So in my last post I wrote about
Google Calendar after few minutes of it's open availability. I have got to using Google Calendar a bit since then (although not as much as I would like, more to 'WHY'of that later in the post).
To start with this review, I think it is way better in terms of some functionlities then I expected.User Interface rocks.
Google Calendar is a searhable calendar service where you can track of events of your life and happenings in other people's life. You can share the events of the life with others. With Google Calendar service one can share the calendar with other, create multiple calendars, subsribe to other people's calendar and depending on permissions interact with the calendar, invite others to events using Google Calendar system, track invitations (RSVP), Publish events etc. etc.
Google Calendar is very swiftly integrated within Gmail Service and can be accessed via Mobile Services.
When one signs up for Google Calendar on Google, the default Calendar one gets will be with his name which is private by default, meaning only the owner of the account has access to it.
With Google Calendar one has the ability to add more then one Calendar in his account. More then one calendar might be needed when we need personal calendar, management of common family events, Business/job related calendaring, sharing events with friends/family/bloggers etc. etc.
Adding new calendars is simple allowing with some level of security permissions if we are sharing the same calendar with other people who can view, add or edit events in the calendar.
The interface is Ajax based and is thus quite fast for the requirements most of the times. The UI is appealing as with most of the Google Products. Oh, almost forgot to add that the Calendar is free above everything else!! Adding new events is one click away.
Whereas editing events is two clicks away! There are few different views that we get to select from. The views at the top include 'Today','Week','Month','Next x Days' & Agenda.
The Google Calendar Control Panel (Settings Window) gives quite a few important options at this stage.
Among important others the one that I like is the feature of notifications for different things. I really like the feature of SMS to mobile, but it's sad sad that they only have support for it in US at this stage and not other countries. The option other countries have at this stage is of email which is still good I think.
One can import calendar events from other tools like Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo, iCal and from XML based files.
Now there are many many Calendaring web services on the Internet that does quite a few of the features as discussed above. But the ease and speed at which we can do in Google is what attracts me. The fact that I can invite others straight from within Gmail or Calendar system itself for an event is just great. I can track who is coming and who is not. To the events if I have shared it with others or myself alone, I can put comments for the event, meaning that this is a really helpful tool.
I think for me this will really come handy, if I have an event which occurs over an extended period of time, I can do something towards that appointment, write notes as comments and then refer to those events later on. I hope these comments are searcable as well although I have not tried it yet.
Now to the things I desperately seek in Google Calendar are two main things at this stage:
1. Sync. tool with Microsoft Outlook which in turn will sync. the Calendar and contacts with my Mobile phone and this is very important as I do not have the facility of accessing Google Calendar over the Internet as of yet
2. A contact management tool like
Plaxo or
Airset contact list. I did hear somebody else say this on his blog as well.
The problem I have for now is I use Airset for Contact Management which sync. just fine with Outlook which in turns sync. with my mobile and Plaxo. Gmail's Contact system is not at all to the expectations, although we can import the contacts, but it not what is really a great sub product. So for this I use Airset (great product by the way) and I use to use Airset for Calendaring things as well.
Now I don't see myself still keep using Airset Calendar for a long time (many obvious reasons), but I will still extensively rely on Airset for my online Contact Management Service (way too fast then Plaxo I think and more better as well). So now what we need is a good contact management system at Google (it never ends, does it?)
For more help on Google Calendar, check out it's
help pages. I think it is good to start with.
I am looking forward to some more features that Google will keep on adding as the time goes by, but a good sync. tool with Outlook is what we need for now. Also am looking forward to all the new services and tools that will revolve around Google Calendar ;).