Dual-platform calendar software

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

I need some recommendations, suggestions, and/or advice.

My wife and I have pretty active calendars. We both do freelance work, we have two businesses together, we have kids and a grandkid, and we both sit on boards of local charities. I'm a Mac person and she's forced by her freelance work situation to use Windows.

I use iCal for my calendar management, as it handles multiple color-coded calendars well, and it auto-syncs to my mobile devices.

She uses Calendar Creater Plus because it has great formatting and prints calendars for her to distribute to our employees (a couple of whom aren't computer people) and post on the bulletin board in our kitchen for quick reference.

Unfortunately, we haven't found a way to synchronize these calendars, and the double-entry leads to too much work and too much duplication. We're both open to other options, as long as we can sync with each other, my iPad, and her Blackberry, and maintain multiple calendars (work, personal...) that she can color-code, format, and print easily.

Any ideas?

[mnemosyne]

Google Calendar. Create an account, allow her to see yours, she does the same and when you log on both of your calendars will appear on the screen. They are different colours by default. Any platform works, even iPod Touch/iPhone and BlackBerry. It sounds like it's exactly what you need.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Except the printing, unless Google Calendars has changed.

[pricciar]

Well, if you are only printing out once a month. How about using Google Calendar to sync and then monthly exporting to a format that Calendar Creator Plus understands and open it up simply to print and do that each month?

[AHunter3]

I would do it in FileMaker. There's a freebie template you can use as a starter, from seedcode. I'd get rid of some of those filters, cut it down to 'yours' 'mine' and 'show all', but it's a good start.

http://www.seedcode.com/cp-app/ste_cat/sccalcomplete

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Google Calendar. Create an account, allow her to see yours, she does the same and when you log on both of your calendars will appear on the screen. They are different colours by default. Any platform works, even iPod Touch/iPhone and BlackBerry. It sounds like it's exactly what you need.
Is there an auto-sync feature with iCal? I wouldn't want to be restricted to only seeing my calendar when I had Internet access. I use it on planes, at restaurants, etc.

[mnemosyne]

I don't know, actually. I've never had to print the calendar and I'm almost always in a WiFi zone, so there have been very few times where I would have wanted to look at it and couldn't.

It seems like you can sync with iCal or Sunbird using CalDev- see here (http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99355).

It also seems you can print it, here (http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41067).

I suggest you read through the help/FAQ forum and see whether it meets your needs.

[China Guy]

You can try Live.com. Eg, the expanded Hotmail. It has a calendar that can be shared and printed.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Thanks for all the info, folks. I'll go do some reading.

[Slightly mad scientist]

There also is an offline mode for Google Calendar, so you can still use it without internet connection. You need to install the Gears plugin for that to work.

And syncing should be possible, my android phone can sync with Google calendar.

For a non web-based calendar, Sunbird runs on Windows/Linux/Mac.

[Gary "Wombat" Robson]

Follow-up:

Just in case anyone's interested, I went with Google Calendar. I created one for myself, one for my wife, and one for the store we own together. They all sync beautifully both directions with iCal (which then transfers them to my iPad), and they work with my wife's Blackberry. Everything is smooth as silk.