The thing about useful stuff is

Google calendar synch isn't good enough Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Image via WikipediaAs a consequence of wanting to use several new services that only integrate with Google Calendar, I recently decided to cut-over to it as a trial. Sadly, whilst I've no issue with the Calendar itself, I've been having a bad time with the official Google synch program that links it with Outlook 2003.

Historically I've used Airset to maintain a calendar online, which I synch with a desktop running Outlook 2003, which in turn synchronises with my Blackberry.

The biggest issue for me is that the synch application doesn't allow you to parameterise the dates that you wish to synch. Hence, each time I synch it tries to compare thousands of very old entries which dramatically slows the whole synch down to a crawl lasting several hours. I did try to get round this by archiving my desktop calendar items in Outlook 2003. Unfortunately, an unknown "event" caused all of the calendar entry modified dates to be reset to a recent date, as a consequence of which unless I archive every historic calendar entry then they won't clear down.

It's inflexibility like this that is both its' strength and weakness. Yet it is sufficiently infuriating that I'm close to abandoning my efforts and reverting to Airset which worked very well, especially with its synchronisation service.

Separately, I would love to find an Imap equivalent for calendar entries on different devices to enable entries to remain in synch, but don't know of such a mechanism. Any suggestions / answers?

Labels: Airset, blackberry, Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook

posted by John Wilson @ 2:55 PM Permanent Link ,

newsvine reddit

Meet with Approval gets my seal of approval Friday, May 09, 2008

Meetings are often held in conference rooms

Image via WikipediaThe welcome page to "Meet with Approval" underwhelmed me, but after trying this meeting scheduler service out I confess to quickly upgrading my opinion of the site.

It has deliberately been kept simple and free of gimmicks, as a consequence of which I anticipate adoption rates will be high, provided people don't mind paying $30 for a year's subscription to arrange unlimited meetings via the service, after using up their two free attempts.

The site uses a simple form to capture meeting information in text form from the organiser, allowing them to specify multiple dates/times options for the proposed meeting from which invitees can signify their availability.

Invites are sent via the service and email address may be manually entered or imported from a range of services/locations like Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo which is catered for [most sensibly] via Plaxo's address book widget.

You can also send reminders to non-respondents, a process which has to be manually initiated within the site.

Once responses are in, the organiser confirms a meeting slot and all invitees notified automatically.

Pros
- very simple to use
- suitable for meetings involving many people
- allows people to indicate all the times they can attend
- highlights most popular meeting time automatically
- attendees may leave comments
- paid-for service includes ability to apply your own corporate branding
- subscription cost is trivial
- excellent log-in, which avoids passwords and simply asks you to provide the answer to a memorable question you determined at sign-up

Cons
- Meeting Duration is shown in the comments to the meeting
- Comments are the only way for invitees to suggest alternate dates/availability
- Unfriendly error messages

Unlike Timebridge which limits you to 5 time slots, I didn't hit a restriction on the number of time slots that could be offered to invitees.

Just to note, in testing I did hit "Runtime Error" screens when I attempted to cancel a meeting, which would scare unsophisticated users. However, this is an early version of the service and I hope such wrinkles will be attended to quickly.

Overall, it is simpler to use than Timetomeet, a free alternative, and the use of a list of options rather than a calendar display that needs to be scrolled through, will certainly be easier for most people to immediately comprehend. In my [painful] experience, when presented with a calendar view on these types of service, many people fail to appreciate that they need to scroll through the displayed weeks as some options offered may be out of sight. In contrast, a list view shows them all options in a concise and complete fashion.

Labels: gmail, meeting, Microsoft Outlook, plaxo, Timebridge, Timetomeet

posted by John Wilson @ 8:42 AM Permanent Link ,

newsvine reddit

Xobni - wouldn't get out of bed for $20m Friday, May 02, 2008

In a recent blog post I expressed a negative opinion on the usefulness of Xobni and astonishment that Microsoft would have shown any interest in buying them, particularly at a reported $20m.

Evidently I wasn't alone in this view. It certainly caused something of a storm on Y Combinator's forum, Hacker News, partly because the venture is Y Combinator backed.

Now it appears Xobni have walked away from the deal discussions. According to Techcrunch,

[Xobni felt un]comfortable it felt about its eventual fate inside the Microsoft machine. The fear was that Xobni would end up nothing more than a feature of Outlook. Microsoft wanted the entire team to move up to Redmond, and was vague in its answers about what it had planned for that team, or the product. In the end, the body language just wasn’t there.

Duh? What is Xobni OTHER THAN a feature of Outlook? Whilst I've seen it rumoured that they want to replicate their offering on other email clients, how can it be anything other than a feature? You have to suspect these folks are simply holding out for more money. But that is a dangerous game since it's hard to see another obvious buyer for Xobni who they can play Microsoft off against, especially since there is no clear revenue stream opportunities with the product - do you really want ads inside Outlook or would you really pay in order to get the "information" being thrown up about email traffic?

This is one lucky lottery ticket that Xobni should quickly cash and congratulate themselves on getting so much for so little.

Labels: Microsoft Outlook, Xobni

posted by John Wilson @ 9:26 AM Permanent Link ,

newsvine reddit

Jifflenow - Another appointment scheduler Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Following on from my look at Presdo here, I also took at look at Jifflenow which was renamed from iPolipo and is not to be confused with the Jiffle [a Norfolk term apparently].

This service is much more in line with my aspirations for a scheduling service, albeit its' functionality is designed for one-to-one meetings rather than those involving many people.

Hence, you mark up your free/busy times and assign these as being available to selected contact groups that you create e.g. clients, vendors, consultants. You assign individuals to these groups and send them an email notification that you have given them access to your calendar and can select times to meet with you. Permission to view your can be time boxed with a start date and duration that they can have access.

Once a contact requests a meeting slot from your available times, it is immediately removed from the slots that others can see, thereby avoiding double booking problems. If you are happy to accept the appointment, Jifflenow both updates your actual Outlook or Google calendar and sends an email confirmation to the other party.

Your privacy is protected because contacts only see Available/Free timeslots, not scheduled meetings. However, entries in your Outlook or Google calendar made independently of Jifflenow do not update your available slots and so you will need to make manual updates.

A very neat feature is that the calendar view for your contacts includes automatic time zone translation, allowing them to see their local times once they have selected their timezone on the calendar screen.

Jiffle is free for up to 10 meeting confirmations per month, after which you either have to upgrade or stop using the service! Importantly contacts don't have to subscribe to Jifflenow or install any software to schedule meetings with you.

I do have four gripes about the offering

- To send one-off meeting ad-hoc invitees is overly complex and should be simplified. Presently you need to highlight times you wish to show as available and nominate which pre-defined groups you are wishing to share this calendar information with. Hence, it appears that to arrange a one-off meeting, you either need to direct the invitees to your public version of your calendar [assuming you've made one available], or create a one-time use group for the meeting.

- Invitees can't propose alternate times via the service e.g. the following week or different times. Whilst this may encourage you to put all your free times on show, some professionals may not like to show a calendar with lots of free time, as it looks bad e.g. similar impression to seeing an empty restaurant.

- I'm not sure how easy it will be to maintain the permission "windows" if you have a large number of clients, unless you simply give them all permanent access to the calendar rather than say a month ahead. It will be too easy to exclude certain people simply because you forgot to renew/extend their access period.

- The integration with Google calendar only extends to your main calendar. Hence if your Google calendar consolidates multiple calendar subscriptions in one view, these other entries will be missing within Jifflenow. It may not affect many people, but I am one of the few!

Other than that, I like the service and can see it being very valuable to a number of professionals who offer one-on-one consultations.