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You want to share your busy / free times with some people, but you’ve created multiple Google calendars. Maybe a personal calendar, a schedule for kids, your softball games…some people might have their appointments and events scattered across a half dozen or more Google calendars.
What if someone wants to check your calendar for free time? Do you expect them to add six calendars to their gCal? Murphy would prefer to let anyone who needs this information click a single link and view the consolidated free and busy time. That includes users without Google accounts. Click to see a sample shared calendar.
Here’s what to do:
First - For any calendar you want included click ‘Share this calendar’ from the dropdown list next to the calendar. Check the ‘Make this calendar public’ and ‘Share only my free / busy information’ boxes.
Second - Select the dropdown next to one of your calendars and click ‘Calendar settings’ from the list. Next to ‘Calendar address’ click the HTML icon. When the pop-up appears click “configuration tool”.
Third - The configuration tool page appears. Check the calendars in the list you need included in your free / busy time display. Make other selections for screen elements you’d like included. You can set colors and add a title too.
Fourth - Click the ‘Update HTML’ button and copy the html generated in the box. Paste it into an html file and place the file on a web server accessible by those you wish to share with. Done.
If you don’t have a web host try a free site. Google has one. Or you could send the code to a good friend with a web host. Who likes helping people.
Share the url of the page you’ve created with anyone who needs to see when you’ve got free time.
The downside? This doesn’t let your friends view your free or busy time from within their Google Calendar account. And anyone who gets the url can see the information. But there’s nothing stopping you from using ‘conventional’ calendar sharing to let certain people see your calendar.
On the plus side, people don’t need a Google account to see your free and busy times. You can share the same page with multiple people - so there’s nothing left to do after setting this up. The weekly view provides lots of information at a glance.
Other Google Stuff
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Don’t let the name fool you, CDFinder isn’t just for CDs. It can catalog your thumb drives, external drives, internal drives - and DVDs too. This allows you to view the content of your media without powering up the drive or bringing it online.
Drives have started piling up around here. There’s a Drobo that helps a little, but I can think of four loose 3.5″ drives that have stuff on them. And a couple of portable USB drives. And piles of CDs and DVDs.
There’s also an offline G5 that I want to retire. I forget what’s on there from time to time so I use CDFinder ($39.99US) on my Macbook to take a look. CDFinder catalogs the contents of all kinds of files allowing you to view them when their host drive or disk is offline. Images, video, text, Adobe pro stuff - it can even index EyeTV files.
CDFinder is a big help with images. The application can generate thumbnails to help you sift through your content. Geotagging features let you add location data to your images and view them on various mapping services. Commercial CDFinder customers use it for managing large libraries of various types.
CDFinder developer Norbert Doerner stays busy adding new file types and features to the application. It can generate thumbnail images for many file types, including video formats.
You can assign labels to files and other custom fields. If the drive is online you can select a file and press the spacebar for a Finder-like preview.
I don’t have Spotlight indexing my Drobo, but I’ve got a CDFinder index so I can quickly search for files. 
I have little faith in the longevity of optical media, so I don’t have tons of CDs and DVDs to index. But I’ve got a few too many drives lying around. CDFinder can be a great help in getting your data organized - and spotting what needs to be backed up.
I may not be the primary target audience of this product, but I can see where it could be useful and convenient for people with growing libraries of digital media or file archives at home. One thing I’d really like: The ability to tag files for removal and have them deleted when the drive is online again.
There are other products that perform similar functions. The CDFinder website has posted comparisons to other products - providing information on how they stack up. Clearly CDFinder is a mature product with sophisticated features, like the ability to import catalogs from other indexing products.
The trial version lets you index 25 media items, that’s plenty to let you know how the product works. Keep in mind that CDFinder isn’t shareware, Norbert requires payment if you’re going to use it, even if you’re under 25 indexed items. Different licenses are available, including “Joe Average User.”
I started a small screencast for this post and it crashed on me. But Norbert at CDFinder has you covered with this walk-through video.
Screencast
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What’s remarkable about Cloud Engine’s Pogoplug ($129US) is how well it serves two distinct types of users. Looking for a zero-effort way to share files on your local network and the Internet? Pogoplug. Looking for a tiny linux box with plenty of open-source tweaking potential? Pogoplug.
The Pogoplug web site promotes the mass-market features of the Pogoplug. The device can:
- Put your external drives and portable storage devices on a network.
- Allow you to access and share that content on the Internet.
- Enable streaming of video and music to the iPhone and other devices.
But what’s great about the Pogoplug is that anyone can get all those features up and running easily. Instead of punching holes through your router by opening ports the Pogoplug uses a central server. Your Pogoplug checks in with the server to see if anyone is trying to connect, then it patches through valid requests. This makes setup incredibly simple:
- Connect the Pogoplug to your router
- Plug in your USB storage devices
- Create a username and password
Once those setup steps are complete you can access your Pogoplug at http://my.pogoplug.com. Your username is automagically mapped to your Pogoplug hardware and the central server completes the connection.
The system seamlessly enables fast local access to its content when you’re on the same local network as the Pogoplug. Even though you’re accessing it via http://my.pogoplug.com you can upload and download files quickly over the Pogoplug’s gigabit Ethernet port.
Everything worked as expected when I tried out the Pogoplug. Using the web interface I could view images, watch video previews, download files, and listen to streaming music. I could also upload files and let the Pogoplug convert my video files so they could be streamed.
You can also share images or entire folders of files. The Pogoplug prompts for email addresses and the selected content is shared via a unique link. There’s more! The Pogoplug can send notifications automatically when you make updates to shared content. You can create RSS feeds and connect to social networking sites.
If you’re looking for an OS integrated solution there’s optional software for both Mac and PCs. Once installed the Pogoplug is listed like a drive in the Finder.
Maybe you leave your computer on all day because you never know when you’re going to need a file from your drive. Wouldn’t it be better to leave a low-power device like the Pogoplug running than your iMac?
Consider these scenarios:
- Maybe you’re looking for an alternative to DroboShare, which has some limitations.
- Maybe you don’t want your computer tied up converting video to a streaming format.
- Maybe your dad wants a dead-simple way to share photos from his camera. What could be easier than plugging a card reader into a Pogoplug?
- Maybe you’re that person who doesn’t trust the cloud or like the limitations. You want your stuff on your storage devices - not Flickr, not YouTube. Pogoplug.
OpenPogo
How does Cloud Engine feel about people tinkering with their device? That’s pretty clear from the web site. You’ll find the root password in plain view on the Developer page, as well as links to the Pogoplug development community. I ssh’d into the device and poked around. I like the idea of using the Pogoplug for big overnight scp uploads instead of leaving a computer running. Or burdening a computer that’s working on other overnight tasks.
Conclusion
The Pogoplug is a near-perfect implementation for what it does. I admit I preferred the simplicity of the earlier form-factor. Still - the newer version adds capacity that’s worth the tradeoff. It’s basically a headless computer for $129. There are others out there, just look for Sheevaplugs. But it would be hard to beat the simplicity of the Pogoplug.
I’d like an alternative to accessing the device through the pogoplug.com domain - which could be a problem if Cloud Engine disappears. But that fear is diminished by the company’s positive outlook toward open source development for the product. Murphy gives Pogoplug two thumbs up.
Check out the screencast to see what the interface looks like.
Screencast
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