Tools You Can Use - Google Calendar Sync

The other day I was getting frustrated that my company phone wasn't syncing my Exchange calendar reliably. I'd tried deleting my profile and re-adding it, doing a hard reboot of the phone (now that's a phrase I never would have dreamed of using even 10 years ago), and several other troubleshooting steps. All to no avail. Being an android-base device, it was naturally having no problems whatsoever keeping up with my Google calendar.

So I set off on a search to find something that might let me sync my Exchange calendar to my Google calendar.

Well, guess what? Google themselves created just such a tool: Google Calendar Sync

It installs on the same PC where Outlook is running. You enter your Google credentials, set the sync frequency, and get out of the way. It works wonderfully. You do need to decide the best refresh frequency for you. Also, I highly recommend going into your Exchange calendar, putting it into List mode, and deleting all of those OLD appointments from years past. It makes the sync go much faster. Personally, I had almost 3,000 calendar events it was trying to sync. Once I pared it down to recurring meetings and just those from this calendar year, that dropped to under 300. There was a HUGE improvement in sync speed at that point.

Now, on to the one primary complaint I have so far about the tool. It's obviously registering itself as an add-on or helper inside your Outlook client. First, I had to close Outlook before it would install. Second, it never asked me for my Outlook/Exchange profile information. It's bootstrapping that, apparently. Given that it's hooking into Outlook, I'm disappointed that it's not event-driven. If I add/modify/delete something from my calendar, why can't it automatically sync that item instead of re-syncing my WHOLE calendar on a schedule? To give Google the benefit of the doubt, it's most likely a limitation inside the Outlook object model, but it's frustrating nonetheless.

The one other minor complaint I have is that, because it's a client-side tool, obviously your computer has to be on and running for the sync to work. The only time this poses an issue is after hours when I've suspended my laptop. If I accept a meeting request on my phone or through our web client, it won't show up on my Google calendar until the next time I have my computer up and running so the sync can run.

Given those two limitations of the tool, it's been quite the nice little find. Now, I have access to my Exchange calendar anywhere I have access to my Google calendar, not just from my smart phone or from our OWA portal.

If you also happen to be using Exchange/Outlook and have a Google account, I can highly recommend it.

Cool Computer Tools You Can Use

Ever wanted to know what the color code was for that graphic on your monitor?

Trying to match the color of a logo you found a website?

Need to know the RGB value of that flower in a picture?

ColorPic is a cool little tool that I found today that lets you figure all that out. It has multiple "chips" (think of them as color slots) that you can use to grab colors and build a palette. It also includes a magnifier section so you see exactly what pixel you're grabbing. You can change the zoom level, and use the arrow keys to more accurately grab the exact pixel you want.

Once you've grabbed a color, it provides all the standard representations: Hex, Decimal, and RGB. You can then plug those in to just about any graphics program.

Also, because it lets you grab colors from your workspace, you don't have to download graphics from a website to load them into your graphics editor. It scrapes the values straight from your display, so if you can see it, you can grab the color from it.

It's not going to revolutionize the world, but when you really, really, really want to know what that color is, this will do the job for you.