Kill your Calendar (over the Holidays)

I don't know about you, but I don't particularly appreciate it when my iPhone AND iPad AND MacBook bleep in cacophonous union to remind that I have a meeting at 8:00am, when it's 3:30am in the UK, especially not when I'm suffering from jetlag, and that is now the end of THAT night's sleep, thank you very much.

Well, getting your school calendar to take a holiday when you do is not difficult, when you know how, but isn't that often the case?

Here's how:

As your calendars are in 'the cloud' you can safely delete them from any device, and just restore them when you get back. So go to ...

Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars

Now select the account that has the calendar you wish to kill, and you will see this:

Slide the switch to kill the Calendar

This is the part where people panic, it's OK, just delete it. Trust me. 

All it does is turn the calendar off, not quite so scary sounding is it? 

Now all you have to do is reverse this when you get back.

Private Google Calendars

If you are using Google calendars, you should also know that you need to use more than one calendar, as you don't really want your appointment for leg waxing, ear syringing, colonic irrigation, nose/ear hair removal, (yes, I could go on) viewable by anyone you share your calendar with.

And the one of the most awesome features of Google calendars is precisely that you CAN share them.

So how do you resolve this dilemma?

Make a separate 'sub' or 'secondary' calendar and put all your private business in there instead. Now you can share your main calendar with school, and your sub calendars or your little secret.

 






But, I hear you cry, I want to be able to view my private calendar(s) on my iPhone, iPad - well that's OK, there is a magic link to fix that here:

https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect



If you don't use an iDevice, try this link instead.

Just click that, and tick the calendars you want to appear on your iDevice, click SAVE (bottom right corner - easy to miss) and let the computer magic happen.

That's it.

Secondary calendars do have a whole load of other usages other than keeping your beauty treatments to yourself, some uses could be:

• Admin calendar for keeping track of key meeting times on the school
• Class calendar that could be shared with students/parents - this could also be embedded in a Google Site
• Keeping track of an area of responsibility without it cluttering up your main calendar.

Finally - remember it is easy to turn calendars on and off to better manage your calendar view. One click to turn it, off, and one to turn it back on again.

Get your digital life in sync.

So you're using GMail, and Google Calendar, and now you want to get all that awesome data in sync with your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch? Look no further...

Just follow these screen shots to get everything working. 

First find the Settings icon, then Mail, Contacts, Calendars:

 Add Account:

When you see this screen, choose Gmail:

Then enter your College GApps account details, make sure you include the gapps part of your email address (so it knows it is a GMail account). You can write anything you like for 'Description'.

After a bit of computer magic, you should see the following screen, switch everything on...

Now, when/if you open Mail you have your College Email, and your College Calendar (just your own calendar, not any others you might have added) is displayed in iCal.

If you have several Google calendars you would like to sync to your iDevice, you can do this by going m.google.com/sync, login to your account, and select the calendars you want to syncronise.  

What's that I hear you yell? What about Notes? GREAT question. Well that's a great perk if you use Apple Mail on your Mac, any notes you create in your GApps account will automatically display in Mail, and vice versa, making it a very effective note taking on the fly tool. In Mail you can see any Notes (one for each GMail account if you have more than one)

That's it, you are connected.

What's that? You want to sync Your Google Calendar with iCal? Well OK then...

In iCal > Preferences > Accounts:

Then click on the little + sign, (bottom left corner) and you'll see this:

Where it says 'Account type:', choose Google, then fill in the rest of your account details, make sure you include the gapps part of your email address.

In iCal you will be able to view your Calendar(s). To edit, create College Calendar events make sure you have clicked on that calendar on the left side:

Does your Calender think you are in British Columbia?

Many of you have already started using Google calendars, and this year, sooner or later all of you will, more than likely be getting to grips with electronic calendars like Google Calendars. These are being used more and more frequently throughout the college as a better way of managing the mind boggling array of schedules we all juggle so we can meet each other.

Having and sharing calendars makes this far easier than the usual flurry of emails, reply alls, etcetera that usually ensues when attempting to 'find a time' that works for a group.Usually when you check your mail overseas you will get a prompt from Google asking if you want to change your settings to match your locality, I would click yes. Just remember not to ignore it when it asks you the same question on your return... (which it should). Otherwise...

You will discover that you have stumbled on a common glitch, date settings. For some reason many of your Google accounts are under the impression that you are in Ireland/Iran/Azerbaijan etc. This is probably the price you pay for checking your emails while on holiday.

Here's is how to check and if necessary adjust your date settings:

1. Open Google Calendar (this is important - opening settings in Mail will only allow you to change Mail settings)
2. At the top right, click on Settings > Calendar Settings
3. You should see something like this...
   
   
4. If you copy my settings above you should be fine.