Well, free would be nice. I like spanning sync but it's expensive. I will definitely be trying this out to see if it works as well for free.

scarabic

This is smart. I've often been surprised that people *want* their google and outlook calendars synchronized. For me, I like having a 'personal' calendar and a 'work' one.

I know the idea is that they are all the same -- things you need to get done -- but I like the separation.

Bing

Very cool - but why would I change from being a paid subscriber to SpanningSync? I don't say that facetiously, I would really like to know (because if this ends up being better, I'll make the switch once my paid time runs out).

bachya

@bachya: You wouldn't want to change, this is one way sync only. Maybe they will add two way sync before its out of alpha but I doubt it.

gardenlevel

The funny thing about this is that I would think free synchronization would and could be a big selling point for Google's gCal.

"Keep your iCal calendar from home and your Outlook calendar from work together in one place, accessible anywhere! Enter an appointment in Outlook, and see it at home in iCal, or from any online computer in gCal!" etc.

It just seems so useful and obvious I can't understand why Google didn't do it a long time ago.

- Alaska Jack

Alaska Jack

So, this is only for one way synchronization?

Like you said, Google Calendar -> FuseCal -> Outlook

Not like this: Google CalendarFuseCalOutlook

Right?

lightmanx5

It cant subscribe to private calendars (that need a username and password) which is sort of annoying and pointless...

dabeeeenster

Doesn't seem to want to pull in any of my webcal feeds. Anyone else having problems? Darn alphas... they just aren't as stable as betas... :-)

UnseenLlama

Sounds like it could be useful. Thanks!

xxdesmus

Aww...I was expecting something better. I have multiple private calendars that I keep synced between my PC and my Mac, and I'm subscribed to OggSync for that. Two-way between Outlook 2007 and Google Cal via OggSync, and also two-way between Google Cal and iCal via GCalDaemon (free!)....too bad it gets ugly when I try to overwrite my iPhone's calendar with the iCal one, but that's another story.

Kardboard

I could see this being useful for syncing date from other public, calendars, but in terms of syncing my Google and Outlook calendars, the new Google Calendar Sync tool does the trick for me, and it works seamlessly.

lawbrown2

FuseCal Developer Here.

Thanks for the write up! We are a really early release (thus the alpha) but we really appreciate all the feedback we can get. That being said I think you missed the main point of FuseCal which is to turn ANY webpage with events on it into an icalendar feed that you can then sync with whatever calendar software you use.

While two way syncing between multiple programs is definitely something we want to have eventually our main goal right now is solving the hard problem of getting the events you care about from the many online event listings you check regularly into your calendar. We still have a long way to go before we will work on every page out there but we think it works on enough sites to make the service worthwhile.

Thanks again!

Tibet Sprague
Lead Engineer
FuseCal.com

tibetsprague

@Alaska Jack: Google does have a sync feature for Calendar. I tried a couple of days ago but it didn't work for me - must have the the gmail address as the primary account for Oulook in order for it to work.

Gus H.

@tibetsprague: Well that's cool. Completely different angle than what the article suggests. I don't know if I have a use for it now, but I can definitely see how if the occasion arises, it would be nice to have something like this to import web-based events to my calendar for me each week.

SenorDunda

I have problems...

Wanted to use this to merge all my gcals (Personal, work, band) into one feed that I could save to outlook and then sync with my phone.

However. It would not import any of my apointments from my personal calendar. My work calendar imported but all the times were wrong. When I then tried to save the work calendar to outlook it put my apointments on random days!

Cool idea. But far to alpha for my liking. I'll check back in a couple of months.

Greg McMullin

@SenorDunda: What makes it even cooler is that once you have "subscribed" to a page with FuseCal we keep your calendar up to date as the page changes. So when there are new events or an event gets canceled we email you and then automatically update your iCal, Google Calendar...

tibetsprague

Why not just load the ical file into your calendar app? Is the point behind FuseCal that it will load pull in events when the ical file is unavailable? If not, then I'm certainly missing something.

rogun64

Well I got it working. In a fashion. I wasnt using my private gcal ical feeds, now I have switched to them it all seems to work fine.

Ive changed my strategy too. Instead of syncing straight to Outlook (which seems to have some issues) im syncinc all my feeds into another gcal. Which I am then syncing into outloog using googles own sync tool.

However, its not very fast at propagating changes. Anyone know how long it takes to changes to be reflected over the sync?

Greg McMullin

I would like an app the lets me pick any calendar I have and sync it to every other calendar I have. Once this initial sync happens I want all the calendars to sync every which way. This of course should be free, should never ever mess up, and if it does of course I would need millions in compensation.

But really I'd settle for free two way sync with iCal and Gcal.

Myles

Well here we are a number of hours later and changes I made to the initial gcal have still not been propagated to fusecal.

I appreciate its an alpha app, but a manual refresh button would be nice!

Greg McMullin

Google is already offering free Outlook-Google Calendar two-way syncing:
[www.google.com]

gelo

plaxo (www.plaxo.com) does the same things - gcal, ical, outlook, windows mobile, web-interface, yahoo, ....
has worked now for more than a year for me, a perfect piece of software.

vbernd