Ben Stewart

Calendar syncing is an issue for anyone who works on a team, has multiple computers, or even just has a computer and a phone. It seems like it should be easy to keep appointments and events in sync among all of your devices, but so far there hasn’t been one solid solution to rise to the top of this market and woo the masses. However, that doesn’t mean the calendar syncing landscape is barren. There are a lot of good solutions available that each solve one piece of the puzzle. By putting the right pieces together anyone can create their taylor-made calendar syncing masterpiece. When I started looking for a solution I wanted something that would:  

• Sync multiple iCal calendars from my Mac with multiple Google calendars (belonging to multiple Gmail and Google Apps accounts).
• Allow others to subscribe to any of my calendars (if I give them permission).
• Two-way sync over the air with my iPhone (I’m too lazy to have to plug in my iPhone every day).
• Not cost too much money.

I already used Google Calendars for different parts of my personal and professional life with different Gmail and Google Apps accounts. Another option would have been to use MobileMe, but I prefer Google Calendar because of its feature set and price point–free. One of Google Calendar’s great features is the ability to share calendars with other Google Calendar users. The first thing I did to get setup with a good syncing solution was to choose one Gmail account to have complete control over all of my Google Calendars. This same feature also lets me share calendars with other people allowing them to see the information but not make any changes to it.

Now that I had everything in Google under one account I just needed to find a way to sync that account with iCal on my Mac. There are a few options out there that do this, but the one I prefer is SpanningSync.

Some people don’t like the fact that all information runs through SpanningSync’s servers (as a privacy issue), but I actually like the fact that they operate as a service because they notice when things break and are very quick to respond. Also, I don’t really mind my calendar data passing through SpanningSync on its way to Google–if my data were too sensitive for SpanningSync I wouldn’t be sending it to Google in the fist place.

SpanningSync allows one Google account (Gmail or Google Apps) to sync any of its calendars with any calendars in iCal. It runs as a preference pane and includes a little menubar icon to show you when a sync is in process or if there has been a sync error. SpanningSync is a service so it is not free. But you get continuous support for that fee. Users choose to either pay an annual fee of $25 the first year then $15 each year after that, or a one-time fee of $65.

With my Mac and “the cloud” all synced up I just needed to throw my iPhone into the mix. The first solution I tried was the standard iCal sync via iTunes. This solution was quickly thrown out for a couple of reasons. First of all, the note field. For one of my jobs I use the note field in iCal to contain long lists of information about each event that I create. This fields syncs perfectly up to Google so I can view all of these notes online. However, for some reason iTunes cuts off the note field when it syncs iCal events to the iPhone. Since this information is critical to my job, I cannot use iTunes calendar syncing for my calendars.

Besides, who wants to have to use a cable to sync your phone and your computer these days anyway?!

So I started looking into alternate solutions for iCal/iPhone/Google Calendar syncing and I found Saisuke. Saisuke is a calendar replacement app on the iPhone. So, instead of opening the default calendar app on my phone I now open Saisuke instead. I first tried the free version of the app which is limited to 1-way sync (Google to iPhone only), 1 calendar only, and a shorter sync period. Once I felt comfortable with this solution I went ahead and paid for the full version ($9.99).

With Saisuke my iPhone and Google Calendars are always in sync. With SpanningSync my iCal and Google Calendars are always in sync. The total calendar sync cost of this solution: $65 + $9.99 = $74.99 (less than one year of MobileMe). Of course, MobileMe offers a lot of other features for that fee, but they are features I didn’t need so this solution was the one for me.

How do you keep your schedules in sync?

Back in part 1 I listed five of the plugins I install every time I setup a WordPress blog for a friend or client. Here are five more plugins for WordPress that are sure help you get the most out of your blogging experience.

1. Cimy Swift SMTP. I often use a Gmail account as the primary e-mail account for a blog or website. However, what about emails that are sent automatically by WordPress like user registrations, comment notifications, etc.? Many web hosts will automatically try to send those from their own mail servers instead of Gmail’s servers. With the Cimy Swift SMTP plugin all of your website’s emails will run through whatever servers you assign.
2. Dagon Design Form Mailer or CFormsII. These plugins are both excellent ways to setup a contact form (or any other type of form) on your website. I started off using the Dagon plugin but have recently moved over to CForms. I think it’s a bit easier to manage.
3. Lightbox 2 (2.8.2) and Add Lightbox. These plugins add the “lightbox” effect to any images you link to in your posts (like the WordPress logo linked at the top of this post). The first plugin adds the necessary javascript to your theme and the second plugin automatically adds the necessary HTML to each linked image.
4. Events. Need a simple plugin that lists upcoming events in the sidebar and/or an Events page? This is one of the easiest I have found that still allows adequate control over the structure and style of the events listings.
5. WordPress.com Stats, Google Analytics for WordPress, µMint Plugin. None of these plugins actually track stats themselves, but all of them integrate whatever stat tracking service you prefer into your WordPress site. WordPress.com Stats even adds a nice graph and some fun info. about popular posts to your WordPress dashboard. I generally install WordPress.com Stats and another tracking system (either Google Analygics which is free or Mint Stats which is pretty) so I can compare results. Just like Askimet, WordPress.com Stats requires you to sign up for a free WordPress.com account. You don’t have to start a blog there, you just need an account. For real-time tracking of people viewing your site you can also check out Wassup.

That wraps up this round of excellent WordPress plugins. Are there plugins you just can’t live without? Post a link in the comments and be sure to stick around for part 3.

I really like WordPress. If you are looking for a blog/news-based website then there is probably no better option than to use WordPress. One of the things that puts WordPress at the top of my list is the thriving community of developers that use it. If you need your new website to do something then there is a good chance that someone else has already developed a plugin to accomplish that task… and it’s probably free. The only problem with such a vast community is that there are so many plugins to search through that it is sometimes hard to find the best plugins to meet your needs. No fear, I have compiled a list of some of my favorite plugins for WordPress to accomplish several common tasks in website development.

1. Akismet. Use this! There is no better way to eliminate a large percentage of comment spam. While it isn’t a 100% solution, it makes a huge difference and it comes pre-packaged with WordPress. All you have to do is activate the plugin and then sign up for a free WordPress.com account–you don’t have to start a blog there, just an account. After signing up for your account just go to your new profile page and copy/paste the “API Key” that you will find at the top of the page into the Akismet settings page on your blog.
2. Viper’s Video Quicktags. This plugin adds a row of buttons on the WordPress “write” screen so you can easily embed videos from many common video services like YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Google Video, etc. You can even choose which services to show or hide and set standard sizes for your embeded videos.
3. All in One SEO Pack. Every website is better with good search engine optimization (SEO). This plugin helps to automate that process by automatically changing your website’s title, description, keywords, and more to values that help search engines catalog your website accurately based on its content. This is a “set it and forget it” kind of plugin worth the download.
4. WP Super Cache. WordPress, like most blogging engines and content management systems, generates dynamic pages. That means that every time someone goes to a page of your site, WordPress finds the content for that page in its database and creates the right HTML page on the fly. It’s pretty much magic. But, it can also be slow if you get a lot of people viewing your site at the same time, if you are on a shared hosting package, or if your theme has a lot of extra database calls. Don’t fret, there are things you can do to help speed up your blog and one of those is caching. Basically, this plugin saves those HTML files and instead of asking WordPress to generate new ones every time someone visits a page, it pulls out the already-generated file and displays it instead. This will not only make your visitors happy, but your web hosting service will thank you.
5. Feedburner Feedsmith or FD Feedburner Plugin. Either one is good, but the most important thing is to use Feedburner to manage your feeds! Why? First of all, if you change the location of your website or the platform you are using to run your website your original RSS feed address will more than likely change. This means that anyone who is subscribed to your feed using that address will now get nothing. The only solution at that point is to post a link to your new feed and hope that most of your readers will subscribe to your new feed. However, if you are using Feedburner then all of those readers are subscribed to a feed at Feedburner’s address which doesn’t change. All you have to do is tell Feedburner to start getting its contents from the new location and you don’t loose a single reader. As if that weren’t enough, Feedburner will also help clean up any improperly formed feeds which can be especially useful for podcasters.

That’s a pretty good first five to get you started. I’ve got Part 2 just around the corner so stay tuned. But until then, what plugins do you use that you want to tell the world about?

I’m going to warn you up front that this is going to be a geek-only post. However, this is information that should live multiple places online so I’m going to post it right here on the ol’ blog.

I’ve been paying attention to my Activity Monitor on my Macbook Pro recently. This is mainly because I have felt like my computer has been using more memory than it should and the fans have been running a little more than I would like. I kept noticing this one process called “ajaxserver” that was always highlighted in red — meaning it was “not responding” or frozen. When I would stop it manually it would always come back and eventually turn red again.

A quick Google search later and I found the culprit and the solution. I’ve had this free app installed on my machine for a while even though I hardly use it. It’s called Hotspot Shield and it basically creates a secure internet connection wherever you are so you can feel more confident about checking your email and getting online on public WiFi hotspots. I usually keep it disabled because it slows down your connection a bit and because I don’t really know if I trust them any more than whatever hackers might be lurking around the local coffee shop.

Apparently, (according to some folks in the MacRumors Forums) Hotspot Shield is what keeps running this process called ajaxserver. When Hotspot Shield is inactive, the process stops responding. This apparently also has been making my fans run in overtime.

The solution? Either don’t run Hotspot Shield at all or keep it in its fully active state. My choice? I think I’ll just uninstall. (Note: According to this Apple Support Forum some people have had issues uninstalling it. I used AppZapper and haven’t had any issues yet.)

Hope that helps someone else down the road!

One of the things that I have loved the most about switching to the world of Mac is the endless supply of cool little applications that people develop to make your computing life better. Every time Shaun and I meet I end up telling him about some cool little Mac application that he just has to download. The last one was 1Password which I absolutely love, but I won’t go into all of that now. That’s in the past.

Yesterday Shaun spoke at a local university’s chapel service on behalf of Compassion and then we went out for a quick lunch/meeting at one of my favorite coffeshops.

As is our custom, at some point I found some hole in Shaun’s life that could only be filled by a free Mac application… actually I found two.

First of all, Shaun used his (old and beat-up) Macbook Pro during his talk to show a few pictures of children who have had an impact on his life. Very cool. But, as is the case with most anyone who uses a notebook in a production environment, he had to fight with his screensaver/sleep settings to keep it awake and ready. Enter Caffeine. It’s a great little app that puts a coffee cup icon in your menubar. Just click the icon and your computer will not go to sleep, dim the screen, or start the screensaver. Then, click it again and it’s back to normal. Simple but effective.

With his computer now sufficiently hopped-up on coffee, now it was time to address his hard drive issues. Shaun is very grateful for his computer. When his old iBook was practically dead, someone lovingly offered him a used MBP at an unbelievable price. However, the more Shaun used this computer to create short movies, graphics, and other media for his blog the more his small hard drive filled up. Now, his hard drive is pretty much full and he doesn’t really know where all of the space went. If only he had a way to visually see what files (and file types) were eating up his precious space.

Well, now he can. Disk Inventory X is a free app that scans your computer’s hard drive and then displays its contents visually so you can easily see what files and file types are taking up all of your space.

Each color represents a type of file so you can quickly tell whether your music collection is the culprit or it’s your library of ripped (public domain) DVDs. Each block represents a specific file so you can tell what specific files are taking up chunks of space as well.

Both of these apps are free and they both get the Ben Stewart seal of “coolness.” Got any free apps that you just can’t live without? Let me know in the comments.