Full synchronization of iCal and Google Calendar coming via Spanning Sync

I tried to download it today.. installed ok.. but i says the service i closed.. waiting for something ???

YES! YES! YES! Bring it ON!
I'll buy it as an absolute certainty. Desktop calendar but with server side sync? Oh hell yes. Can't wait for this.....tomorrow isn't soon enough. Someone commented earlier on that this is the "Holy Grail" of calendar sync...I have to agree wholeheartedly.

There seems to be a race to provide a “over the air” two-way sync solution between Google Calendar and mobile devices such as PDA’s, Blackberries and mobile telephones (Nokia, Sony Eriksson, Samsung, Siemens, etc).

The two main contestants seem to be goosync.com and gcalsync.com with gcalsync taking a heads up lead being first out with a working solution and a seemingly hassle free install.

Gcalsync.com is open source developed by Thomas Oldervoll, Zenior AS.
Goosync.com is backed up by Toffa, a commercial sync solution provider and for the time being a “free to use” product, note that it is not working on for instance some Nokia models. In addition some of the features are disabled and need a future subscription to work.

My conclusion is that as of now only Gcalsync.com works without any problems on my Nokia E70 and is most likely to remain free to use without limitations.

I don´t see the purpose with switching to Goosync.com and be locked down by a subscription later on.

Having this said I will stick with Gcalsync.com giving it thumbs up.

Google Calendar's RSS authentication is what throws off iCal, to those wondering, requiring read-only mode (so you can't edit your calendar, among other problems).

But Apple is moving forward with CalDAV support for 10.5, so if iCal lasts that long, it'll be good news for Google Calendar.

That said, there are lots of calendar sharing options that *don't* tie you down to using Google's servers. My current favorite method: two-way, WebDAV sync of Thunderbird calendars. Some web hosts (TextDrive, for one) let you host yourself, and iCalx.com will do it for free if your host won't.

My personal feeling is I want to get away from proprietary services -- even those than grudgingly support standards -- and keep control of my calendars.

If only someone would do that for Backpack Calendar...

Randy, Plaxo already does that for Address Book, and does it flawlessly. I have my PC at work and my Mac at home synced already using it.

But, yeah, this is gonna kick some serious butt. I racked my brain a month or so ago trying to find a way to keep my iCal, Outlook and gCal all synced up, and now it's going to be easy!

Plus, it makes me feel even more better about ditching .Mac earlier this month.

I agree that Google's lack of a "todo" list is a huge limitation. Still having shared calendars in this fashion is pretty nice.

if they make a way to sync pc sunbird, outlook and/or time matters to gcal I will be the happiest camper ever.

if anyone is interested.. i have a perl script that will take a text file of dates and convert them into a iCal formatted file.
i uses this for motorcycle racing dates. i take the 3 series and put them into one iCal. it makes making a calendar with a TON of dates easier to create.
if you would like the script email me: enzochi at gmail.com and put iCal in subject line.

Without a todo list, I still think Google Calendar is far from being useful to me. I just use it to schedule e-mails that I send to myself.