.KEYWORD calendar
.FLYINGHEAD Internet in the palm of your hand
.TITLE Yahoo’s Web calendar
.FEATURE
.AUTHOR Jeff Carlson
.SPOTLIGHT FIGALT calendar-cover.gif
.SUMMARY Do you Yahoo? If you do, then this article is for you. Seriously, Jeff Carlson has put together a fascinating article about linking Yahoo’s Web-based calendar to the Palm device. You can automatically HotSync from your Palm computer to a file that’s uploaded to the Web calendar. Now you can access your schedule from anywhere and share it with all your friends.
Anyone who’s ever served time lugging a paper-based personal organizer can attest to the superior portability of Palm device– a PalmPilot in the hand, as the saying almost goes, is worth at least 50 pounds of zippered leather schedulers on your back. And yet, a new alternative is emerging that makes even a Palm III look cumbersome: what if your schedule existed everywhere?
That’s the case with Web-based calendar and contact-management services. I’ve used Yahoo!’s personalized news service (which creates a summary page of linked news articles in categories that I choose) for over a year now. So, when they introduced the free Yahoo! Calendar recently, I couldn’t resist trying it out. When I saw that I could import my existing Palm calendar data directly, without having to re-enter information by hand, I became even more intrigued.
.H1 Why use a Web calendar?
Before launching into the specifics of using Yahoo!’s calendar, I need to address the bigger question of why someone would want to put their schedule on the Web, especially if they already own a PalmPilot. If you can access your Date Book with the press of a button or the tap of your stylus, what good is it to store that information on an Internet server hundreds or thousands of miles away? I’ve come up with the following short list of solutions (and would love to hear from readers who have found other uses):
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET In the Palm Desktop software, you can create a new user account that acts as a central calendar for family members or officemates who don’t use PalmPilots for their schedules. Stock it with important non-private dates (holidays, company meetings, group movie outings), then give everyone the user name and password to access it online at their convenience. They can also add their own group events for everyone else to see.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET For people who travel frequently, the Web can serve as a last-resort method of retrieving your information in the event that your PalmPilot or laptop gets stolen, broken, or your data becomes otherwise inaccessible. All you need to do is find a computer with Web access (for example, a client’s office, a Kinko’s location, or an Internet cafe). From there you can check or edit your schedule, then print the results or save them to a floppy disk.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET A Web calendar, at the very least, can serve as a great off-site backup of your Date Book data. At any time you can export the Web information into a Date Book Archive (.DBA) formatted file (more on this later).
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET I know of several companies where employees are assigned desktop computers or laptops, but are discouraged from storing any personal data on them. Some firms have begun "checking out" computer equipment depending on the employee’s usage needs; so instead of hauling around a laptop that’s used maybe ten percent of the time, you pick one up in the morning and return it before you go home. Obviously, you don’t want to store your schedule on a machine that someone else will be using tomorrow, so having it somewhere else (like the Web) makes it easier to store and then wipe out your HotSynced data at the end of the day.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET A Web calendar offers the ability to have reminder emails sent to you automatically. If your PalmPilot organizer’s alarm doesn’t go off (or you just don’t hear its tiny speaker), there’s a backup reminder coming your way.
.END_LIST
.H1 How does it work"
I’m focusing on Yahoo!’s calendar service, but it’s not the only game in town. For PalmPilot users, however, it seems to be the easiest option. PlanetAll offers a similar service, including many more features such as an online address book and cross-linking of PlanetAll members. However, in order to import or export my data, I would have had to download and install a 5 MB Windows application, which not only alienates the Macintosh users out there, but makes it difficult to use in a portable solution like the situations I described earlier. I’m all for added functionality in this world, but power through simplicity more often wins me over (hence, I’m a PalmPilot user).
To set up your Yahoo! Calendar, go to http://calendar.yahoo.com/ and click the Sign Up Now button. After reading the agreement form and clicking the I Accept button, enter your user ID, password, and personal account information. Provided that your ID is unique and you filled in all of the information, you will be taken to a blank calendar screen similar to Figure A. (Note that signing up for Yahoo! Calendar also registers you for Yahoo!’s other personalized services.)
.FIGPAIR A The initial calendar hearkens back to those long-ago days when every minute wasn’t spent in a meeting.
As you can see, the viewing options are similar to what’s offered on the PalmPilot on in Palm Desktop. You can view your schedule in daily, weekly, and monthly views; clicking a date on the small calendar at left resembles the Date Book’s Go To screen. In addition, on the Web you can see a yearly view, plus add To Do items (however, they don’t tie-in to the PalmPilot’s built-in To Do List application).
.H1 Make it yours
Before you begin creating events, take a minute to set up your display preferences by clicking the Options link at the upper-right area of the screen. Use the pop-up menus to set the beginning and end times of your typical workday, specify your time zone, and enter an email address to be used for sending reminders. When finished, click the OK button under the Completed To Dos option, or the Back link in the Account Information bar if you don’t want to make any changes.
.H1 New events
To create a new event, either Click the Add Event button at the far right, or click one of the linked hours. You will be taken to the Add Event page, shown in Figure B. Although it comes across as confusing at first, the elements here reflect the same options found in Date Book. Clicking any of the OK buttons (located in the event name section, plus the optional Repeat and Reminder sections) submits the entire form and returns you to the previous calendar view. If you fill out the form but don’t click OK (instead clicking on a new date or view in the calendar at left), the event won’t be submitted.
.FIGPAIR B Don’t let the number of popup menus overwhelm you — they ensure that most options aren’t mistyped or entered incorrectly.
Your event will appear on the calendar with its start and end times noted in the left-hand column. At right, you’ll see two icons: the pencil takes you to the Edit Event screen (which is the same as the Create Event screen above, but with a new title); the scissors icon deletes the event. To view the details of any event, click its title.
.H1 Importing and exporting calendar data
Entering and editing events is a fine pastime, but not something I’d want to make a career out of. Unfortunately, if you want to enter all of your information via the Web interface, it would take the same amount of time as most careers. That’s where being a PalmPilot user comes in handy: if you’ve already set up your schedule in Palm Desktop, you’re only a few mouse clicks away from transporting your data to your new Web calendar.
First you need to export your existing events into the Date Book Archive (.DBA) format. In Palm Desktop, select Export from the File menu, name your file, then click the Export button.
Next, you need to import that data from your computer into Yahoo! Calendar’s database. Back in your Web browser, click the Options link, then scroll down to the Import and Export section. Under Import from Palm Desktop (step number one), click the Browse button to locate your Date Book Archive file (or write the path name in the field provided). When you click the Import Now button (step number two), the file is read and sent to the Yahoo! Calendar servers. A message at the top of the screen will indicate whether or not the import was successful. Click the Back link or the OK button to return to the calendar view, which will now display your events as shown in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C Your calendar data is now accessible from the Web.
If you make changes to the Web calendar and want to update your Palm Desktop information, return to the Options screen and export the Yahoo! Calendar data using the Export Now button under Export to Palm Desktop. The archive file will be downloaded to your hard drive, where you can then import it from within Palm Desktop.
.H1 Security concerns
Transferring all of your private data to the Web naturally raises a few security concerns. Yahoo! has posted a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) file at http://www.yahoo.com/info/privacy/, which details the company’s methods of keeping your information secure.
One important thing you should do is click the Sign Out link when you’re done with a session, which helps prevent someone else using your computer from accessing your calendar. Yahoo! uses a cookie to process your unique information when you sign out, that cookie is deleted from your browser’s cookie database, requiring you to sign in the next time you access the calendar.
.H1 The dating game
Like many maturing services on the Web, Yahoo! Calendar can act as a good accessory to your PalmPilot-based scheduling system. This way, you can get the best of the Palm world as well as the scope of the Web world.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Yahoo! Calendar is available at go to http://calendar.yahoo.com/.
Visit the Yahoo! FAQ file at http://www.yahoo.com/info/privacy/.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Jeff Carlson is the author of Palm III & PalmPilot Visual QuickStart Guide, available in mid-October 1998 by Peachpit Press. He can be reached via email at jeff@necoffee.com.
.DISCUSS http://www.component-net.com/webx?13@@.ee6c312
