I have an Android phone so I use Google Calendar a fair bit. It’s there on the phone and it works so I use it.
One of the things I do like about it is that it is easy to setup a clickable link that almost automatically adds an event to the calendar. It is “almost” because you still have to click save. Everything else gets entered from the link.
Marketers have been using the technique for years (so you can add their webinar into your calendar so you don’t forget it). There is an article google-calendar-invites-in-email-marketing that explains the basics.
I started using the approach because I currently have dreadful mobile phone coverage in the building I’m in at work and I often get meeting requests at work. Last year (when I was in a different building) I decided to stick all my meetings in my phone. I found it easier to have the lot in one place rather than using Outlook for work ones and the phone for personal ones. There was a few seconds of entering the meeting into my phone but then I always had it with me. It means I can finish up one meeting and go straight to the next without having to go back to the office to find where the next one is. It was pretty good, and then I moved buildings.
If you don’t have mobile coverage then web-based apps are dreadful. It’s possible to write them so they’ll save the information and upload it whenever you wander through somewhere that does have coverage. However I have a habit of shutting down apps when I’m done with them and I was losing meetings. It gets annoying when you enter the same meeting three times. Where’s the productivity saving in that?
So for the work ones, I email the link to me @ home, click the link at home and it appears in my phone then and there.
The other one that crops up is regular events that aren’t on neat schedules. I’m talking here about monthly meetings that repeat each month but hardly ever on the same day. These are the “First Tuesday of the month” sorts of meetings. I don’t currently have any meetings like that but I do like to know when daylight savings kicks in and reverts to normal. That’s been “when the government says so” for quite some time now but it turns out there’s a rule for it.
I’m in Australia and daylight savings starts on the first Sunday in October and ends on the first Sunday in April. (That won’t make any sense if you’re in the northern hemisphere but it does when you realize the seasons are reversed “down under”. Our summer is in December and our winter is in June.) The strangely unpredictable dates I’d been seeing were just due to which day was the Sunday for that month for that year.
So, there’s a way to predict the start and end dates; and a way to set Android / Google calendar events for them. This site is supposed to be about handheld computing so it seemed like a good place for a tool that brings all that together.
It won’t be of much use if you’re not in Australia. It won’t be as useful if you’re on the west coast or in the centre. However, for those that would find it useful, I’ve done a page that calculates the Australian daylight savings time dates, contains instructions for what to do with your clocks (move them forward or back) and contains links to put the dates and actions into your phone calendar.
The page is:
dst-au.php
It also includes a link that adds a reminder at the start of next year to go back to the page and add in the same for the next year’s dates.
If you hover over the links, most browsers will show you the URL that they use to add events to Google Calendar.
I hope some of you find it helpful.
