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Use Your Mac to Share iCal Calendars 52

Posted by pudge from the diy dept.
A user writes "Calendar publishing with iCal requires a .Mac membership or a WebDAV server. Most ISPs and hosting companies don't offer WebDAV -- or at least mine don't -- but you can run WebDAV under Apache on your Mac, and publish calendars and share them among a local network or among multiple users of a single computer. Already two different tutorials explaining how to do this have appeared on the Web: this one at Mac OS X Hints and this one courtesy of Shawn Wall. I'm sure Slashdot readers could offer even more suggestions." I set up mod_dav for the first time within an hour of downloading iCal the other day, with help from this article. Now, if only iCal weren't really slow and buggy ...
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Use Your Mac to Share iCal Calendars More

Use Your Mac to Share iCal Calendars

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  • WebDAV and PHP (Score:3, Informative)

    by qengho ( 54305 ) on Friday September 13, 2002 @04:58PM (#4253756)

    I kept getting XML errors when restarting httpd after enabling WebDAV. Turns out it's a conflict between Marc Liyanage's otherwise excellent PHP4 module for OS X [entropy.ch].

    If you need to run both WebDAV and php, use Apple's php module.

    • A user of my PHP module build sent me a tip on how to get the two to work together: Make sure the DAV module is loaded and added after my PHP module, i.e. adjust the order of the LoadModule and AddModule lines in the httpd config file accordingly...
  • calSync [itoast.de], a shareware application, allows uploading of iCal calendars via FTP instead of webdav. iCal FTP [drewfindley.com] is a freeware app that does the same thing.

    I haven't tried either. Reviews for each (calSync [versiontracker.com], iCal FTP [versiontracker.com]) on VersionTracker are mixed.

  • Apple has a decent selection of calenders up on their site at [apple.com]. They have lots of great sports and movie release calenders that you can subscribe to for free.

  • Privacy, privacy, privacy (Score:2, Interesting)

    by adb ( 31105 )
    Apple promised WebDAV over SSL in Jaguar, but didn't deliver as far as I can tell. I'm stuck dragging stuff back and forth to Goliath [webdav.org] instead of being able to edit it directly in Emacs, and I can't use my secure WebDAV server to share my iCal with only my friends rather than everybody. This is terrifically irritating.
    • If you care so much about your personal calendar that you're concerned about transport-level encryption and digital certificates, your priorities may be completely out of whack. Better have them checked out by a qualified professional soonest.

      • That's ridiculous. If you're using a calendar to its full potential, it's at least as personal as a diary: it has your medical appointments, your dates, your hopes for the future. If I want to share information about myself, I will do so, and I do; but when I don't want to share something, I don't want to send it unencrypted over a global network (and, as often as not in my case, a local wireless network). Privacy is not just for finances, you know.

        • Dude, I think you said it [slashdot.org] best yourself:

          I can't imagine what conclusion a rational person would draw, being myself a stark raving paranoid loon.

          That pretty much says it all, I think.
        • adb wrote:

          > If you're using a calendar to its full potential,
          > it's at least as personal as a diary: it has your
          > medical appointments, your dates, your hopes for
          > the future. If I want to share information about
          > myself, I will do so, and I do; but when I don't
          > want to share something, I don't want to send it
          > unencrypted over a global network (and, as often
          > as not in my case, a local wireless network).
          > Privacy is not just for finances, you know.

          So use iCal to its fullest potential, and make two calendars. Call one "Private", put your hopes, dreams and doctor's appointments in it, and don't let it leave your hard drive except for backups. Call the other "Public", and put the stuff you want to share with the world in it. That way, you do share what you want to share, and your private stuff is safe.

          "Heart can reach where hand cannot. Climb over any wall..."
          Mothra (via Moll) "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"

          • If you read my comment that started this thread, you'll notice that I'm talking about stuff I'm willing to share with a certain limited set of people, but not the world. I already use encrypted email or WebDAV over HTTPS for that sort of thing; I'm just frustrated that Apple's k3wl new tool won't fit into that world when it would have been easy to make it, and when they promised to do so.

      • The problem is probably not the content of the calender but rather the clear text transfer of the password.

        This lack of security consciouness is very annoying, I can't use e.g., Dreamweaver's or BBEdit's built in WebDAV-/ftp-clients due to their clear text password transfer. Why can't Dreamweaver etc simply use the command line sftp-client?
    • You can run OS X's WebDAV client over non-standard ports, so you could run something like stunnel [sourceforge.net] on the local machine to SSL encrypt the data before going to the web server.

  • In a related story... (Score:3, Funny)

    by MoneyT ( 548795 ) on Friday September 13, 2002 @05:47PM (#4254049) Journal
    The Calendar Makers Association of America (CMAA) has filed a lawsuit against Apple for promoting the illegal sharing of calenders over the internet.

    Said a representative of the CMAA:
    "We can not allow the distribution of content without properly compensating the original creators."

  • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Viewing on the web. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sammy.lost-angel.com ( 316593 ) on Friday September 13, 2002 @06:54PM (#4254389) Homepage
    I'd like the ability to view iCals on the web like .Mac lets you do. I already have the webdav server set up a la iDisk (from months ago). However, I need a pretty display program. I really don't have the time to do it myself right now, so are there any perl/php modules that can do this and have it look pretty?

    • Re:Viewing on the web. (Score:4, Informative)

      by babbage ( 61057 ) <cdevers.cis@usouthal@edu> on Friday September 13, 2002 @11:06PM (#4255415) Homepage Journal
      Check out Net::ICal, by Shane Landrum. The module hasn't been updated in a while, but now that Apple is basing this [apparently wildly popular] software around interfhance of .ical format files, it may get moving again. Net::ICal is available via CPAN, but also take a look at reefknot.org [reefknot.org], the development site for Net::ICal & related materials. Lots of links, sample code, reference material, etc. there.

      Like everyone else in the Mac/Unix world, I'm finding this stuff fascinating and am trying to figure out how I can get interchange running between things like iCal, my Palm Pilot, my work-mandated Lotus Notes account, and other fun things on the side. iCal seems like a decent switchboard for a lot of these ideas, but automatiing things with Perl &/or Applescript is also going to be essential....

      • I totally agree. My company uses a homegrown calendar program, and I'm trying to get the IS director to allot some of my time to build a vCalendar interface so that those of us with OS X (i.e. the entire IS department) can use iCal and can sync our calendars with our PDAs.

        Like the user to whose post you replied, I too am looking for an ICS-enabled web calendar similar to the very nice one at .Mac. The only reason I want to use another is for security -- I want to be able to control who can look at my calendar.

        I found Net::ICal and Date::ICal, and I'm starting to look at them now. I know others are working on something simlar, in PHP. I set up my own WebDAV server, so now the only missing part is the ICS file parser.

        As for iCal & WebDAV calendar publishing: in traditional Apple fashion, they have taken applications many people want and use, and have made them work together, and beautifully so. It's just amazing, and the possibilities are endless.

  • Windows would help too, although I'm not too concerned about that. Oh, and I need to be able to sync it with my Zaurus. Can iCal do this?

    • I have the perfect solution for you! It's something new that allows you to use your calendar while sitting in front of any computer; you can view it, add appointments, to-do items, or free-form notes quickly and easily, with total privacy and security, using an amazingly intuitive user interface!

      Check it out [dayrunner.com]!

      (HHOS [ic.ac.uk])
    • Both iCal and the Zaurus Datebook use open, text based, file formats. It should be simple for an open source, freeware, or shareware author to write syncing software.

      And that is if iSync, coming out later this month, doesn't do it. Wait a bit, and you should have all the software you could ask for.

      "Heart can reach where hand cannot. Climb over any wall..." Mothra (via Moll) "Mothra 3: King Ghidora Attacks"

  • Mozilla Calendar supports iCalendar/WebDAV also (Score:5, Informative)

    by lcarstensen ( 130248 ) on Friday September 13, 2002 @10:50PM (#4255364)
    I'm suprised no one mentioned the Mozilla Calendar project [mozilla.org]'s announcement and roadmap this week. This was posted to netscape.public.mozilla.calendar on news.mozilla.org.


    Hello everyone!

    Well, its been a long time coming, but I think that the calendar is finally at a release that I consider to be relatively stable, and that performs well. The XPI that is available right now fixes many selection problems, reads in Apple's iCal files from http://www.apple.com/ical/library/ and allows users to publish their events back to a webDAV enabled server. I'm calling this release 0.8.

    What this means:
    The 0.8 XPI will remain on the website until we release 0.9. We will continue to make XPIs available as they need to be (daily, weekly, whatever) but they may be more unstable than the 0.8 release.

    At the same time, we will work towards putting the calendar into the Mozilla default builds. Build issues are being resolved now, and we should be ready to go soon. I imagine we'll see calendar in Mozilla by their 1.5 release (I hope, and assuming all goes well).

    The 0.9 Mozilla calendar release will coincide with turning the calendar on by default in nightly builds.

    The 1.0 calendar release will hopefully coicide with the 1.5 release of Mozilla, at which point our numbering system will jump up and match theirs.

    Hopefully soon we'll have the target milestones in bugzilla. We will start to prioritize the bugs and see which bugs must be fixed for 0.9 and 1.0, and which ones can wait.

    Thanks. The latest XPIs are linked off the website. The 0.8 XPIs are available at:
    http://www.oeone.com/files/calendar08_linux.x pi
    http://www.oeone.com/files/calendar08_windows. xpi

    Mike

    Mike Potter
    Software Developer, OEone Corp.
    Mozilla Calendar Project
    http://www.oeone.com
  • Since Jaguar has failed to provide the promised WebDAV over SSL support I'd like to get a little more security regarding the control of publishing versions of my calendar file. Since the published calendar is going to be public I'm not too fussed about who can see the file itself but I would like to use something other than Basic Auth to control access so that the password is not sent in the clear.

    Has anyone out there got mod_digest or mod_auth_digest to work with the OS 10.2 WebDAV? I'm using Apache 1.3.22 on a Linux server and I either get a "Password mismatch" if I use the older mod_digest or I get and "invalid nonce" error if I use the more recent mod_auth_digest.

    If anyone out there has got this working I'd love to know what you did.
    • Here's an extract of a httpd.conf file on a OpenBSD apache that serves WebDAV disks fine. Should work the same on Linux server, but I did not try that.

      Load the module:
      LoadModule digest_auth_module /usr/lib/apache/modules/mod_auth_digest.so

      And here's the directory entry:
      <Directory /home/dothome/dav>
      DAV On
      AuthType Digest
      AuthName "DotHome"
      AuthDigestFile /var/www/conf/passwd
      AllowOverride None
      Options None
      </Directory>
      <Directory /home/dothome/dav/joe>
      <Limit PUT POST DELETE PROPFIND PROPPATCH MKCOL COPY MOVE LOCK UNLOCK>
      Require user joe
      </Limit>
      </Directory>

      Create the passwd entry with htdigest, using the realm DotHome.
  • probably stupid question as apache on linux may include the same modules, but just in case I will ask. What do people recommend (module wise) for running a webdav server on linux for mac users to access? What is the most compatiable and does Linux apache ship with the same modules as OSX or is their webdav one of their own?
  • Fellow geeks,

    I've launched a little website called iCalShare.com [icalshare.com] that's a directory of all the cool iCalendars people have made. If you've made a calendar that you want to share with a wider audience, iCalShare.com [icalshare.com] is the place to do it.

    It's also a great place to find a calendar. Some of the calendars listed on the site include calendars for space shuttle launches, Mac tradeshows, Cocoa and WebObjects training courses, and UK Sci-Fi conventions.

    Check it out and let me know what you think!

    Patrick Crowley
    iCalShare.com [icalshare.com]
    Share Your iCalendars!

  • I love 10.2, but way cant Apple create 1 program that handles email, calender, and addresses.. Now I have 3 programs that I have to use to organize my life - 3 programs which themselves needs organizing.

    • Apple could make one application that bundles all these things together, by why would you want that? If I want to write a mail client that shares information with address book and iCal, I can without having to deal with Mail.app. Each application should be small, well suited to a particular set of tasks, and easily tied to other applications.. Apple's doing this pretty well..

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