gmail's mobile web app has a better interface and it's easier to use than those applications, but there are some limitations that force you to switch to the native apps: you can't attach files and there's no support for notifications. Until mobile browsers add support for these features and integrate with the operating system, native apps will continue to be more powerful.

The latest version of Google Mobile App for iPhone solves one of these issues by adding push notifications for Gmail and Google Calendar. You no longer have to use Google Sync to get notifications when you receive an email message or an event is about to occur.

"Now Google Mobile App can help with push notifications from your Google account to your iPhone -- an icon badge shows you’ve got new mail in Gmail, and Google Calendar event reminders appear right on your home screen."


After updating Google Mobile App 0.6, it seems that Google only shows a badge when you get a new message, just like the native mail client.

Update: Google's mobile blog says that "you will only receive pop-up messages and sound/vibration for calendar alerts - new email is shown using the unread count on the Google Mobile App icon and in the apps tab".

New Interface for Google Calendar

Google Calendar has a new look that's more consistent with other Google services like Google Docs or Gmail. Google says that the only functionality that has changed is that the Tasks link has been removed.

"Create event" is now a button, instead of a link. The calendar from the left sidebar has more visible arrows and it no longer has a blue background.



Here's the old interface:


Update: The new interface is also available for Google Apps, but administrators need to enable pre-release features in the "domain settings".

{ via Blogoscoped Forum }

Gmail's New Interface for Adding Event Invitations

Gmail is even more integrated with Google Calendar: when you compose a new message, you'll find a new interface for sending invitations. Click "Insert invitation" and Gmail opens a new dialog that lets you find the best time for your even by showing the events from your calendar and from the calendars of people you are inviting. You can also type the location of the event, a description and choose a calendar for the event.


After entering all the details, the event is added to the email message and you can still edit the event or remove it.


{ Thanks, Abhijeet. }

Google Calendar Sneak Preview

Google Calendar tests a new feature that lets you view your calendar and the calendars of your guests when you create a new event. "Sneak preview" can be enabled when you click on "create event".

"We're working a new feature that makes it easier to schedule events with guests. The new event page will include a calendar right next to your guest list, so you can see when people are free," explains Google.



"Sneak preview" helps you schedule events and it lets you find a better time for an event using drag and drop.

{ Thanks, Keith, Melle and Owen. }

Show Week Numbers in Google Calendar

Google Calendar's gallery of interesting calendars lets you add some useful features: show week numbers, the day of the week, sunrise and sunset time for your location.


Some of these features should be available as options because they're difficult to find in the list of calendars and they clutter the interface.

Google's decision to remove public calendar search had a strange side effect: users can no longer find public calendars with features that are missing in Google Calendar. A post from 2007 explained how to show week numbers in Google Calendar by searching public calendars.

{ Thanks, Sean. }

Google Calendar Snooze

Google Calendar implemented a basic snooze feature for pop-up notifications. You can click on "remind me again in 5 minutes" in Google Calendar's web interface.

"When alerted to an event via a pop-up notification and dismissing it, the calendar interface will show you an option to remind you again shortly. Click on that link if you want to be reminded of the event again," explains Google.


Another implementation is available in Google Talk Labs Edition, a Windows client for Google Talk that shows Google Calendar notifications.

Integrated Interface for Google's Services

Integrated Gmail is a Firefox extension that adds Google Calendar and Google Reader to Gmail's interface. It's a simple way to switch between the three Google services without opening multiple tabs.

The extension is customizable, so you can add other Google services, reorder them and delete the ones you don't use. The interface for each service loads in a collapsible box and it's preloaded when you open Gmail.


You can add events or check your agenda while composing messages, read your feeds and chat with your friends from the same interface or copy some text from an email to a notebook.

The extension is not perfect, it might slow down browsing, but it's an interesting experiment and a good starting point for an official unified interface for Google's services. iGoogle, Google's iPhone interface and the support for gadgets in Gmail show that this idea has a great potential.

Sports and Gadgets in Google Calendar

Google has the strange habit of removing features and killing services only to resurrect them after a few months. A lot of people complained when Google Calendar removed the gallery of public calendars. Google's explanation was that few people used that feature and it was difficult to internationalize it.

Google Calendar's gallery isn't back yet, but you can now subscribe to sport calendars for baseball, football, soccer, rugby, hockey and basketball. How to find the new calendar directory? Click on "add" below the list of "other calendars" and select "interesting calendars".


Like Gmail, Google Calendar is now a container for iGoogle gadgets. To enable gadgets, go to Google Calendar's settings page, select "Labs", click on "Enable" next to "Add any gadget by URL" and don't forget to click on "Save". You'll see a small box that lets you enter the URL of a gadget. It's not user-friendly and Google forgot to list some samples, but you can try this Wikipedia gadget:

http://www.google.com/ig/modules/wikipedia.xml

or this gadget for driving directions:

http://www.google.com/ig/modules/driving_directions.xml

Keep the Default Notifications when You Sync iPhone's Calendar with Google Calendar

If you want to synchronize iPhone's calendar and contacts with Google Calendar and Gmail Contacts, Google recommends to use Google Sync, which "uses the Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol to synchronize the data on your phone with your Google Account".

The option works well and it even supports multiple calendar, but there's an important issue: ActiveSync lets you add a single alarm and Google Calendar converts each alarm to a "pop-up notification". That means you can't receive SMS notifications or email notifications when you create events from your phone.

Fortunately, there's another way to sync iPhone's calendar with Google Calendar: CalDav. It's limited to one calendar for each account *, it doesn't support push updates, and it only works with iPhone OS 3.0, but at least you can use the default notifications from Google Calendar. If you haven't changed your default notification settings, this help page explains how to change them.


Here's an interesting comparison between ActiveSync and CalDav:

Google Sync (ActiveSync)
—————————————

Pros
-Supports Push to devices
-Supported by iPhone
-Supports multiple calendars within one account

Cons
-Can only have one ActiveSync account set up on iPhone at one time
-Can't choose calendar colour
-Not currently supported by iCal (will be in Snow Leopard)

CalDAV
—————————————

Pros
-Supported by iPhone, iCal and other clients
-Supports multiple calendars within one account (use /user on iPhone)
-Allows control over calendar color, and color syncs across accounts

Cons
-Doesn't push updates. Fetch only
-Setting up multiple accounts is a bit clumsy compared with ActiveSync, and they appear as separate services in the iPhone settings and "choose calendar" views.

* Even if it appears that the CalDav sync is limited to your main calendar, you can add multiple calendars. The process is tedious, but it can be simplified by installing a configuration utility.

Birthday Calendar for Google Contacts

Google has recently added a birthday field in Google Contacts and many people asked for an integration with Google Calendar. Creating a birthday calendar shouldn't be very difficult: Google created one for orkut friends, even if the calendar has a lot of limitations.

Until Google adds this feature to Google Calendar, you can try a third-party application that generates a public calendar for the birthdays associated with your contacts. The application uses Google App Engine and Google Contacts API, so your password is safe. Another good thing is that the calendar is updated automatically when you add new birthdays or you edit the existing ones. Add notifications if you want to receive an email or an SMS one day before each birthday.

The major downside is that the calendar generated by the service is public, so anyone who knows its URL can see it. To use the service, you need to grant it access to your address book and Google recommends to do only if you trust the site. It's always a good idea to export your Gmail contacts before using an application that is allowed to has write access to your data.

Update: Google Calendar added the same feature. Go to the Settings page, select the Calendars tab and click on "Browse public calendars", then add the calendar "Contacts' birthdays and events". Unfortunately, Google's built-in calendar doesn't support notifications.



For some of your contacts, you'll see their birthdate even if you didn't add it to Google Contacts. It's likely that the information is obtained from Google Profiles.

{ Thanks, WebSonic.nl. }

Google Calendar Labs

Moving the innovation from the main product to a gallery of experimental features was a great idea for Gmail. The number of features increased rapidly without cluttering the product because you could select only the features that are useful to you. The downside was that most of the Gmail Labs were in an early phase, some were buggy and had to be temporarily disabled, while others were simply removed.

The first feature that graduated from Gmail Labs and became a standard feature is Google Tasks: you'll find it below the contacts link and this time there's no option to remove it. "The idea was always that the most popular and viable Labs features would graduate and be made more readily available to all users... and that some of the less used, less viable ones would disappear forever," explains Google.

Since Gmail Labs was a success, Google decided to create a similar gallery of experimental features for Google Calendar. "We've been looking for a way to release early features to users in a quick and experimental fashion, but in a way that would let developers and customers outside of Google extend Calendar too. We've seen how successful Gmail Labs has been and decided Calendar deserved Labs too," notes the Google Apps blog.

Google Calendar Labs has only 6 experiments: an option to customize the application using a background image, a clock that shows the current time in multiple time zones, an option that lets you jump to a certain date, a countdown to the next event, schedules for shared calendars and an option to attach Google Docs documents.



If the new features don't seem very useful, developers can write OpenSocial gadgets for Google Calendar. The APIs let you interact with Google Calendar's interface: you can add events, change settings, show the events for certain dates. Almost any iGoogle gadget can be added to Google Calendar using the following URL, assuming that you don't need to edit the preferences and that there's enough space to display it:

http://www.google.com/calendar/render?gadgeturl=GADGET_XML_FILE

(where GADGET_XML_FILE is the URL of the gadget's XML file, for example: http://www.google.com/calendar/render?gadgeturl=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/wikipedia.xml)

Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs Come out of Beta

Google changed the meaning of "beta software" by launching applications in early stages and forgetting to remove the word "beta" even after years of testing. Gmail has been launched in April 2004 and it's still in beta after more than 7 years of development.

New York Times reports that Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk are coming out of beta today. Google hopes to convince businesses that the applications are good enough to be used in a corporate environment. "For business customers, it is an important sign in terms of the maturity of our product offering and commitment to this business. I've had C.I.O.s tell me that they would not consider a product labeled beta," explained a Google employee.

What's in a name? Apparently, not much, since Gmail's perpetual beta only meant that there are still significant features that need to be added. "We have very, very high standards for the product, as we do for all Google products. But we are not ready to come out of beta yet. There are a few things that we're working on, and once we meet a couple more of those criteria, we would love to come out of beta," said Gmail's Product Manager Todd Jackson in March.

Making labels more familiar was probably one of the things that had to be changed before Gmail could finally be good enough to drop the "beta" tag. Keith Coleman, Gmail Product Director, has a longer list of features that had to be added: integrated chat, mobile versions, open protocols, better anti-spam technology, a more flexible architecture.

"Some people think we should wait until we launch < one of ongoing secret projects >. Others say that, over the last five years, a beta culture has grown around web apps, such that the very meaning of "beta" is debatable. And rather than the packaged, stagnant software of decades past, we're moving to a world of rapid developmental cycles where products like Gmail continue to change indefinitely."

Update: If you think there's something missing from Gmail's logo, enable the "Back to Beta" feature from Gmail Labs to bring back the familiar logo. It's that easy to pretend that nothing happened.

Google Calendar Adds Tasks

Google first implemented a basic task management service as a Gmail Labs feature, then it developed an iPhone version and an iGoogle gadget. Now you can manage your tasks from Google Calendar. There are two ways to view your tasks in Google Calendar: in the right sidebar, where you can also manage your tasks, and as a built-in calendar.


Here are some of the details of the integration with Google Calendar:

* Tasks that have due dates will automatically appear on your calendar in the All Day event section.
* To create a task with a due date in Calendar, click on an empty space in Month view or in the All Day section and select the Task option.


* To attach a due date to an existing task, click the right arrow next to the task in question in the Task list. Then, click on the calendar icon to select a date.
* To modify a task's date, simply drag the task to a new date (as you would with a calendar event).
* To mark a task as complete from within Calendar, click on the checkbox next to the task.

Unfortunately, you can't use "quick add" to create tasks, the tasks calendar can't be synchronized with other applications and you still can't receive email or SMS notifications for tasks.

{ Thanks, Daniel. }

Stardates in Google Calendar

Star Trek fans will certainly like this. If you have a recent event in Google Calendar that contains "Star Trek", Google will automatically add a calendar titled "Stardates".

"Our team has been pretty excited about a certain movie premiering today. After yet another discussion of starships, phasers, and warp drives, we decided to put our enthusiasm to work and give Calendar a little boost. The result was the creation of a new calendar, pre-loaded with stardates to help you keep track of time in this universe and beyond," explains Google.

"A stardate is a means of specifying absolute dates in the fictional Star Trek universe. They are decimal numbers, usually rounded to a single decimal place, which replace absolute Gregorian calendar dates," according to Wikipedia.


To see the stardates calendar, create an event that includes "Star Trek" in the title and refresh Google Calendar. You should notice the new calendar in the left sidebar. Another way to take a look at the calendar is to sign out from Google and then visit Google Calendar's homepage.

{ via Bradley Horowitz }