calendar_logo Okay, I’m on a Google tangent here, but I had to share. Maybe you’ve used Google Calendar before. Even if you have, things have changed!

I started playing around with Google Calendar a little over a year ago. I immediately LOVED it. The interface was so easy to use and efficient. It integrates perfectly with Gmail as well, which is what I use for personal email. One of the things I loved the most was how it handles appointments. You can invite other people, regardless of what network they are on to appointments and when they click yes, no or maybe… it immediately updates their status on your guest list on your calendar. This function feels a lot like evite. Although I loved the interface, Google calendar was just not a viable option for me.

My work calendar was my primary calendar. Since I had appointments on my work calendar that often took place after work hours and on the weekends, it made no sense to maintain two calendars. We used Microsoft Outlook with Exchange. This way I could access my calendar anywhere, including my phone. However, there was a major limitation with Outlook and Exchange. You can’t really invite people outside your network to meetings through the calendar. You would have to email them and manually add their response to your calendar. In addition, you can’t share your calendar outside your network. I often had to print out my calendar so that my wife knew what was going on.

Finally, Google has answered the request of many fans. They’ve created a small application that syncs Google Calendar with your Outlook Calendar. Now, I can create appointments on either platform and the data syncs immediately. So, if I need to invite people to an appointment that are not in my Exchange network, I can use Google to invite them and the data will transfer over to Outlook. Is that amazing or what. In addition, my wife and friends now have access to my calendar if I share it with them. Again… beautiful!

At the current time, I am not using Outlook as my mail and calendar client, but my iPod Touch does sync with Outlook (not Google). So, I’m using the Outlook Sync with my Google Calendar so that my iPod touch will always have the correct calendar data on it.

Click here to get the Google Sync application!

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