As mentioned last week, I was going to start a Friday Highlight series in order to showcase things that may be a bit different than our normal blog postings. I’ve already gotten some great feedback on the last post, so the series continues. Hooray! Throw your hats in the air, put your feet up, then take them back down because the boss is coming down the hall, and read on for this week’s Friday Highlight.
The Magic in Your Calendar
Calendars aren’t often considered very sexy applications when compared against other online offerings. “Calendars?,” people say, “I think those are stupid compared to this YouTube video. Look how awesome it is!”. And, like many things in life, unless it’s a video of Charles Nelson Riley dressed as a banana, they’re wrong.
Traditionally, one of the major problems with calendar applications was getting the information in there in the first place. Who wants to re-enter a bunch of information that may already exist someplace else? That’s idiotic, and a waste of time. Luckily, you no longer have to waste your time.
The iCalendar file format was invented to allow you to publish (share) and/or subscribe to calendars you find online. If a calendar is published in iCalendar format, just click on the link and faster than you can say Bic Banana: instant calendar data.
The great thing about subscriptions is that the data in your calendar is updated as soon as it’s updated online. Subscribed to the Theater Department calendar? As they add events to their schedule throughout the year (or years to come), those events will show up on your calendar automatically. It’s an easy way to keep track of U.S. holidays, local weather, and, most importantly, Buffalo State events.
Wait, Does Buffalo State Have This Available?
You bet we do! In fact, we’ve had it available since 2004! Unfortunately, while programs such as iCal, Google Calendar, Mozilla Calendar, Sunbird, KOrganizer, Kronolith, and Novell Evolution have supported subscriptions for years, previous versions of Outlook didn’t completely support all the features available. With Outlook 2007, and its subsequent rollout on campus, these features are now available to you in the privacy of your public work area.
Subscribing is easy! I won’t go into details, but details are available on our Web site. Pick a calendar, and sign up today!
Sounds Great, Where Can I Get More?
There are many places to look, but iCalShare is a good place to start. Just remember to look for it when you visits sites with event information—you may be surprised by how many people are using it!
Have a favorite calendar? Suffering from numerophobia? Write a comment below, and let us know what you think!
Subscribe to this feed