The PumaCode.org Blog

I thought this was photoshopped at first, but another link in the comments seems legit…

Well, it’s about freakin’ time. I don’t know why the concept of good, reliable, instant, two-way synchronization of calendar data seems to be so hard for the open-source community to tackle.

I refuse to use Outlook on my home computer. That decision has absolutely nothing to do with any sort of anti-Microsoft zealotry. I have an MSDN subscription through work and so there’s no need for me not to use Outlook for personal use (which the MSDN license allows).

It’s just that I can’t stand Outlook for non-Exchange use. Now, anyone who claims that the Outlook/Exchange combination isn’t just plain great has blinders on. I’m not talking about administering Exchange (which I have zero experience with but have heard can be a full-time job), but Outlook and Exchange “just work” together and they work very well.

But unfortunately, Outlook stinks as an IMAP client, and it’s just way too bloated to use as a standalone calendar app. Plus there’s no easy way for my wife and I to share our calendars using Outlook (unless I felt some crazy urge to actually set up an Exchange server for the two of us). I love Thunderbird, and have been a happy user of it for years. It works great with the IMAP servers I’ve used (Dovecot and Cyrus).

So we used Sunbird for a while, with shared calendars using WebDAV via Apache. It’s worked pretty well, but using a separate calendar application sucks, and I wish I could have our personal appointments on my Windows Smartphone (the Audiovox 5600).

I’ve tried Evolution, I’ve tried various “plug-ins” to sync Thunderbird (most of them using crazy, circuitous routes involving at least one intermediate sync step, or bloated, difficult-to-use Java libraries), and they all just stink. Well, I still haven’t figured out a way to sync my calendar to my mobile phone, but at least I’m one step closer.

I should have known that Google would have eventually been the answer to my problems. I’ve always enjoyed Google Calendar (GCal), but really, who wants to log in to a website just to check an appointment next week? Enter Provider for Google Calendar, a Thunderbird plugin that works in tandem with Mozilla Lightning to enable two-way synchronization between Thunderbird and GCal.

I just installed it a bit ago, and it seems to work pretty well for now. These instructions will help get you going. I haven’t tried yet with a shared calendar between my desktop, GCal, and my wife’s desktop, but after I give it a whirl for a while that will be next.

GCal already allows accessing your calendar from your mobile phone, and something tells me that true sync with Smartphones isn’t too far behind. Here’s to hoping.