iCloud requires all calendars you wish to sync between your Mac and iOS device to be hosted on iCloud. The first time you turn on iCloud and set up calendars, iCloud copies over all you existent calendars over to Apple’s servers thus iCal displays two of every event. As it stands today, I have turned on iCloud for calendars and contacts and found duplicate calendar entries on my iCal. This is due to the fact that now iCal is showing an entry from both the calendars in iCloud and the local On My Mac calendars. I fixed that issue by unchecking the On My Mac  calendars under the calendars tab. Each Mac and iOS device (iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch) functions as a client and subscribes to the calendars hosted on iCloud. Therefore it is important that you go into the calendar settings on your idevice and uncheck all the On My Mac calendars that sync with your idevice. The default calendar should also be on iCloud.

Previously I had a Google Home calendar and I subscribed to US Holidays on Google calendar and had them synced to both my iCal on the Mac and the iPhone via iTunes. Unfortunately I am unable to transfer my Google Calendars to iCloud and I do not think that this situation will change anytime soon. Thankfully there is a way to enjoy both services.

The idea is that I now have one set of calendars on iCloud that then syncs to both my mac and iPhone. I then have set up the mac and my iPhone to also sync separately to the Google Calendars so that on my mac and iPhone I see both the calendars from iCloud and also my Google Home and US Holidays calendars. This is how I set it up.

On the mac

• All calendars are hosted on icloud. Copies of local calendars on the mac have been hidden, so duplicates do not show up.
• On the mac iCal>pref>accts>caldav was used to subscribe to Google Home calendar. In the CalDav window under the delegation tab, one can also select the other google calendars such as US Holidays etc., that one has on the google account or can do it by subscribing as detailed below.
• On the mac iCal > calendar > Subscribe was used to get US Holidays on iCal on desktop.

Does Windows Still Matter? – Business, Power and Deals – Executive Suite blog – NYTimes.com.

Joe Nocera, said it well. The operating system is fast being made irrelevant by the internet. Google leap frogged Microsoft by releasing the chrome browser. The OS is irrelevant or more aptly, Windows is dispensable.

Google Chrome

We spend so much time doing our day to day activities on the web, namely, from banking to finding a spouse. The browser is quickly becoming the entry point app to these everyday activities. It traditionally has been and still is Microsoft’s backyard. With Internet Explorer commanding 74% of the browser market, with Firefox at 19% and Safari, at a distant third with 6% marketshare; Google’s Chrome may not have much traction to start off with. Plus Firefox and Safari do get monetary incentives as a result of search boxes in both browsers defaulting to Google search. 

I am not sold as to Google’s track record with software. Only Gmail is successful. The rest of them have languished without much traction. It remains to be seen if ” Chrome” will fare any better.

Some of the technical aspects of the new browser are impressive. It is based on Webkit and open source to boot!

I certainly like “tabs” that do not take up any more of the viewable window space along with the myriad other toolbars and what not. Alas, as a mac user, I will have to wait a while before I use one.

Maybe the much vaunted new iPods are coming. Should be interesting!

Is on my bucket list!

Engineering? All other cars have transmissions, either manual or automatic, that are mechanical monstrosities. The equivalent unit in the Prius (called the Power Split Device) will fit in the palm or your hand and has only 21 moving parts, with no clutches, belts, torque converters, or any other kind of slip component. All three motors are directly connected to the wheels at all times. Want to back up? No gear changes— just spin the motors in reverse. Simple. Elegant. Reliable.

How about 100,000 miles between brake pads replacement? The Prius only uses its brake pads for panic stops and stopping under 7 miles per hour. All other braking is done electromagnetically, using the regeneration of electricity to both stop the car and charge the batteries. A win/win situation.

Toyotas Prius: The Debate Continues – Pogue’s Posts – Technology – New York Times Blog.

I have been fascinated by the engineering and concept of the Toyota Prius. Appeals very much to my inner tree hugger. Never knew the details above until today!

The site was created by scientists at the Watson Research Center of I.B.M. in Cambridge, Mass., to help people publish and discuss graphics in a group. Those who register at the site can comment on one another’s work, perhaps visualizing the same information with different tools and discovering unexpected patterns in the data.

Novelties – Lines and Bubbles and Bars, Oh My! New Ways to Sift Data – NYTimes.com.

Interesting concept.

Here is a list of things that are whacky and is by no mean exhaustive.

- The custom UI distracts the user from figuring out what is where. I had a hell of a time figuring out how to name a disc.

- The UI asks you to insert a disc or drop files, but when you insert a non session disc it does not tell you that you cannot burn any more session to that disc, something that a disc burning app should do.

- There is no such thing as a primer or an explanation for what session are all about and what the three options when selected or unselected do to the disc that you burn. An absolute must as I would be annoyed by coasters.

- My first disc was burnt and the final message that came up on the app window was ” A coaster has been burnt “, no kidding. I was annoyed as hell. There was absolutely no detailed error message that told me what went wrong. I was burning this on a 20″ iMac and was not testing its sudden motion sensor.

- Imaging “DMG in ~ Desktop” – what the hell does that mean, and what are the other two options. What am I supposed to set them at?

- Disc types, what are they all about. I want to burn discs, audio, video and the like, not decide on what file formats to burn them in. I want Disco to figure it out, aka Toast.

- Can I choose an external drive?

- The whole smoke thing actually adds to the problem. Reading through the comments on the Disco blog, one gets the feeling that the beta users have been wanting a smoke machine rather than a disc burning app. It is nice that it can produce smoke but the disc burning issues have to be set right first.

- I would like a ” Test smoke ” button, so that I dont have to burn something just to see the cool smoke or fire or goo.

- Whats with the fixed burn speeds.

- Why does Disco not burn avi files to DVD format aka Toast?

- No progress indicator?

- Spandex, has a lot of things wrong with it. To cut a long story short, it doesnt seem to be working. I am unable to span large files. An explanation or an assessment of the files when dropped on Disco to tell me whether or not they can be spanned would be nice.

- Discography. Oh boy I love this. Its a great tool. Shame that it doesnt work. I have burnt 6 discs, but cannot look through the files. I tried typing  in the names of the files but nothing shows up. The developers have to fix this soon.

Way to go befor having Toast for breakfast.

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