First macosxhints post

The problem I had was that I wanted to be able to access and edit my ical calendars on multiple computers without having to sign up to .Mac (being a cheap skate and all). Currently in iCal if you publish from two different computers to one calendar file the changes made by one will not be shown in the other.

These steps should be made on all computers.

1. Backup your ~/Library/Calendars directory.
   
   
2. Publish your calendars on the web. This can either be hosted on your own computer (follow the excellent guide here) or an external website such as iCal exchange which is free. Make sure that the calendars you wish to share are published in iCal.
   
   
3. Download and install Sunbird. Sunbird is the stand alone mozilla calendar and the clever thing about it is that it allows one to both subscribe to and publish to the same calendar to webdav (iCal only allows you to do one or the other). It uses the same format as iCal. The reason that I do not use it instead of iCal is that I think it looks ugly at the moment. Warning! Sunbird is beta software at the moment but seems stable enough to me.
   
   
4. For each of your iCal calendars set up a corresponding calendar in Sunbird:
   
   
   
   1. Goto File -> New Calendar file.
      
   2. Enter the file location. Browse to ~/Library/Calendars and pick the corresponding calendar file used in iCal. It will ask you whether you want to overwrite the file, just say yes (remember it is stored on the web).
      
   3. Enter the remote server URL. This is the URL that you have published your calendar to e.g. http://www.example.com/ical/Home.ics. It is important that this step is followed or it will not work!
      
   4. I also allow automatic publishing and pick a colour but these are not essential.
      
   
   
5. Now every time you switch computer BEFORE you start ical, simply load Sunbird, press apple-R to reload the calendars from the web and quit. This basically overwrites the ical calendars with the up-to-date copy that is on the web.
   

So basically Sunbird is used to sync the web copy with the local copy. Note that you should not run the two programs at once as both are using the same files so the programs could get confused.

I know this is pretty clunky so as an alternative here is a BASH script that can be run instead of opening iCal (wget needs to be installed but Sunbird is not needed):


#!/bin/bash

USER=user
PASSWORD=passwd
URL=http://example.ac.uk/ical/

#Put your calendar names here
for i in Home Work Birthdays
do
wget --http-user=$USER --http-passwd=$PASSWORD $URL$i.ics -O ~/Library/Calendars/$i.ics
done

open -a iCal.app

exit

I am going to be more commited

Now that the end of my PhD is starting to loom, I have decided that I am going to try and be more committed to this blog thing. Just to keep my mind on other items. I think that it will have two streams to it:

1) Random rants about PhDs and writing up etc.

2) Technology stuff i.e. programs I am mucking around with and other random stuff.

I might also stick in some personal stuff but that will probably be very much in the background.

Well I am at work waiting for my monthly project meeting which is likely to be another difficult odious affair. Ah well.

Despite that I have managed to get iTunes watcher working. This is really great program that produces a webpage of what one has been listening to on iTunes recently. It comes in two parts: a php/mySQL program that sits in my plus.net webspace (I have no checked that mySQL works on plus.net which is great) and an applescript that checks iTunes every so often. This is mac only as far as I am aware. The results can be seen here. I'm just using the default skin at the moment so it lacks originality but heh, still cool. I particularly like the fact that it looks up the relevant art for each track.

Since I last wrote I have managed to get my dirty mitts on a google mail account and I must say that I am very impressed with it, especially that you can use keyboard shortcuts to do must thing - Its almost like mutt! I have only had one invite so far, but hoppefully I will be able to spread google mail far and wide in the near future

I really must update this thing more regularly. I haven't even mentioned my sea-monkeys yet!!

GMAIL

If anyone fancies giving me a GMAIL invite I would love it.
I really do think it will be fantastic dispite the privacy concerns. Don't want to end up with some long incomprehensible email address!

Dan

Man! I do not seem to be able to keep up with this blogging thing at all.

Ahhh well.

Well its a Friday so not much is going on here. I was at the Institute of Child Health all morning and sorted some bits out.

Since then I have installed an updated version of centericq (http://konst.org.ua/centericq/) which is a really great ncurses chat client. The big bonus is that it also allows you to make livejournal entries (which I am doing right now) and also keeps track of RSS feeds.

Secondly, I have been looking at this medical site recommended by the Guardian (http://www.medictra.com). It has a diet tracker that allows you to log your food intake and your excercise, and calculates what you need to do to lose the weight. Its free but you have to sign up to it, so i am not sure what sort of junk mail you'll get through it! The company seems to be some sort of medical survey company. But anyone, it must be a lot cheaper that Weight Watchers. Whether i will managed to stick to it is another matter.

Anyway must do some more work!

OK here we are. This is my first attempt at doing a blog and we'll just have to see how it works out. I am doing this on my normal time wasting afternoon! Ok that is it for now.