Hope dawns for more easily getting my Meeting Maker calendar onto my iPhone . . . or does it?
The latest version of NotifyLink for Meeting Maker includes support for the iPhone: ta dah! We use Notify at Simmons to synchronize Blackberries with Meeting Maker. Supporting Notify on the Blackberries has taken an enormous amount of our time, actually. And it hasn't been problem-free.
But my iPhone . . . that would be a dream come true!
According to the documentation, though, Notify has you set up your link to Meeting Maker through the "Exchange" option under "Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars." However, when you set up your iPhone for use with Exchange, Exchange takes over your iPhone's calendar and doesn't allow synchronization with other calendars. If that doesn't kill the deal for you (it really does for me), then also note that you can't invite guests to Meeting Maker meetings, you can only create events that appear on your own calendar.
See, for example, the caveats on Illinois State University's instructions for Exchange synchronization.
From my brief surf about it, these problems appear to be due to Apple's implementation of some underlying standard for Exchange (a Microsoft standard, or a true standard?).
Given the problems Notify upgrades have caused for us, we can't upgrade the server until we've had time to do thorough testing, which means well after classes start since we're a little busy right now.
Sigh. Just me and that very old applescript, plugging along. Looks like we'll be together a long time. Hope it keeps working.
Posted: August 15, 2008 8:26 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Calendar synchronization, iPhone, Meeting Maker, Notify
Someone posted a comment on one of my endless iPhone / Meeting Maker calendar posts asking about Simmons Webmail on the iPhone, so I figured answering was worth a separate post.
Syncing Simmons email with the iPhone is a snap!
For the settings you need to get email on your iPhone, see Set up your email software to access Simmons email
On the iPhone, roughly speaking, here are the steps:
* Settings
* Mail, Contacts, Calendar
* Add Account
* Other
* Fill in the blanks
* Keep the IMAP tab highlighted, and then use the settings as directed at Set up your email software to access Simmons email
* Make sure you include your username and password in the "Outgoing mail server" section, or you won't be able to send email from your iPhone using your Simmons account.
By setting up your iPhone for "IMAP" access, mail you read on your iPhone will be marked as "read" in WebMail, and everything you send will land in the sent messages folder you see in your Webmail as well. Hmmm. Well, actually, the name of the sent mail folder may be different from the default name Webmail uses, but anyway, the outgoing mail will be there, somewhere.
Note: if you already use separate email software to read your Simmons email, like Apple Mail, Outlook, or Thunderbird, you can sync your email settings through iTunes. However, I've often found that setting up the account directly on the iPhone more likely ensures the settings will be correct. Don't ask me why "I've often found": I like to play!
Posted: August 15, 2008 8:07 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: iPhone, Simmons email, webmail
I think the latest commercial from Apple for the new iPhone represents a distinct break in ideology for the company.
Consider the classic Apple TV spot from 1984, announcing the Macintosh. The message was clear: Apple is an insurgent company, destroying the monotony and drudgery of the IBM world. As the firm that produced the spot says, "The original concept was to show the fight for the control of computer technology as a struggle of the few against the many." Steve Jobs' comments from this period shed more light on the message being conveyed:
It is now 1984. It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers initially welcoming IBM with open arms now fear an IBM dominated and controlled future. They are increasing and desperately turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom. IBM wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control, Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right about 1984?
The imagery of the latest spot presents a very different picture, one that, I think, corresponds to the different goals of the company. Apple is no longer the outsider, hoping to overthrow the entrenched giants in the industry. Apple now views itself as working within the system, making strategic alliances with those who could be considered enemies, with the long-term goal of dominating the market.
In the spot from '84, a woman with a sledgehammer (representing Apple) infiltrates and destroys a heavily monitored and armed space, freeing the minds of those trapped within. In the new spot, the iPhone is transported in secret through a heavily monitored space. It is not coming to destroy this closed space, but represents the perfect representation of ubiquitous, mass-produced technology. Rather than representing outsider individuality, Apple is now aiming to become the bearer of perfectly realized technology on a global scale.
Posted: June 9, 2008 7:30 pm by Chad Mazzola | 0 comments
Tags: Apple, iPhone, Macintosh, steve jobs
Note: I've embedded updated information I've received from PocketMac.
I should have waited, but I got a message about PocketMac's new GoBetween for Meeting Maker, and took the plunge. It doesn't work. At least not in the Simmons environment. To be fair, I haven't given their Tech Support a chance to address my complaints, but I thought I'd share my concerns for others investigating the product (since I wasn't able to find any reviews, because the product is brand new (again, what was I thinking?)).
Someone from the Help Desk is going to continue to test and talk to their tech support. PocketMac is a reputable company, so I suspect that they'll respond. But the product is called version 4, and claims to have been through years of testing, even though it's only just now been released. Wouldn't that be a version 1?
- Requires an IP address for the server, instead of the more commonly used modern system of DNS (e.g. blogs.simmons.edu instead of 104.201.123.4).
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No support for SSL, a secure method of connecting to the MM server, which we at Simmons require.
2/14/08: PocketMac confirmed.
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No product documentation available on the web site pre-purchase.
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I appreciate being able to ignore appointments older than a certain number of days, but I'd prefer to be able to sync a specific set of dates so that, for example, I don't have to go more than 2 years in the future and risk all the ills of repeating appointments that go forever into the future. And, according to the documentation, if I choose to ignore past appointments, it's going to delete all the past appointments on my iPhone?
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No options for which iCal calendar(s) I want to sync with. It's the whole kit and kaboodle or nothing. Not very iCal like.
2/14/08: PocketMac says this feature is under Advanced Preferences. However, I still can't find it.
- Why would I want to edit Meeting Maker labels using GoBetween? I would prefer that GoBetween see the MM labels, and carry them over to iCal and my phone.
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Where's the file that's keeping track of the changes? Is there a secondary database? This makes me nervous.
2/14/08: PocketMac says "There is a PocketMac folder at ~/Library/Application Support with temporary sync data." At least it's temporary--I guess that makes it a true sync.
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What happens when a sync goes wrong? Does it realize that a sync connection has already been made and that appointments in both places do actually know about one another? Or will it result in plenty of duplicates?
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Given that Meeting Maker doesn't support banners in its iCal export, is PocketMac able to? I see no mention of this issue in the documentation.
2/14/08: PocketMac says: "It should sync as an iCal event." Since they're connecting directly to the MM server, that's plausible.
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I've learned from my technical folks that even using a non-SSL connection, the product doesn't work. Perhaps it doesn't support MM 8.6?
2/14/08: PocketMac is investigating issues with 8.6.
- And, it'd still require doing a double sync. It just wouldn't be as much of a manual process as the one I'm using.
Bummer. Still doing this to sync my iPhone with Meeting Maker instead.
Posted: February 13, 2008 7:49 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 4 comments
Tags: Calendar synchronization, iPhone, Meeting Maker, PocketMac GoBetween for Meeting Maker review
Shaun sent out this link to a TidBITS page about iPhone security. It's all good advice. You should definitely set up your email in a secured fashion through an application such as Apple Mail and then sync those secure settings to your iPhone. The Simmons secure settings on on the Set up Email Software page.
I'm not going to be able to get myself to send everything on my iPhone through a VPN (virtual private network), though, so instead I'm following a different rule: if you're on a wireless network, don't go shopping.
When I'm surfing with my iPhone, or on my iBook on my home wireless network, I don't type in my credit card number, or log in to shopping sites. On the other hand, I do log into my flickr site, which simultaneously logs me into my yahoo email account, which means I'm subject to "Sidejack Attacks."
It's really not a safe world out there. Be careful!
Posted: January 15, 2008 5:20 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: iPhone, security
I've written before about how I sync Meeting Maker to iCal, and then iCal to my iPhone using a very out-of-date applescript. I've noticed enough times now that I can say it's true: when I have appointments in Meeting Maker booked at the same exact time, they don't make it into iCal.
That is, if I have two appointments from 9 am - 11:30 pm, the AppleScript will move one of them to iCal, but not the other. Inevitably, the one it doesn't move is the one meeting of the two that I really need to attend.
What I'm afraid I really need to do is stop using the Banner feature in Meeting Maker so that I can start using the iCal export instead of the text export. As a former Palm user, I've always used Banners, or "untimed events," to keep track of birthdays. Since the iPhone doesn't keep as much information in its address book as the address book on my computer does (e.g. the relationship fields don't sync), I'm hesitant to isolate birthdays in my address book.
What has probably occurred to iCalendar users well before it occurred to me is that I should create "all day" events in a separate iCalendar calendar for all of the birthdays I track. Then I can sync that to the iPhone, and they'll appear the way I want them to. I think. Maybe.
Oh wait, but I can't trust using the iCal export until I know that Apple has fixed the bug I wrote about before, because otherwise, if I need to overwrite the iCalendar calendar, it'll notify everyone as though I'm canceling the meeting in Meeting Maker, even though I'm not.
Posted: January 8, 2008 7:38 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Apple iCal, Calendar synchronization, iPhone, Mac Leopard OS, Meeting Maker
I've written before about my somewhat unwieldy method of getting my Meeting Maker calendar onto my iPhone. As I mentioned earlier, the script I use to popular iCal with the text file I've exported from Meeting Maker has become quite slow since I upgraded to Leopard.
I figured I'd help it out by having less for it to import into iCal each time. I have an iCal calendar I call "historical." That's where I've put all of my old calendar items from Meeting Maker. Ever since I first worked this all out, on August 13, I've been exporting from August 13 to about a year and a half into the future from Meeting Maker, and importing that text file using the script into iCal.
Tonight, I exported 8/13 until today using the iCalendar export in Meeting Maker, and dragged and dropped the resulting .ics file onto my iCal "historical" calendar. It imported immediately. The next step was for me to delete all future occurrences of recurring appointments. Otherwise, I'd end up with duplicates of all of my recurring meetings. That is, my every Thursday manager's meeting would appear because of my "historical" calendar, and because of my regular Meeting Maker export/import to iCal.
The dialog box in iCal for Leopard was different from the first time I did this, because now iCal is integrated into Leopard server's iCal server. I said yes, I want to delete all future occurrences of this appointment, and it double checked by asking if I was sure I wanted to "delete and notify guests." I figured: sure, because my only other option was to "cancel." And I really wanted to delete these things.
The first appointment I tried this on was for the Technology Communications team meetings. Imagine my bewilderment as I watched iCal prompt my Apple Mail to open, and then wrote messages with iCal attachments to all of the attendees of that meeting. All of them are in my Apple Address Book, because I imported them from an Excel spreadsheet. So it knew all of their addresses.
Mail didn't ask me. It just sent them. I've looked through the preferences, to no avail. There doesn't appear to be a way to tell iCal: no, I don't want to notify the other guests about me canceling this meeting, which isn't even really on my iCal calendar "with" other people, it's in Meeting Maker stupid! I've had to instead trick my Mail, by setting my Comcast account to "no" smtp server, so now my Mail is sitting there with dozens of opened messages, and I have to "edit" each one, and then cancel it. When I'm done, I'll have a clean calendar, and I can reset my Comcast mail to being able to send out again.
My apologies to those I've antagonized with messages saying I'm canceling a meeting that I didn't even originally propose (I'm a guest). And I'd better get back to work on deleting appointments and then email messages so I can turn in for the night.
Oh, and one more thing. When Apple Mail has lots of windows open, it gets slower and slower too. I've noticed this both at home and at work.
Okay, and another thing. At least my theory was correct. Decreasing the number of events that MM to iCal is syncing does speed it up considerably.
Posted: December 5, 2007 9:29 pm by Kimberly Brookes | 0 comments
Tags: Apple iCal, Apple Mail, Calendar synchronization, iPhone, Mac Leopard OS, Meeting Maker
