BusyBlog

That was then, this is now

With the recent demise of Now Software, it seemed appropriate to republish this blog post. This post was originally published before BusyCal was announced. It explains how to run a script that converts all of your Now Up-to-Date (NUD) calendar data to iCal. 

Since iCal syncs with BusyCal via Sync Services, once the NUD calendar data has been transferred to iCal, it will instantly sync to BusyCal as well. NUD users should be very comfortable using BusyCal. It provides many of the calendar sharing and personal productivity features NUD users have come to rely on, while maintaining compatibility with iCal, MobileMe, and the iPhone. 

NUD users are welcome to run this free script to transfer their data to iCal, whether or not they plan to use BusyCal. Once the data is transferred to iCal, you may download a 30-day trial of BusyCal and test it out. If you later decide not to use BusyCal, just stop using it and return to iCal, and all of your data will be current in iCal.

Following is the original blog post.

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Migrating from Now Up-to-Date to iCal

Back in the day, Now Up-to-Date (NUD) was the undisputed champion of calendar sharing for Mac users. We know, we're the original developers. But it's getting a little long in the tooth, and doesn't sync with the iPhone, so many NUD users are migrating to BusyCal. But how do you transfer all those events in NUD to iCal?

NUD to iCal is a free utility that copies events from Now Up-to-Date to iCal. It will create a new calendar in iCal for each category in NUD and copy all events to it. Events in NUD are converted to the following event types in iCal:

NUD	iCal
Appointment	Event
Banner Special Holiday	All Day Event
To-Do Call Undated	ToDo
Sticky Note Graphic	NA

How to use NUD to iCal
Launch NUD to iCal and select the following options:

• Source calendar — You may copy events from all calendars (categories) in NUD, or a single calendar.
• Date — All events after the date specified will be copied to iCal.

It is recommended that you set a short date range, like one year, and NOT import 10+ years of events from NUD to iCal, as it will take a long time (many hours) to process and iCal will run very slowly if you add that many events to it.

When you click Start, a new calendar will be created in iCal for each source calendar (category) in NUD, and all events that occur after the date specified will be copied to iCal. The progress will be displayed on the bottom of the window while the events are being imported.

Processing can take a while depending on the size of your calendar. Make sure you allow plenty of time for processing to complete and do not use or quit NUD or iCal while NUD to iCal is running. You may click the Stop button at any time to stop processing.

An alert will be displayed once processing is complete, informing you how many events were imported and to reconfigure the repeating events in iCal.

 

Note: NUD stores repeating events as a series of individual events, whereas iCal stores repeating events as a single event with a recurrence rule. Therefore, repeating events in NUD are not copied to iCal. Instead, only the first occurrence of a repeating event in NUD is copied to iCal and the word "[REPEATING]" is appended to the event title so you can easily find these events in iCal and reconfigure the repeat interval.

You may search for the repeating events in iCal by entering "repeating" in the search field in the upper-right hand corner of iCal.

A list of the matching events will appear on the bottom of the window.

 

You may then double-click each one, and reconfigure the repeat interval and edit the event title, as appropriate.

 

And that's it. All of your events in NUD have been copied to iCal.

Download NUD to iCal

BusySync 2.2

BusySync 2.2 has been released. Here's what's new:

• Fixed several google syncing bugs
• Faster iCal syncing
• Compatibility with forthcoming BusyCal

Existing users can install the upgrade by opening the BusySync prefpane and clicking the Check Now button. New users can download it here:

http://www.busymac.com/download

Sync iCal, Google Calendar and the iPhone wirelessly

Google recently introduced Google Sync for iPhone, which allows you to sync Google Calendar with your iPhone wirelessly. Combined with BusySync, you can keep iCal, Google Calendar and your iPhone in sync wirelessly, without having to invest in MobileMe. And unlike the limitations in MobileMe, you can sync WebDAV calendars to your iPhone (like Holidays) as well as the Birthdays calendar, with BusySync and Google Sync for iPhone.

Following are step-by-step instructions for setting it up.

Configure BusySync to sync iCal and Google Calendar

In this example, there are four calendars in iCal: Home, Seattle Xcoders, US Holidays, and Birthdays. And there is one calendar on Google: john@google.com.

Three of the calendars in iCal appear under the SUBSCRIPTIONS heading. These calendars will not sync to the iPhone when using MobileMe, but they will sync to the iPhone when using BusySync and Google Sync for iPhone.

Next, open the BusySync prefpane and select the calendars in iCal you'd like to publish to Google, and the calendars on Google you'd like to subscribe to in iCal. Whether you are publishing or subscribing, the calendars will sync in both directions and the calendar events can be edited in both iCal and Google.

After selecting the calendars you wish to sync with BusySync, the calendars you subscribed to on Google will appear in iCal, and the calendars you are publishing from iCal will appear on Google.

You can now create and edit events on these calendars in iCal and Google and BusySync will keep them in sync.

Configure Google Sync for iPhone

Now that you've got iCal and Google syncing, the next step is to get your iPhone syncing with Google. Here are the instructions from Google's Mobile Help page.

• Open the Settings application on your device's home screen.
• Open Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
• Tap Add Account....
• Select Microsoft Exchange.

• In the Email field, enter the name of the account (anything you'd like).
• Leave the Domain field blank.
• Enter your full Google Account email address as the Username.
• Enter your Google Account password as the Password.
• Tap Next at the top of your screen.
• A new Server field will appear. Enter m.google.com.
• Press Next at the top of your screen again.
• Turn Calendars ON.

You've set up Google Sync for your iPhone. Synchronization will begin automatically if you have Push enabled on your phone. You can also open the Calendar app and wait a few seconds to start a sync.

By default, Google will only sync your primary Google Calendar with your iPhone. If you want to sync more than one calendar, there is an additional step:

Open the Safari browser on your iPhone and go to http://m.google.com/sync. Sign in with your account and select the calendars you want to sync with your iPhone. Once you've selected the calendars you want to sync, they will appear on the iPhone on your next sync.

You can now add and edit calendar events on your iPhone and they will sync to Google wirelessly, and from there they will sync to iCal via BusySync!

Note: If you're using Google Apps, you will need to enable ActiveSync for your Google Apps account before you can use Google Mobile Sync.

Summary

Comparing Google Sync for iPhone to MobileMe is not an apples-to-apples comparison, given all the added features that MobileMe provides. But if your primary interest is in syncing calendars between your iPhone and Google Calendar, then Google Sync for iPhone is a great alternative.

BusyMac announces BusyCal

iCal replacement provides integrated calendar sharing and Google Calendar synchronization

Macworld Expo, San Francisco, CA - January 5, 2009 - BusyMac today announced BusyCal, a new Mac OS X desktop calendar application designed for sharing calendars on a LAN and syncing with Google Calendar. BusyCal combines the calendar sharing and synchronization technology from its award winning BusySync, with a beautiful desktop calendar interface that is instantly recognizable to iCal users — all in one easy to use integrated application.

BusyCal is a desktop calendar application that provides integrated calendar sharing and Google Calendar synchronization. Designed for families and small workgroups, BusyCal allows users to easily and cost-effectively share calendars on a local area network and over the internet without the need for a dedicated server, and to sync with Google Calendar. Shared calendars can be viewed and edited by multiple users and changes are instantly synchronized between users.

In addition to calendar sharing and synchronization, BusyCal provides the ability to display graphics, sticky notes, and live weather feeds; create ToDos, including recurring ToDos, that display in the calendar view and auto-forward until completed; view events in a customizable List View; and apply custom fonts, styles and colors to events. These unique features are available in BusyCal, while maintaining compatibility with other apps and services including BusySync, Google Calendar, Sync Services, iCal, MobileMe and the iPhone.

Pricing and Availability
BusyCal will be released in Spring 2009 for $40 per computer. BusyMac will demonstrate BusyCal at Macworld Expo (booth #3526-I), January 6-9, 2009. For more information or to sign up for the public beta, go to http://www.busymac.com/busycal.

BusyMac’s award winning BusySync, which adds calendar sharing and syncing capabilities to iCal, is currently available for $25 per computer. Customers who purchase BusySync prior to the release of BusyCal can upgrade to BusyCal for $10.

System Requirements

• BusyCal requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
• BusySync is compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
• BusyCal and BusySync are compatible with each other, allowing users to share calendars on a LAN between BusyCal users and BusySync/iCal users.

About BusyMac
Based in Seattle, Washington, BusyMac is a privately-held company founded in 2007 by Dave Riggle and John Chaffee. Dave and John have a long history of developing great software together, dating back to the early 90's when they created Now Up-to-Date, a revolutionary network calendar for Mac OS 7.

Migrating from Now Up-to-Date to iCal

Back in the day, Now Up-to-Date (NUD) was the undisputed champion of calendar sharing for Mac users. We know, we're the original developers. But it's getting a little long in the tooth, and doesn't sync with the iPhone, so many NUD users are migrating to iCal. But how do you transfer all those events in NUD to iCal?

NUD to iCal is a free utility that copies events from Now Up-to-Date to iCal. It will create a new calendar in iCal for each category in NUD and copy all events to it. Events in NUD are converted to the following event types in iCal:

NUD	iCal
Appointment	Event
Banner Special Holiday	All Day Event
To-Do Call Undated	ToDo
Sticky Note Graphic	NA

How to use NUD to iCal
Launch NUD to iCal and select the following options:

• Source calendar — You may copy events from all calendars (categories) in NUD, or a single calendar.
• Date — All events after the date specified will be copied to iCal.

It is recommended that you set a short date range, like one year, and NOT import 10+ years of events from NUD to iCal, as it will take a long time (many hours) to process and iCal will run very slowly if you add that many events to it.

When you click Start, a new calendar will be created in iCal for each source calendar (category) in NUD, and all events that occur after the date specified will be copied to iCal. The progress will be displayed on the bottom of the window while the events are being imported.

Processing can take a while depending on the size of your calendar. Make sure you allow plenty of time for processing to complete and do not use or quit NUD or iCal while NUD to iCal is running. You may click the Stop button at any time to stop processing.

An alert will be displayed once processing is complete, informing you how many events were imported and to reconfigure the repeating events in iCal.

 

Note: NUD stores repeating events as a series of individual events, whereas iCal stores repeating events as a single event with a recurrence rule. Therefore, repeating events in NUD are not copied to iCal. Instead, only the first occurrence of a repeating event in NUD is copied to iCal and the word "[REPEATING]" is appended to the event title so you can easily find these events in iCal and reconfigure the repeat interval.

You may search for the repeating events in iCal by entering "repeating" in the search field in the upper-right hand corner of iCal.

A list of the matching events will appear on the bottom of the window.

 

You may then double-click each one, and reconfigure the repeat interval and edit the event title, as appropriate.

 

And that's it. All of your events in NUD have been copied to iCal.

Download NUD to iCal

Make iCal faster by archiving old events

If you've been using a Mac for years, you probably have hundreds or thousands of old events stored in iCal. All of that legacy data can bog down iCal and make it slow. And if you're syncing your calendars with others using BusySync, you're probably slowing them down too.

You can significantly increase the performance of iCal by archiving these old events using iCal Archiver.

iCal Archiver is a free utility that copies old events to an archive calendar and deletes them from the source calendar. The archive calendar can then be exported for safe keeping, and deleted from iCal. Once the old events have been deleted, iCal's database should be much smaller and require less memory, resulting in faster performance.

Note: iCal Archiver works only on Leopard and Tiger and does not work on Snow Leopard. As an alternative, download BusyCal and perform the following steps to archive old events in iCal.

1. Launch BusyCal. It will read in all of your data from iCal.
   
2. Select New Calendar from the File menu and name it "Archive Calendar".
   
3. Switch to the List View and set a date range of Decade from the popup menu on the left to display a list of events in the last 10 years.
   
4. Check the calendars in the source list that you want to archive. Make sure all read-only calendar subscriptions, like US Holidays, are unchecked.
   
5. Shift-select all of the old events, then right-click on one of them and choose Calendar > Archive Calendar from the popup menu to move all of the old events to the Archive Calendar.
   
6. Optionally, after you've moved the old events to the Archive Calendar, you can export the Archive Calendar by selecting it and choosing File > Export and saving it to the desktop. After exporting the Archive Calendar, you can delete it in BusyCal by right-clicking on it and choosing Delete.
   
7. BusyCal syncs with iCal. Therefore, when you launch iCal all of the changes you made in BusyCal will sync to iCal and the old events will have been archived.

How to use iCal Archiver
Launch iCal Archiver and select the following options:

• Source calendar — You may archive events from all calendars, or a single calendar.
• Archive date — All events prior to the archive date will be copied to a new archive calendar and deleted from the source calendar.

When you click Start, a new Archive calendar will be created and all events prior to the archive date will be copied to the archive calendar and deleted from the source calendar. The progress will be displayed on the bottom of the window while the events are being archived.

Processing can take a while depending on the size of your calendar. Make sure you allow plenty of time for processing to complete and do not use or quit iCal while iCal Archiver is running. You may click the Stop button at any time to stop processing.

An alert will be displayed once processing is complete, recommending that you export and delete the Archive calendar from iCal.

To do so, select the Archive calendar in the source list, choose Export from the File Menu, and save the calendar as an ics file.

Then control-click the Archive calendar and choose Delete.

After deleting the Archive calendar, quit and relaunch iCal to save your changes and refresh the iCal database. Your iCal database should be much smaller now and require less memory, resulting in faster performance.

If you need to access the events on the Archive calendar at a later date, you can import the Archive calendar by double-clicking the ics file.

Google CalDAV versus BusySync

Google recently announced that Google Calendar now supports the CalDAV protocol enabling users to sync calendars on Google Calendar with iCal.

BusySync offers similar functionality for syncing iCal with Google Calendar. We have received many questions about how BusySync compares to Google CalDAV. Here’s a summary of the key differences:

	BusySync	Google CalDAV
Setup	Syncs calendars hosted in iCal and Google	Syncs only calendars hosted on Google
iPhone/MobileMe	Calendars sync to iPhone as read-write	Calendars do not sync to iPhone
iPhone/iTunes	Calendars sync to iPhone as read-write	Calendars sync to iPhone as read-only
ToDos	Supports ToDos in iCal	Does not support ToDos in iCal
Alarms	Syncs alarms created in iCal and Google; choice of popup, email or SMS	Syncs only alarms created on Google; popups only
OS Support	Leopard and Tiger	Leopard only

Read on for more details...

Setup
BusySync enables users to sync calendars hosted in iCal or Google. Once a source calendar is selected (in iCal or Google), BusySync automatically creates a corresponding destination calendar and keeps the two in sync.

BusySync can sync calendars hosted in both iCal and Google

Calendars synced from Google to iCal with BusySync appear in iCal as normal calendars.

BusySync calendars in iCal

Google CalDAV only syncs calendars hosted on Google, which means you cannot sync pre-existing calendars in iCal. To sync pre-existing calendars in iCal, each calendar must exported and deleted from iCal, imported into Google, and synced back to iCal.

Google can sync only calendars hosted on Google

Each Google CalDAV calendar will then appear in iCal under its own heading, adding unnecessary clutter to iCal.

Each Google CalDAV calendar appears under its own heading in iCal

iPhone
Calendars synced with BusySync will sync to the iPhone as read-write calendars, whether syncing the iPhone wirelessly with MobileMe or syncing via USB with iTunes. Changes made to events on the iPhone will then sync to iCal and Google Calendar.

Google CalDAV calendars do not sync to the iPhone at all when syncing an iPhone wirelessly with MobileMe. And Google CalDAV calendars sync as read-only when syncing an iPhone over USB with iTunes, prohibiting the ability to edit events on the iPhone.

iPhone Syncing	BusySync Calendars	Google CalDAV
Wireless/MobileMe	read-write	—
USB/iTunes	read-write	read-only

Incidentally, the same limitation applies to WebDAV calendar subscriptions in iCal (like Holiday calendars) -- they will not sync to the iPhone. But BusySync will allow you to work around this limitation as well to sync calendar subscriptions to the iPhone.

Connection Errors

Google's servers are frequently unreachable due to maintenance or network errors.

BusySync handles this situation gracefully and continues to attempt to connect to Google in the background without interrupting the user.

With Google CalDAV, if the server is not reachable, a modal dialog is displayed in iCal that you are forced to respond to. If you're syncing with Google CalDAV every minute, the error alert will appear every minute. The only way to get it to stop is to quit iCal. Very annoying.

Google CalDAV connection errors cause obtrusive alerts in iCal

ToDos
iCal supports ToDos, but Google Calendar does not.

BusySync supports ToDos in iCal. The ToDos will not sync to Google (because Google doesn't support them), but the ToDos will remain intact and editable in iCal.

Google CalDAV does not support ToDos in iCal. If a ToDo is created on a Google CalDAV calendar in iCal, an obscure error message is displayed and the ToDo is deleted!

 

ToDos cannot be created on Google CalDAV calendars

Alarms
BusySync syncs alarms created in both iCal and Google. And message alarms in iCal can be mapped to popup, Email, or SMS alarms on Google.



BusySync's Alarm syncing options

Google CalDAV syncs alarms created on Google but not alarms created in iCal. And it only syncs popup alarms; Email and SMS alarms are not synced.

Tiger
BusySync supports both Leopard and Tiger.

Google CalDAV is only supported in Leopard.

Summary
BusySync offers a more robust and full featured syncing experience than Google CalDAV. The lack of iPhone syncing in Google CalDAV is a show stopper for most; not to mention the lack of support for ToDos, one-way alarm syncing, and Leopard-only requirement. The best thing Google CalDAV has going for it is its price — free. But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

BusySync 2.1.9

BusySync 2.1.9 has been released. Here's what's new:

• Fixed bug that could cause Alarms to multiply
• Fixed crasher on Tiger
• Fixed bug that could cause calendars to become orphaned on Google
• Fixed bug syncing recurrence exceptions with Google
• Fixed bug syncing with Google Holiday Calendars

Existing users can install the upgrade by opening the BusySync prefpane and clicking the Check Now button. New users can download it here:

http://www.busymac.com/download

Backup iCal automatically with AppleScript alarms

Manually backup iCal
iCal allows you to create a backup file by selecting File > Back up iCal. You can later restore iCal by double-clicking the backup file. Restoring iCal from a backup works great as long as you have a recent backup. But that’s rarely the case.

What if you could configure iCal to create backups automatically? You can, with a little help from AppleScript.

Automatically backup iCal
This script will backup iCal when run. You can create alarms in iCal to run scripts. To configure iCal to back itself up every day, create a repeating alarm in iCal that runs this script. Here's how:

1. Save this iCal Backup script to your Applications folder.
    
2. Create a new event in iCal that repeats every day (e.g. 11:00 PM).
    
3. Set the Alarm type to Run Script. Then choose Other... and select the iCal Backup script stored in the Applications folder.
    

When finished, the Event Details should look something like this:

Now every night at 11:00 PM, iCal will run the AppleScript and back itself up. And, iCal does not have to be running for the script to run.

By default, the script creates backup files that are date and time stamped (iCal 2008-11-14 23.00.00.icbu) and stores them in ~/Documents/iCal Backups. It archives up to 10 day’s worth of backups and deletes the older backups.

Customize the AppleScript
If you want to alter the location of the backup directory or the number of archives to save, you can open the AppleScript with Script Editor (in /Applications/AppleScript) and change these variables:

To change the backup folder, edit this line:

set destDir to myHome & "Documents/iCal Backups"

To change the number of days to archive, edit this line:

set deleteAfter to 10

Removing duplicate events and alarms in iCal

As the developers of BusySync, we see a lot of legacy iCal calendars from customers that are filled with cruft.

These calendars might contain malformed data due to syncing with who-knows-what app/service/device in the past. The most common problems we see are duplicate alarms, duplicate events, and blank events. These bogus events and alarms can make iCal bloated and sluggish. What's worse, if you are sharing these bloated calendars with others via BusySync, iCal can become sluggish for the others too.

Today we're releasing iCal Cleaner, a free utility for cleaning up common problems in iCal. It's pretty straight forward: just launch iCal Cleaner, select the calendars you want to clean and the action you want to perform, and click Start. Then sit back and let iCal Cleaner do the rest.

Here's what iCal Cleaner can do:

• Delete Duplicate Events — This script will delete all duplicate Events and ToDos in iCal. Events with the same title and start time are considered duplicates. ToDos with the same title, completion date and due date are considered duplicates. The duplicates will be deleted, leaving the original event intact.
• Delete Blank Events — This script will delete all Events and ToDos in iCal that have no title.
• Delete All Alarms — This script will delete all Alarms attached to Events and ToDos in iCal. You can choose the type of Alarms to remove -- Message, Message with Sound, Email, Open File, or All Alarm types.
• Delete Duplicate Alarms — This script will delete duplicate alarms attached to Events and ToDos in iCal. It searches only for duplicate Message and Message with Sound Alarms. If an event has more than one of these alarms, the duplicates will be deleted, leaving only one alarm intact. Note: It does not take the alarm interval into consideration. So, if there are two message alarms (one set for 15 minutes before, and one set for 30 minutes before), one of the alarms will be deleted.
• Delete All Attendees — This script will delete all Attendees from Events in iCal.

You may want to give it a try. Who knows, you may have some cruft slowing down iCal that you didn't even know about. 

WARNING: iCal Cleaner will modify data in iCal. Please backup iCal before running iCal Cleaner.

You can download iCal Cleaner here.