Long, long ago, when Leopard Server was just vapourware, my heart beat faster at the thought of having built-by-Apple collaboration server software at my disposal. Many of my clients could benefit from calendar and contact sharing that integrated with their existing apps (i.e. iCal and Address Book). Sure, there's full-blown software out there that provides calendar, contact sharing and way more (think Zimbra or Exchange), but what about affordable, simple Mac-centric solutions? Well, the promise of Leopard Server seemed an answer to my dreams, but in reality, it falls short of the mark:

• It can't render a personal calendar to the web (yet can a group calendar)
• Without a hack, you can't view group calendars in iCal. (They're web-only.)
• Delegation is all or nothing: if you grant another user access to one of your calendars, they have access to all your calendars
• Events can't be easily moved from a server based calendar to a local one
• You can't take it with you. Events synced to the iPhone are read-only and can't be edited on the road

So I set off on a search for another solution for contact and calendar sharing. In my travels, I came across the promising Zimbra, which is Mac friendly, but still has enough rough edges that I decided it wasn't ready. (Main shortcomings: incomplete address book syncing and inability to sync alarms or to-dos in iCal.)

SpanningSync shows promise as an iCal sharing solution, as it provides bi-directional iCal syncing with Google calendar. For anyone who wants to have access to their calendars wherever they may be, have a good look at SpanningSync. The main shortcoming I found with SpanningSync is that can't sync alarms between Google and iCal, so if you were to use it as a conduit between two Macs, the receiving Mac wouldn't have any alarms (other than the default alarm specified in Leopard's iCal).

The clear winner in the iCal sharing competition, however, is BusySync. Truthfully, I'm always a bit skeptical about anything that relies on Sync Services because my experience with Sync Services has shown it to be rather fragile, especially in the hands of third party developers. Even .Mac seems to confuse itself on a regular basis, requiring the reset of the sync services database. Thankfully, BusySync has restored my faith in both Sync Services and developers who use it. The good folks at BusyMac hit the nail on the head with BusySync. It takes the ease of .Mac, extends its functionality and melds it with the promise of iCal Server.

In a line, BusySync is iCal sharing done properly and without the compromises of other solutions. It allows you to share your iCal calendars with other Mac users (locally or over the internet), but with a degree of granularity not available with .Mac or iCal Server (and at a much lower price point). You can specify individual calendars to share and asign each read or read/write access. (By contrast, .Mac shares all calendars or none at all.) Moreover, additions/changes made on one computer show up within seconds on the client computers. Compare that to .Mac, which requires you to sync up and then sync down for changes to show up on client machines--a several minute process under the best circumstances, but typically more like an hour wait.

Other things I love about BusySync:

• Calendars shared via BusySync can be synced to the iPhone or other mobile devices and are read/write.
• Leopard and Tiger clients can share calendars.
• SSL support is as simple as ticking a box (10.5 only), and without any annoying security warnings.
• No server software or dedicate machine is required.
• Users of a single Mac (with multiple accounts) can share calendars.
• Setup is a snap.
• Very affordable price point.
• Responsive, involved developers.
• It reliably works.

A comment on that last one: I'm so used to battling syncing issues that BusySync was a bit anticlimactic in the sense that, once it was setup, I basically forgot about it. I make changes on one machine and it shows up on the other within moments--just the way one would expect it to work! No fuss, gnashing of teeth or resets of the Sync Services database. It just works!

I'm still in search of a way to share the Address Book in a similar fashion. John at BusyMac tells me such a product in on their radar, so it's hopefully just a matter of me being patient. If BusySync is an indication, it'll be worth the wait!

Tags:tech

If that Batman can have a Bat Mobile, then there's no reason that I can't have a Cat Mobile! (And it was cheap, too! This cost a mere $140 installed!*) It took a little getting used to seeing out the back, but it's really not that bad once the cat eyes adjust.

*Car sold separately, but it's paid for so I'm not going to count that in the marketing costs of the Cat Mobile.

Tags:marketing

So you might be one of the lucky ones who gets through ownership of a particular computer without a drive failure, but keep it around long enough and it'll die. Sans backup, so too will your precious data. Bye bye to your financial data, emails, pictures from your vacations, iTunes music and whatever else you didn't think to backup. It's not just time that'll kill a drive. As the prices of computers drop, so too has the quality of many components including the hard drive. If you own a laptop, you're considerably more vulnerable to losing data from a hard drive crash or even theft.

The point of this rant? Well, in July, two of my clients suffered catastrophic hard drive failures on their servers. Sadly, one of the drives was all of 6 months old, lest you think the grim reaper of hard drives only targets old hard drives! One particular client had a backup solution (which shall remain unnamed) setup by someone else that completely failed to deliver when it came time to restore. Thankfully, the second client had a backup solution in place that makes bootable backups and thus was able to simply tell the server to boot off the most recent backup drive and they were back up and running. In fact, I was able to walk them through this over the phone! Ahh, many cheers to Synchronize Pro X!

Backups are like insurance for your car. It's not as if you get a thrill from sending a check off to the insurance company, but it sure is handy to have if a deer attacks your car while driving past Eagle Creek Park. (Saw this happen once, which is why I mention it. Seriously, this deer came tearing out of the woods and ran right into the side of the car in front of me. Scary how fast it all happened.) Similarly, you hope you never need to use that backup of your system(s), but if ever you do, it'll be worth every penny you spent on the system.

Sadly, most individuals don't backup until they first lose data. Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice.... If you're a business, however, you can't afford not to backup. Sorta like taxes. If you don't pay 'em, it'll eventually catch up with with a fury.

Indeed, in business, the only thing you're assured of is death (of your hard drive) and taxes. ;-)

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The Sound of Failure

Thanks to the Flaming Lips for that nice title....

Care to hear what a failing hard drive sounds like? This is not for the faint of heart. For anyone who's lost data from a failed drive, this is tantamount to the sound of having your heart ripped out.

Listen up! to the sounds of failure.

Tags:tech, rant