Introducing BusySync for iCal

I'm pleased to announce the first public beta release of BusySync. BusySync lets you share iCal calendars with others on your local area network. You can learn more about BusySync at busymac.com or download the public beta now.

Not only is this the official unveiling of our first product, BusySync, but it also marks the unveiling of our new company, BusyMac, founded by Dave Riggle and John Chaffee (me). Dave and I have a long history of building great software together dating back to the early 90’s when we created Now Up-to-Date, a revolutionary network calendar for Mac OS 7.

A lot has changed since then, but demand for a simple way to share calendars with family and coworkers on a local area network remains. Today, iCal is the de facto standard on Mac OS X. iCal has a clean, simple user interface and tight integration with other apps. But it lacks the ability to share calendars with others on your network.

That’s where we come in. We’ve leveraged our years of experience and passion for network calendaring and created BusySync -- to provide seamless calendar sharing in iCal. Check it out!

Comments

[Rymann]

This is awesome - we have been hoping for something like this for a long time. What happens when the trial is over? I'm gong to have a few upset girls on my hands if there is nothing to replace it when the trial ends, they are all over it already.

[Vishal]

This is nice, but you guys are late to the party - Leopard will have this built-in

[Peter]

Does this work between multiple users on the same computer?

[Robert 'Groby' Blum]

Guys, this is *awesome*. OK, it also means I can scrub three months of work on my own project, but c'est la vie ;)

I've got a couple of questions, though.

#1 is *how* you achieve access to the calendars. If it's via an InputManager, I probably need to get working on compatibility issues with my IM "iCalFix".

#2 is - where do I send the money? ;)

As for Vishal - AFAIK, Leopard includes CalDAV, but that means you actually need a CalDAV server. Most people don't run that at home.

[John Chaffee]

Rymann -- we'll have a final version available for sale before the trial ends. Pricing is TBD. Please stay tuned...

Vishal -- Like Robert mentioned, it's Leopard Server, not the standard Leopard, that includes the CalDAV server. That's a fine solution for a large workgroup with a dedicated IT staff. But we're targeting families and small workgroups that don't have a Leopard Server on their network.

Peter -- Yes, it does work on a single Mac with multiple user accounts.

Robert -- We are accessing the calendar data via Sync Services. It is not an InputManager and it works fine with iCalFix, which I'm a big fan of!

[Eric Meyer]

Cool. Just one thing: how much will it cost at the end of the 30-day trial?

[Eric Meyer]

Should've either posted faster or waited longer to start. Sorry!

[Rick Curran]

I am *so* glad somebody made this app, I've been wanting this kind of capability with iCal for ages! It just makes so much sense to sync Calendars via bonjour!

Great work!

[Michael Sippey]

John -- congrats on the new product! Looking forward to checking it out; sounds fantastic.

[S. Ben Melhuish]

Nice idea.

I'd love to see something similar for Address Book.

[zopp]

Nice news !
What could be a benefit with a NAS ? Instead of synchronizing between different computers, can it be "centralized" in this NAS server ?

[Steven]

This there anyway this can work for people who aren't on the same LAN? Right now, my wife and I each publish a "family" calendar that the other subscribes to and we both write our our own & view both in iCal (read access). This allows us to add/change stuff when we're both at work or traveling.

However, if I need a change made to something on my wife's calendar, I need to email her to make the change (no write access).

[John]

zopp,

You have to be on the same LAN, at least some of the time. BusySync will allow you to make changes when you're offline (if you have a laptop, for example) and the changes will be sync'd when you reconnect to your network.

But if you're both using desktops that are in separate locations, you're out of luck. Sorry.

[zopp]

@ John

Regarding the LAN: all the family is on the same LAN in our house but not all the Macs are switched on in the same time, only the NAS is.

My concern was if for ex. my wife modifies the family calendar (which is commun for all the family) and swithes off her computer, I wouldn't be able to receive this modification into my iCal because hers is not on line. But in case if there is a commun iCal file on the NAS, everybody's iCal will be up to dated when connected to the LAN (and NAS). Correct ?
Thanks for your help
Regards from Switzerland.

[John]

@ zopp

BusySync is quite different than a file sharing solution like NAS. It's really peer-to-peer synchronization, so the clients have to be turned on at the same time, at least some of the time. The syncing happens automatically and only takes a few seconds, so as long as you and your wife have your computers turned on at the same time for periodic brief intervals, it should work.

For example, if your Mac is turned on and your wife turns hers on briefly and makes a change to her calendar, that change will be immediately sync'd to your Mac. Likewise, any changes you had made to your calendar while your wife was offline, will sync to her Mac the moment she turns it on.

Hopefully that makes sense. Why don't you give it a try and let me know if it works?

[zopp]

@ John

Thanks for your explanations - I gave a try but had some surprise (not because of an issue but due to peer-to-peer logic). Actually as we synchronized both iCals, we had a misch-masch calendar entries - my end my wife's. I have understood only ONE calendar must be published: mine or my wife's but not both ! One of iCals must be deleted.

On the other hand, what's disappointing too is the sync with our mobiles (smart phone with agenda - SE & Nokia - not an iPhone in Europe ;-) ) which don't consider categories. So after syncing with computer, everything is transfered as "personal" and one has to put it in right categories. Of coarse, it is not new, but for family syncing it is rather boring.

Your soft is fine, but it doesn't help us enough, so for a while we keep each our own iCal without syncing.

[John]

@ zopp -- You should be able to publish calendars from both your Mac and your wife's Mac without problems. So there must be something else at play. Anyway, thanks for trying it out and reporting back.

[zopp]

@ John

I didn't want to say publishing of 2 calendars doesn't work. The only issue I had there was a mutual publishing i.e. a "family" calendar from computer of my wife and my "family" calendar in the same iCal. Of coause, both these calendars are not identical, only their "shape" is.

I tried it also between my PowerPC Mac and a PowerBook, where both iCals are identical (synchronized previously over .Mac server) - When I published and subscribed in both of them, I had a cross link with double iCal entries in each computer. In case I published in only one and subscribed only in the other, I got a double iCal entries in the computer with subscribing.

[John]

@ zopp

Thanks for clarifying. I think what you are experiencing is what we call a "Sync Loop" when using both BusySync and .Mac to sync calendars. The key is to use either BusySync or .Mac for syncing calendars on your LAN, but not both. We have some pretty pictures describing the setup here:

http://www.busymac.com/support.html#dotmac

[zopp]

@ John
I don't think this is a .Mac issue (in my case of cause). Only my computers are synced over .Mac - and manually only !
My wife's are not at all (she has not a .Mac account) and the result was similar (cross entries).
My understanding is one of the computers must not have any iCal calendar for sharing (family in our case) and it will accept the sharing from the scratch. In case both computers have their own calendar "Family", after running Busy Sync computer A will still have its own calendar A and calendar B and vice versa for computer B. As it is peer-to-peer exchange, there is not an up date of calendar A from calendar B but calendar B is joined to A. Correct ?
In this case, my testing would be OK ?

This would explain my expectation to obtain a "triangle" syncing with NAS (as f. ex. Mac X serve or Lotus Notes do) is wrong.