Low Tech Google And Outlook Calendar Sync

For years I've tried a bunch of different methods to keep my personal and work calendars synced. My companies insists on using Outlook/Exchange Server, and I prefer Google Calendar because I can get it on all my devices. Most of the time my personal and business schedules don't overlap, but on the occasion they do, I want to make sure both calendars reflect my schedule.

So here is what I do. It's a two step process, but it only takes a few seconds.

In Google Calendar, when creating an event, make sure to add you Outlook user email address in the box provided to the right of the event details.

Once you save this event, an email is sent to your Outlook email with a calendar invite. Just accept it in your Outlook calendar, and there you go, you now have the same event items in both calendars. And the nice thing is, when you make an update to the event, it's pushed to all those who are members of the event.

Low tech I know, and takes a few steps, but no messy sync systems or paying for services.


photo credit: freestock.ca ♡ dare to share beauty via photopin cc

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5 Step Web Hosting Disaster Recovery Plan

In light of a recent web hosting snafu at MediaTemple, I wanted to share 5 things you can do to recover from a web hosting disaster. Most of these require some time to set up and your vigilance. But if followed, you can rebound from a disaster in a short amount of time.

1. Create your disaster recovery plan. The easiest part of a disaster recovery plan is to actually have a plan.This plan should include:

• A list of the sites you maintain
• A list of user names and passwords for your sites
• The databases names, server addresses or IP, user names and passwords, that are used for your list of sites
• FTP user names and passwords for each of your sites
• Your web hosts tech support number
• Have a backup web host decided in case for some reason you need to move quickly
• Know how to get into your domain registrar so you can change Name Servers if needed
• Name, number, email of a web professional that may be able to help restore your systems if needed

I recommend having it on paper, and online. Use Google Docs if you don’t have a word processor.

2. Create an automated backup of your site. This one step is vital to a disaster recovery plan. If you don’t have a complete backup, database and disk files, recovery is not in the cards. There are plenty of options available, and most hosting companies provide a backup mechanism. Automate if you can. At the very least complete a manual backup.

A word of caution here. Make sure you understand what your web host will and won’t back up for you. I found out the hard way when a previous host revealed they hadn’t been backing up my sites because I had to many files. Defeats the purpose of backing up.

3. Test your backups as least once a week. When you get your backups, whether they are in archived format or not, make sure the files are readable and can be use if and when the time comes. This is an advanced procedure, the longer between tests put you at greater risk for having a problem. For example, if for some reason you are unable to open the archives that hold your database SQL files, you would not be able to restore them again. This could be disastrous.

4. Put backups in multiple locations. If you keep all of your backups on the web server your sites are on, and it goes down, how will you get to your backups? I recommend you keep them in several locations.

• GMail is a great storage place for backups. Create a new account just to hold your backups.
• Copy your backups to a local hard drive.
• Keep a copy on another web site or service like Amazon S3.

5. At least once a month practice a recovery. If you run a critical web site, or you host sites for others, I would highly recommend you practice a complete recovery at least once a month, at the very least once a quarter. Using your plan to recover from you local backups, knowing how the restore process works with a database and FTP program to move files is important. Don’t wait until the something has happened just to find out you don’t have everything.

Technology fails. People fail. Both of these things can cost you time and money. You can never be too prepared. It doesn’t take much to get your plan in place. I’m sure there is more you can do, so by all means, add that to your plan. What else would you recommend?

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Now You Can Access Google Tasks In Mail, Calendar and Mobile Applications

Finally, Tasks are part of the Google calendaring application. The Task feature has been available for a while now, but it wasn’t available as part of the calendaring system, where I believe most people want and need to use a task management system.

As is typical with Google, it’s not a flashy part of the calendaring system. Looking at the image below, you can almost miss it if you weren’t paying attention.



Just like adding a calendar event, when you click on a time line or day box, a bubble window pops up, giving you the ability to add an event or a task. Once you have entered the text for your tasks, you will immediately see the task show up on the day you want the task due. You will also see in the Task pane on the right of the calendar, you can see it in a pane on the right of GMail, and as you can see from my iPhone I was able to see the task immediately.







So as it stands today, Google has basically made tasks available across all the application you would expect to see it, GCal, GMail and in mobile applications.

One feature I hope they implement soon are multiple task buckets. You can create tasks on the iPhone in a sort of bucket, but all calendar and mail task entries end up in the default task list. That isn’t a big deal, but I have tasks separated into groups (like things I do every Monday as an example).

There are several actions available when you have the task list pane open. You can edit, indent, sort, and several more. You will find the actions at the bottom of the task list.

This is a great step for this feature. I use tasks all the time, now I can see them across all my Google apps.

[Update: 05/14/09]I wanted to make a small change to this post. It appears that you can move a task to another list once you have created it. There is a small drop down at the bottom of the bubble form when you are editing a task that lets you move it to a new list. Didn't see that before. That drop down list should also be on the new entry form. Hello Google?

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Gmail Adds Tasks But Still Has A Ways To Go

Google Labs introduced Tasks as an add-on to their Gmail product yesterday. I've spent the past week looking for a good task manager, specifically one that works on the iPhone, and on the Web. So it was a timely surprise to see they added this feature.

The official Gmail blog gives some instruction on how to turn tasks on, and where you can find the task list. I'm not sure I like the list opening up in the same location as the Chat. That's part of the reason I don't use the Gmail web based chat tool. It's clunky.

However, the coolest part of tasks is I can select one or more email, and under the More Actions drop down, choose to create a task. Even Outlook doesn't support this nativley.

Here are a couple of other features of note:

• You can pop out the task window and move it around on your desktop. This should eliminate neededing to keep the Gmail screen focused in your browser.


• You can create different lists. A tasks list wouldn'e be complete without the ability to group items.


• Creating sub tasks is easy with an indent feature.


• The ability to add a due date and add notes. This is very cool. If you want to keep a running tab of things as you progress towards completion, the notes section is just the place.

I think I'll spend some to create a simple Getting Things Done (GTD) workflow using Gmail Tasks. Shouldn't be too difficult with the ability to create seperate task lists.

The biggest draw back, and maybe the deal killer for a lot of people, is that tasks are not support on the mobile platform yet. That is a real disappointment for me. Remember The Milk and many others have web/mobile combinations, and you would think Google would have made that combination a priority.

I suspect a mobile version will quickly follow once the features catches on. Makes no sense to use tasks if you spend most of your time on a mobile device.

One more feature I would like to see added are notification of uncompleted tasks sent with the daily events list.

[update]

Thanks to a great question from @utahcon, he brought up the fact it was difficult at first to find the Tasks link. So here is a picture of where you can find the link. Also, don't forget, use the keyboard short cut Shift-T when you have items selected to create a new task.

[image title="Taks Link In Gmail" size="medium" id="991" align="none" linkto="full" ]

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