The most intricate calendar sharing system possible

There’s a phrase in Swedish – a dagens ilandsproblem – which means a problem so modern and bourgeois that only people in developed societies are confronted with it, and even posing it as a problem is rather, well, laughable.

But that is essentially the issue that has been bugging me for ages: how to do I coordinate my calendars? On the tech side I have iCal on 2 Apple Macs (a Powerbook G4 for the road and an iMac at home) and 2 mobile phones, each with Bluetooth (1 for Belgium, 1 for the UK / International).

Problem 1: get the iCal calendars on the 2 Macs to sync with each other, and to Sync with the phones, regardless of which computer / phone combination is being used. Solution: sync calendars from the Macs to Calgoo Hub using Calgoo Connect, and sync to the phones using iSync. Much of this could be accomplished with MobileMe but I don’t want to for out for that!

Problem 2: keep others informed. I mainly use Dopplr for this (and Dopplr’s functions are rather cool), and I can then subscribe to my Dopplr calendar in iCal, making sure it matches my other appointments. Sadly the Dopplr – iCal export functions are still too buggy. Further if friends need more detailed calendars from me I can let them subscribe to iCal calendars through Calgoo Hub, importing the calendars into their own iCal or Outlook. I can also subscribe to friends’ calendars that way.

Problem 3: integration with Facebook. How do I know if a Facebook event is going to clash with another event I’m attending? Solution: the excellent fbCal – an iCal compatible export system of Facebook events, and birthdays too.

So I think it’s all in order… It has taken a couple of hours to solve all of this, but I reckon I’ve managed to get just about the perfect calendar system.