iMatt :: The Blog of Matt Clare

iPhone 3.0 brings CalDAV to the iPhone/iPod touch family. This could be useful for iPhone OS 3.0 who have Google Calendar account. That is if you are using a corporate Exchange account, .Mac/Mobile Me or are not comfortable sharing your contacts with Google (just your times and locations). These options preclude using Google’s excellent Google Sync service, but for all others Google Sync service is my recommendation.

For those who would like to use CalDAV, read on.

Setting up your own/primary Google Calendar is simple:

1. Launch the Settings tool
2. Choose Mail, Contacts, Calendars
3. Choose Add Account…
4. Other and Add CalDAV Account
   
5. Then enter the server as www.google.com, and your respective User Name and Password, the iPhone should add the description for you.
6. When you’re done press Save and you should see your Google Calendar entries in the Calendar tool and be able to add new entries and receive automatic updates.

You may notice that the previous steps only adds your own, or primary, Calendar. You can add your shared calenders etc. by slightly modifying the steps above:

Before you start, in your web browser (on your Desktop computer or in Safar, just go to the “real” version of Google Calendar) log into your Google Calendar and choose from the fly-out menu beside the title of your calendar on the left and select Calendar Settings. Next locate your Calendar Address.

Read more... (357 words, 6 images, estimated 1:26 mins reading time)

1. Launch the Settings tool
2. Choose Mail, Contacts, Calendars
3. Choose Add Account…
4. Other and Add CalDAV Account
   
5. Then enter the server as www.google.com, and your respective User Name and Password
6. The iPhone should add the description for you, but you might want to modify it to describe the calendar you’re trying to add.
   

I’m a big fan of news radio, especially the information programming of the CBC and BBC World Service. If you’ve been looking for this on the iPhone/iPod touch I’d recommend the application FStream.

There are a few paid options, but I’m a fan of free in ever sense of the word.

If you do choose to use FStream the latest version provides a director, but you may need to know the URLs for some of the better services ….. so here they are.

My job at Brock as an “Educational Technologies Support Specialist” not surprisingly involves a lot of support, primarily of faculty using the web as an educational tool. I do a lot of meetings and workshops, but here is a list of the tools that I’ve found invaluable in helping people use technology remotely or asynchronously:

1. The Wiki: A few year ago I created the WebCT Wiki to help document WebCT at Brock and some its idiosyncrasies. It proved to be a great resource to build an FAQ in and write up a few instructions for how to do a few things. The wiki format ensured it could be updated from anywhere by anyone.

   Though it was mainly me and my colleague who contributed to it the ability to post something to address an issue immediately and later refine it was very helpful. I’ve taken the approach that if I think I’ll have to explain something again it’s worth adding to the Wiki where I can either direct others to or simply copy and paste an answer from (the latter being my preference).

   Recently a I spearheaded a project to bring an academic wiki server to Brock that is just getting started: kumu.brocku.ca

   Google recently added their old Jot Spot acquisition to their Google Sites.

   OS: Web based, Cost: Free (open source) + web server
2. Jing: Jing is the best option for quickly recording a “screen cast” or taking screen shots. It’s a stripped-down tool that fills a niche below Tech Smith’s other product Camtasia.

   Screen casts (videos) of how to do something can quickly be recorded of the whole screen or just a section of it and posted to the web as a flash screen.

   Screen captures (images) can quickly be taken and annotated with text, arrows and shapes.
   
   Read more... (488 words, 4 images, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

   OS: Mac & PC, Cost: Free + web server

This weekend Lindz and I had our marriage perpetration course in a semi-rural part of Mississauga. It was some nice quality time for me to share with Lindsay and nature. Sunday afternoon while we where leaving my relationship with Lindsay couldn’t have been better, my relationship with nature was at a serious low.

Here’s what happened, as best as I can deduce things. A bird had left its droppings on a tree, the tree was no happy with this and decided to get rid of this by secreting a bunch of sap and forcing the bird dropping of the tree and allowed gravity to take its course. Unfortunately the my Acura was beneath that tree for two days.

The result was a pool of sap slightly larger than a loonie with chuck of bird dropping in it sitting in the middle of my windsheild.

After scrapping this across most of my windshield with my wipers I got home and put more effort into removing this. Spraying and scrubbing with soap did very little. It was a good 15 minutes into the process that I thought of using hot water.

What I did to remove the sap from the windshield was scrub with warm soapy watter while I brought a kettle to a boil and then used the kettle water to finish-off the pre-warmed windshield.

I hope my description of this process helps someone out.