Gmail and Google Calendar integration is an embarrassment. Gmail can never recognise all the crucial event info, and to fix it you have to open up Google Calendar in a new tab, defeating the purpose. Thankfully there are third-party fixes, such as Pod for Gmail, which recognises event info and loads it into a full calendar event right inside your Gmail window.

You talked about your plans with your friends face to face, you made a Facebook event page and invited them - but people still seem to flake out on you. What gives? Well, you're still not making it easy enough for them.

Every group of friends has their token flakey friend. You know the type. They’re the first ones to say “YES!” to a social event and the last ones to say they aren’t coming. Sometimes they thoughtfully tell you they aren’t coming 12 hours after the fact.

I’m that friend.

The OpenStack Summit is a global event that is held in a different city twice a year. In November, it comes to Sydney. The full agenda was announced today and early bird registrations are available for a couple more weeks.

Dear Lifehacker, for the past few months my social media feed has been filled with news about the Great American Solar Eclipse. After all the hype, I'm pretty pissed off that Australia missed out. I want to make sure I don't miss the next solar eclipse in Australia. My question is simple: When is it and will I be able to see it from Sydney?

Between picking a venue, finding a caterer and making sure invitations get sent out, planning a wedding is exhausting, even if your wedding is relatively low-key. Luckily, there are plenty of tools, apps and websites that make it easier to keep up, and help you do your research at home or on the go.

iOS: Apple's been busy touting the "proactive" features in iOS, but one of the most actually useful aspects of that comes in the Calendar app. As Finer Things in Tech reminds us, if you set up an alert in Calendar for "Time to Leave", your iPhone will keep an eye on traffic conditions between your current location and your next appointment.

We had a great time at Data Center World in Vegas earlier this year, but you don't have to head overseas to catch up on data centre developments. AFCOM (the professional association for data centre managers) is holding its Asia-Pacific Symposium in Brisbane next week.

After the fuss around the official affiliation of the Comic-Con events running Australia later this year, there doesn't seem to be any doubt around the Supanova Pop Culture Expo.

We’re big fans of DIY here, so we’re excited by the first Australian Maker Faire at Swinburne University of Technology next month. Expect tinkering workshops and exhibitions for all sorts of technology and science, including DIY rockets and robots!

If you routinely plan events, you may find that SignUpGenius can help make the execution of your plans easier. Using the its five-step wizard you can create a variety of electronic sign-up sheets to email to potential attendees.

iOS: Forecast is an app that allows you to share your future plans with friends. Create an event, and every one of your Foursquare friends also using Forecast will receive an immediate push notification of your plans so they may join in.

Most Australians my age learnt about Halloween through dubious US TV specials. But is that always going to be the case?

There are plenty of dedicated gift registry sites, but they can be hard to customise to your tastes and they often require everyone else to sign up. Lifehacker reader Paul got around that by using a shared Google Docs spreadsheet.

At Lifehacker, we're unabashed fans of Creative Commons, the licensing approach which makes it easier to share content. Australia is running a series of free workshops around the country across September, which is a great chance to learn more about the legal issues and how Creative Commons licences are being used.

Whether you're planning an informal get-together or fancy sit-down meal, striking the right balance between too many and too little guests can make or break a party. Here's a quick rule of thumb to follow.

Doodle, the fast, free, and clean poll-maker/event-scheduler we last visited about two years ago, has updated with some helpful power-user features and web hook-ups that make organizing your parties and meetings easy. A new "Power Doodle" option appears when creating a meeting planner or poll, letting people answer with "If need be," hiding certain poll options from certain respondents, and other tweaks. Doodle also has added exporting to Outlook, Google Calendar and other iCal-based calendars, and a Facebook app that lets you poll your friends without a separate URL—they don't have to install the app, and non-Facebook-users can still be added. All in all, a pretty cool and non-spammy way to organize a party or meeting. Doodle

Back in February, we broke the news that the One Laptop Per Child charity was set to come down under - which was great news for people interested in helping with the development of its uber cool open source laptop, the XO. OLPC Australia has just announced it will host its first OLPC Techfest in Sydney on Sunday, 1 June. It will include demonstrations, workshops about the OLPC hardware and software, and developer tutorials. If you're at all interested in the OLPC, I strongly recommend you attend this event, as a lot of its very cool features are best demonstrated when you can network a bunch of the machines together, as will no doubt happen at this event.For full details, check out the OLPC website.

A new group has started in Sydney called Geek Girl Dinners. An offshoot of a group which started in London, the Sydney group organises through a Facebook group and has already held several events. The group exists to get girl geeks together for technical discussion, a meal and some laughs.If you are a woman geek you are welcome and encouraged to come along - it makes no difference what kind of a geek you are or how small or large your level of technical knowledge. The intention is to learn & share some technical fu, have fun and connect with other women in IT. If you're a guy geeks who has a female geek friend willing to escort you are also welcome to attend.I noticed that this month's Sydney dinner is already booked out but if you watch the blog or join the Facebook group you can go to the next one.And for Melbourne girl geeks - well, watch this space. :)