windows vista secrets april 2007 phần 9 docx

Secret A Few Other Windows Live Services In addition to the several Windows Live products and services that Microsoft promotesfrom within Windows Vista, the company offers a wide range o

can access your schedule from anywhere that has an Internet connection.

If you started off using Windows Mail before realizing there was a better solutionout there, fear not: You can easily migrate your Windows Mail accounts and settings

to Windows Live Mail Desktop You’ll be prompted to do so after you’ve installedWindows Live Mail Desktop

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Downloading Windows Live Messenger

Windows Live Messenger replaces MSN Messenger as Microsoft’s mainstream instantmessaging (IM) application In truth, the term instant messaging doesn’t really do thisapplication a lot of justice Although it can indeed be used to hold text-, audio-, andvideo-based chats online with your friends, coworkers, and other contacts, Windows LiveMessenger is blurring the line with telephone-like functionality thanks to its integration

of Voice over IP (VoIP) technologies That means you can make long-distance and national phone calls via Windows Live Messenger for a small fraction of what you’reprobably being charged by the phone company It might be time to invest in a PC head-set Windows Live Messenger is shown in Figure 19-5

inter-Windows Live Messenger can also be used to communicate with friends usingYahoo! Messenger, a competing instant messaging application

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Figure 19-5:Windows Live Messenger offers IM functionality and can be used to make PC-to-phone calls.

Other Offers from Microsoft

In addition to the Windows Live services mentioned previously, the Windows VistaWelcome Center also offers two other offers from Microsoft, “Go online to WindowsMarketplace” and “Sign up online for technical support.”

Windows Marketplace is Microsoft’s shopping and download site, from whichyou can purchase hardware and software for your Windows Vista–based PC Ithas developed into an interesting destination, especially because much of thesoftware it offers can actually be downloaded, for instant gratification WindowsMarketplace is shown in Figure 19-6

The second option opens Internet Explorer 7 and navigates to the MicrosoftSupport Web site (http://support.microsoft.com/) From here, you can get guidedhelp, visit the product solution center for Windows Vista, or submit supportrequests It’s a good place to visit if more traditional support options — such asthe Vista help files, this book, or the teenaged geek down the street — aren’t able

to answer your questions

Figure 19-6:Windows Marketplace showcases hardware and software that’scompatible with Windows Vista.

There are other support options available to you as well, of course For example, youmight use Windows Mail or Windows Live Mail Desktop to visit Microsoft’s productsupport newsgroups There, you can get peer-to-peer support (from other Windowsusers) or even responses from the Microsoft engineers that frequent the groups Toaccess these newsgroups in Windows Live Mail Desktop, simply click the Newsshortcut and then Microsoft Communities

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A Few Other Windows Live Services

In addition to the several Windows Live products and services that Microsoft promotesfrom within Windows Vista, the company offers a wide range of other Windows Live serv-ices, which you can examine and download at your leisure online Here are a few of themore valuable Windows Live services you may want to check out

Live.com

Microsoft’s newest Web portal, Live.com (www.live.com/), looks like a simple search page,but it’s highly customizable You can add a number of dynamic content panes containingnews, sports, or entertainment headlines, weather, stock quotes, and even your WindowsLive Mail e-mail Live.com is shown in Figure 19-7

Figure 19-7:Live.com offers Web search but is also highly customizable.

Although Google has become so popular that the term Google is now used both as the

company’s name and as a verb to describe searching the Web (as in, “I need to GoogleWindows Vista to find out more about it”), it’s not the only game in town Live.com with itsWindows Live Search is now the default homepage in Windows Vista’s version of InternetExplorer 7, and the company hopes that this exposure will help it convince users to givethe service a chance Give it a shot The customization options are quite interesting

Like the Windows Sidebar (Chapter 6), Live.com can be customized with gadgets,small software programs that provide much more interactivity than is commonlyassociated with web pages Live.com gadgets are created similarly to WindowsSidebar gadgets, so many developers will create gadgets that work in both places

To discover gadgets for Live.com (or the Sidebar), visit Windows Live Gallery(http://gallery.live.com)

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Windows Live OneCare Family Safety

Although Microsoft does offer a Windows Live OneCare subscription product (mentionedearlier in this chapter), the company’s customers told it that it would need to protect non-subscribers online if it expected them to access its various Windows Live services SoMicrosoft extended the OneCare brand into a variety of other free services, including anonline virus scanner (the Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner at http://safety.live.com)and the Windows Live OneCare Family Safety service (http://fss.live.com), which providesweb filtering and contacts management for parents wishing to keep their children safeonline

Windows Live Spaces

Windows Live Spaces is Microsoft’s blogging solution, software that enables anyone to lish a web site, complete with photos and interactive content, easily and without any techni-cal knowledge Spaces has proven quite popular — by some metrics it’s the most popularblogging software in the world — and it certain does provide a friendly and welcome envi-ronment with professional looking page design and nice integration with other WindowsLive services You can find out more at the Spaces web site (http://spaces.live.com/) A typicalWindows Live Spaces blog is shown in Figure 19-8

pub-Figure 19-8:Windows Live Spaces lets anyone create their own web site

A related Windows Live product, Windows Live Writer, allows you to publish content

to your Windows Live Spaces blog (or numerous other blog types, including Blogger,LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, and many others) using a standard Windows-basedapplication Windows Live Writer, shown in Figure 19-9, is nice because it worksoffline, letting you cache blog posts until you can get online, and it provides trueWhat You See Is What You Get (WYSIWIG) editing Find out more on the WindowsLive Writer web site (http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/)

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Figure 19-9:Windows Live Writer lets you use a Microsoft Word–like WYSIWYGenvironment for posting information to a blog.

Summary

In this chapter, we’ve examined Microsoft’s Windows Live products and services, whichaugment Windows Vista with a number of useful web-based capabilities, includinginstant messaging, PC safety and security, e-mail, and much more With Windows Liveservices, you can communicate with friends, coworkers, and loved ones, publish yourthoughts and photos to web sites, and keep your PC running securely and smoothly Andunlike previous Microsoft online services, the Windows Live services integrate withWindows only when you choose to install them: They aren’t simply provided for youwhether you need or want them or not

Part VII

Home Office/Power User

Chapter 20: Managing Your Schedule with Windows Calendar

Chapter 21: Keeping Your Data Safe Chapter 22: Microsoft PowerShell

Searching for appointments and tasks Printing calendars

Chapter

20

endars, and even a way to publish your own calendars for others to use In this chapter,we’ll examine this new Windows application.

Understanding PC Calendaring

If you’ve ever used the Calendar component in Microsoft Outlook, then you’re iar with the notion of PC-based calendaring and scheduling Microsoft Outlook is anextremely powerful tool, enabling you to create and manage appointments, meetings, and other events, as well as tasks and other time-based schedules For all its strengths,however, Microsoft Outlook isn’t perfect First, you must pay a hefty sum for MicrosoftOutlook unless you get a version along with other Microsoft Office applications when you purchase a new PC Second, Outlook is designed to work primarily with MicrosoftExchange–based servers Although it’s possible to use Outlook as an individual, it’s notideal, and even the very latest Outlook version offers only very simple methods for shar-ing calendaring information with other people

famil-Meanwhile, standards-based web calendars have been gaining in popularity for the pastfew years, and these solutions offer features that are much more applicable to individualsthan what Outlook offers Best of all, most of these web-based calendars are free Forexample, Apple Computer supplies users of its Mac OS X operating system with a calen-dar application called iCal that integrates very nicely with web standards for calendaring,making it possible for iCal users to share calendars with family and friends from aroundthe world And the Mozilla Corporation, which makes the popular Firefox web browser, isdeveloping its own calendar application called Sunbird, offering similar functionality toWindows and Linux users

Standards-based calendar applications offer a number of useful features First, you cancreate discrete calendars in categories such as Personal, Work, Gym, or any categories youchoose to imagine and overlay them as needed on the same calendar view to see how yourentire schedule plays out You can share calendars with others, via a publish and subscribemechanism that enables you to superimpose your own calendars visually with remote cal-endars Using this functionality, for example, you could find a night in which both you andyour wife were free to have dinner at a restaurant together, or compare your son’s soccerschedule with your own weekend plans to make sure you can get to the game

Because these standards-based calendars are becoming so popular, many organizationsand individuals publish their own schedules on the Web so that other individuals can sub-scribe to them If you’re a fan of the Boston Red Sox or any other sports team, you can sub-scribe to their schedule and always be alerted when a game is coming up There arecalendars out there for all kinds of events including regional holidays, concerts, and thelike And these calendars can be superimposed on your own calendars, if you’d like, withinthese calendaring applications

There’s more, of course Standards-based calendars also support lists of tasks, which can

be assigned days and times for completion and checked off as they are completed You

can print calendars in attractive styles, and use them as paper-based personal informationmanagers during your work week or on trips All of this is possible without having to dealwith an expensive, centralized server The Internet’s enterprising denizens have gottentheir hands on calendaring and rescued it from the shackles of Microsoft Exchange.

When we refer to standards with regards to calendaring, we’re referring to the iCal, oriCalendar, standard, which specifies “interoperable calendaring and scheduling servicesfor the Internet.” Rather than extend proprietary solutions like Outlook to the Internet,the iCal standard proposes that all calendars should use a single, open standard for inter-operability purposes It’s a great idea and works well in the real world You can find outmore about the iCal format on the IETF web site (www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt)

Exploring Windows Calendar

Microsoft isn’t blind to this change in how people are interacting online via based calendars So Windows Vista includes a standards-based calendar applicationcalled, logically enough, Windows Calendar If you’re familiar with competing solutionssuch as Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird, Windows Calendar will seem very familiar Itworks with the same standards-based calendaring format, and it can publish and sub-scribe to the same sources as those solutions However, because Windows Calendar isbuilt into Windows Vista, it will soon become the predominant calendaring solution forindividuals worldwide For this reason, we expect standards-based calendaring tobecome truly mainstream during the lifetime of Windows Vista

standards-Obviously, Microsoft isn’t giving up on its Exchange Server and Outlook product lines

If you want a quick understanding of how these solutions are differentiated, think of itthis way: Exchange and Outlook are tools for business users, while Windows Calendar

is for individuals like consumers, soccer moms, and your grandparents Put simply,

Windows Calendar is for people not businesses.

Understanding the Windows Calendar Interface

Windows Calendar can be found in the All Programs portion of the Start menu When youlaunch Windows Calendar for the first time, you’ll be presented with a standard daily cal-endar view, and you’ll see that Windows Calendar has created its first calendar for you,which is named after your user name (see Figure 20-1)

The Windows Calendar user interface is divided into a number of logical areas On thetop is a menu bar and toolbar Below that, you’ll see three areas, or panes, two of whichare optional On the left is the Navigation pane, which enables you to select between dif-ferent calendars and tasks In the center of the application window is the current calendarview, which is set to Day view by default On the right is the Details Pane This pane willchange based on what’s currently selected By default, the current calendar is selected,but you might select other items, such as an appointment or a task

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Figure 20-1:Windows Calendar shares many similarities with other standards-based Internetcalendars but presented in a clean, Vista-like user interface.

Understanding Calendar Lingo

Because there are so many calendar applications out there, you might be confused aboutsome of the language Microsoft uses to describe the various items with which WindowsCalendar deals Table 20-1 summarizes these items

Table 20-1: Common items in Windows Calendar

Windows Definition Calendar Item

Calendar A collection of appointments that makes up your schedule You can have

different calendars for different purposes, and intermingle them within theWindows Calendar user interface

Group A logical grouping of related calendars

Appointment A meeting or other event Appointments can have specific starting and ending

times or be all-day or multi-day events For example, a meeting will typicallyhave static start and end times, whereas a vacation is a multi-day event

Task A to-do item that typically needs to be completed by a specific time

Windows Definition Calendar Item

Publish A method by which a calendar is distributed electronically so that it might be

shared with others or viewed online

Subscribe A method by which a published calendar is displayed locally within Windows

Calendar and is updated automatically as changes are made to the original

Working with Calendars and Groups

The first time you launch Windows Calendar, you’ll see that it has created a default

cal-endar for you with the name [User name]’s calcal-endar (where [User name] is obviously

replaced by the logon name of the current user) Each calendar gets its own name andcolor, and you can change either For some people, this single calendar may be enough.But others may want to create different calendars for the different types of events theyconfront each day Microsoft has also added the ability to create calendar groups, called

groups, within which you can collect related calendars if desired.

Take a look at some ways in which you might organize your calendars within WindowsCalendar As stated previously, the default calendar you get just by running WindowsCalendar might be enough for you But some would rather organize things differently,and there are certainly many advantages to using different calendars First, because eachcalendar is assigned a unique color, appointments for each calendar will stand out visu-ally Second, because you can arbitrarily hide and show individual calendars, it’s possible

to simplify the calendar view as needed, which can be handy when publishing or printingcalendars The important thing to remember is that Windows Calendar supports virtuallyany level of customization when it comes to calendar management For example, you canuse Windows Calendar to do any of the following:

Change the name of the default calendar:Just select the name of the calendar

in the Details pane and type a new name, as shown in Figure 20-2

Change the calendar display color:Click the Color drop-down bucket andchoose from one of the 16 available colors

Add multiple calendars:Click the New Calendar button in the navigational trol in the bottom of the Windows Calendar window This is the button to theleft of the Previous button (Alternatively, you can select File➪New➪Calendarfrom the Windows Calendar menu.) When you do so, you’ll see a new calendarappear in the Calendars list of the Navigation pane Since the default name isNew Calendar, you’ll want to change that: Simply start typing to give it a newname If the name becomes deselected for some reason, click the new calendarname in Calendars and then select the name in the Details pane and begintyping

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Figure 20-2:Renaming a calendar is simple: Just select the name in the Details paneand start typing.

Create new calendars and calendar groups:You can use a calendar group tologically group related calendars For example, you might create a group calledPersonal and lump calendars such as Home, Health, and Vacations inside Oryou might have a work group within which you’d create calendars calledMeetings, Work Trips, or whatever

To create a group, click the New Group button in the Windows Calendar tional control (or, select File➪New➪Group from the menu system) Groupsappear in the Calendars section of the Navigation pane as small folders Bydefault, groups will be empty You can drag existing folders in and out of groups.But if you want to create a new calendar inside of an existing group, you can doso: Simply select the group folder first, and then click the New Calendar button

naviga-In Figure 20-3, you can see how one might organize a large number of calendarsand groups

Figure 20-3:If you’re really systematic, Windows Calendar will reward you with grained control over calendar organization.

fine-

Here’s one excellent use for groups Later in this chapter, we discuss ways that you cansubscribe to calendars that have been published online by organizations and individ-uals We recommend creating groups for these subscribed calendars in order to keepthem separated from your personally created calendars For example, you might cre-ate a group called Subscribed Calendars, Sporting Events, or something similar

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Understanding Calendar Views and Navigation

Windows Calendar supports the following four basic view styles:

Day view: Presents a top-down view style segregated into 30-minute slices, asshown in Figure 20-4

Week view, shown in Figure 20-5, divides the display into seven columns, one

for each day of the week (compared with five for Work Week view) As with Day

view, the view is segregated into 30-minute slices of time from top to bottom

Figure 20-4:Windows Calendar’s Day view.

Figure 20-5:Windows Calendar’s Week view

Work Week view:The same as the Week view, except the display is divided intofive columns, one for each workday of the week.

Month view:The central pane of Windows Calendar is divided up into a standardmonthly calendar view, where each day of the month is denoted by a rectangularshape Month view is shown in Figure 20-6

Figure 20-6:Windows Calendar’s Month View

In Week view, Work Week view, and Month view, the currently selected day is demarked

by bold blue lines By default, this day is set to the current day If you select other days forvarious reasons and want to return to the default display, click the Go To Today button,which is the blue circle in the bottom center of the Windows Calendar window When you

do so, the current day is selected

If jumping directly to today isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, you can also causeWindows Calendar to jump to any date of your choosing To do so, select the Viewmenu (not the View toolbar button) and then Go To Date Then, in the resulting dialogbox, simply pick the date you want as well as the view style you’d like displayed

The little calendar found in the Date section of the Navigation Pane can be used toview different months without changing the main calendar view If you look at this littlecalendar, you’ll see small arrows to the left and right of the month name Click them tonavigate back and forth, respectively, from month to month

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Configuring Windows Calendar

Windows Calendar offers a variety of configuration options You can hide the Navigationand Details panes if you’d like, although we don’t recommend doing so To hide thesepanes, click the View button in the Windows Calendar toolbar When you do so, a shortmenu pops up, as shown in Figure 20-7 From this menu, you can toggle both theNavigation and Details panes (you can toggle these panes via the View menu) and per-form other tasks

Figure 20-7:The View button lets you configure the display layout

To access other Windows Calendar options, you’ll need to visit the application’s Optionswindow, which is curiously found by navigating to File➪Options in the menu TheOptions window is shown in Figure 20-8

Figure 20-8:Most of Calendar’s options are configurable via this simple window.

Here, you can set a variety of options related to calendars, appointments, and tasks Forexample, you can determine which day is visually displayed as the first day of the week(Sunday by default), and the hours at which the day begins and ends We’ll examine theappointment and task options later in this chapter

Working with Appointments

Within each calendar you use in Windows Calendar, you will create various

appoint-ments An appointment is an event that occurs on a specific date or over a range of dates.

Appointments can have static beginning and end times — like a meeting that runs from9:00 a.m to 10:00 a.m — or be all-day events Appointments also have other characteris-tics For example, you might create an appointment for an event that occurs repeatedly,like a birthday or anniversary And you can choose to be alerted when specific appoint-ments are coming up

There are various ways to create a new appointment in Windows Calendar, but how you

do so matters little because you can change any appointment details during the creationprocess Say you want to schedule a meeting for 9:00 a.m next Monday One way to do sowould be to select the appropriate calendar and then navigate to the specific date in Dayview Then, position the mouse cursor over the time at which you’d like the appointment tobegin Now, double-click to start creating the new appointment As shown in Figure 20-9,two things happen when you do this First, a new appointment appears within the centercalendar view and the name of the appointment is highlighted Second, information aboutthe new appointment appears in the Details pane

Figure 20-9:Creating a new appointment in Windows Calendar.

Examining Appointment Details

You can edit the following characteristics of the appointment:

Name: This is how you identify an appointment You can use any name you’dlike, such as Meeting With Sarah, Car To Shop, or Flight To Phoenix

Location: As with the name, this entry can contain any text value So you mightuse Phone for phone calls, Meeting Room 133, American Airlines Flight 133, orwhatever you like

Calendar: Specifies the calendar to which the appointment will be attached Ifyou use multiple calendars, you can drop down the list and pick the appropriatecalendar

URL: If there is a web address associated with the appointment, you can enter

it here

Appointment Information: In this section, you specify the starting and endingtimes (and days) or whether it’s an all-day event You can also determinewhether the appointment repeats If it does, you can choose between Every day(as shown in Figure 20-10), Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, or Advanced If you selectthe latter option, the Recurrence dialog appears letting you fine-tune its repeti-tion characteristics

Figure 20-10:Use Recurrence to set up how often an appointment repeats.

Reminder: If you’d like Windows Calendar to pop up a reminder dialog box at aspecified interval before an appointment, this drop-down box will enable youconfigure it Allowable reminder times include 0, 5, 15, and 30 minutes; 1, 2, and

4 hours; 1, 2, and 4 days; 1 and 2 weeks, or On date, the latter of which triggers

a reminder at the start of the day of the appointment When the Reminder dialogbox does appear, as shown in Figure 20-11, you’ll have the opportunity to snoozethe reminder to a later time, dismiss it, or view the item This dialog box is iden-tical to the Reminder dialog used by Microsoft Outlook, incidentally

Figure 20-11:Outlook users will find the Reminder dialog box to be somewhat familiar

specify a reminder, a small alarm clock icon will appear You can get a bit more tion about a particular appointment by moving the mouse cursor over it When you do so,

informa-a sminforma-all binforma-alloon help window will informa-appeinforma-ar informa-and displinforma-ay the ninforma-ame, locinforma-ation, informa-and time of theappointment This is especially useful in Month view, when you can’t see start and endtimes for individual appointments

Also, the display of appointments will vary according to their type Appointments withstart and end times will appear as colored rectangles in the calendar view But all-day andmulti-day events will appear in the upper well of the Day and Week views In Monthview, multi-day events will visually expand across all of the applicable days, as shown inFigure 20-12

Figure 20-12:Multi-day events visually expand to include all of the days you specify

If you’d like to view or edit an appointment at a later time, just select it in the calendarview You’ll see the appointment details appear in the Details pane.

If you just need to edit the name, simply double-click the appointment in the calendarview The appointment name will be highlighted, enabling you to type a new name

Configuring Appointments

You can access exactly two appointment-related options in the Windows Calendar Optionsdialog box, which is available via the Tools menu In this dialog box, you can specify thestarting length of new appointments (the default is one hour) and the default remindertime (the default is none) This is handy if your new appointments typically share commoncharacteristics If you almost always want to be reminded about an appointment one dayearly, for example, you could change the default reminder value to 1 day This won’t pre-vent you from changing this value on an appointment-by-appointment basis, of course

Taking Calendar to Task with Tasks

In addition to scheduling appointment events, Windows Calendar also enables you to figure various tasks As its name suggests, a task is a to-do item that you want to ensuregets completed As with appointments, you can set reminders for tasks, and can configureindividual tasks to repeat at regular intervals When you complete a task, you can mark it

con-as completed from within Windows Calendar

Like appointments, tasks are associated with calendars This makes sense if you thinkabout it If you do choose to organize Windows Calendar with various calendars, it’s likelyyou’ll want to associate certain tasks with home, work, or whatever other categories youmay choose to use That said, tasks are relegated to the Tasks section of the Navigationpane and don’t get added to the main calendar view

Creating Tasks

To create a new task, first select a calendar in the Calendars section of the Navigationpane Then, click the New Task button in the Windows Calendar toolbar (There are otherways to initiate a new task You can right-click an empty spot in the Tasks section andchoose New Task Or, simply select File➪New➪Task from the Windows Calendar menu.) However you do it, a new task will appear in Tasks with its name highlighted for editing,

as shown in Figure 20-13 Additionally, information about the task appears in the Detailspane so you can configure it as needed

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Figure 20-13:Creating a new task in Windows Calendar.

In the Details pane, you’ll see a number of options for your newly created task The lowing options are available:

fol-
Name: This is how you identify the task You can use any name you’d like

Calendar: This specifies the calendar to which the task is attached

URL: If there is a web address associated with the task, you can enter it here

Task Information: In this section, you specify whether the task is completed, apriority rating (Low, Medium, High, or None), and optional start and end dates(but not times) When a task is marked as completed, that task will feature acheck mark in the Tasks section If you want to be reminded of an upcoming taskyou need to complete, it often makes sense to set up at least a start date for thetask That way, when you enter a reminder time in the next section, it will havesomething to work from

Reminder: As with appointments, you can configure Windows Calendar toremind you when tasks are incomplete These reminders behave identically toappointment reminders

Notes: This large text entry area enables you to write or paste in large blocks oftext that may be pertinent to the task

So what’s the difference between a task and an appointment? Appointments typicallycome and go at specific times, but tasks are often more open-ended and come with acompletion requirement Also, appointments can involve other people With a task,you’re on your own

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Configuring Tasks

You can configure a number of task-related features from the Options dialog box forWindows Calendar These options include whether and when to hide completed tasks(which might otherwise clutter up the Tasks section if you’re highly productive), thedefault reminder time, and the default color to use to mark a task that’s overdue That’sright Windows Calendar can get nasty if you don’t keep on top of your tasks

There’s another option in the Options dialog box that’s pertinent to tasks In the

Calendar section of this dialog box, you’ll see an option titled Reminders should show

when Windows Calendar is not running For the most part, you will want to ensure that

this option is enabled Otherwise, you’d have to think to run Windows Calendar for task(and appointment) reminders to pop up That kind of defeats the purpose of a reminder

You can also change how tasks appear in the Task section of the Navigation pane Ifyou right-click in this area and choose Sort By, you’ll see that you can sort by due date,priority, title, and calendar name

Sharing Calendars

So far, everything we’ve covered in this chapter will be familiar to you if you’ve used anapplication such as Microsoft Outlook or even the calendar functionality of a web mailsolution such as Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail But what really sets Windows Calendar apartfrom those products is that Windows Calendar adheres to the iCal Internet-based calen-daring standard This means that it’s extremely easy to share calendars with people fromall over the world, as long as they too use Windows Calendar or another application (such

as Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird) that also respects this standard

Importing and Exporting Calendars

Previous to Window Calendar, Microsoft supported only static calendar data

interoperabil-ity in its various calendar products That is, you could import or export calendar data in

specific formats so that you could move information from one calendar to another Thisfunctionality has been added to Windows Calendar as well, and although it’s not as excit-ing as the sharing technologies we describe later in the chapter, it’s still useful

Windows Calendar can only import (and export) to industry-standard ICS format, which issometimes referred to as iCalendar format This format is supported by applications likeApple iCal and Mozilla Sunbird, but not by Microsoft Outlook (though Outlook 2007 doesallow you to open files in ICS format)

To export a calendar to ICS:

1. Select a calendar and then select File➪Export

2. Select a location to which to save the file using the Export dialog box, and thengive it a description name

3. You can now import the file into another compatible calendar application

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Publishing and Subscribing to Calendars

Importing and exporting is nice, but both of these operations are like slices in timebecause they can’t help you if future changes are made to any of the calendars you’ve

exchanged What’s needed, of course, is a way to synchronize data between calendars so

that you can ensure that your calendar is always up to date And this, of course, is wherethe iCal standard comes in Using the publish and subscribe functionality that’s built intoWindows Calendar, it’s possible to subscribe to any number of online calendars and evenpublish your own calendars

Subscribing to Calendars

Before you can subscribe to an online calendar, you’ll need to find one of course Thereare a number of online calendar resources that you can peruse One of the best is Apple’siCal Library (www.apple.com/macosx/features/ical/library/), because Apple was one of thefirst major companies to embrace the iCal standard Apple’s site includes professionalsports schedules, worldwide holidays, movie openings, and much more Another excel-lent resource is iCalShare (www.icalshare.com/), which lists even more calendars to whichyou can subscribe, in a bewildering list of categories

Using either site, or a similar resource, you can browse different calendars until you findone to which you’d like to subscribe Say you’re a Boston Red Sox fan If you search for

“Red Sox” on iCalShare, you’ll see a number of calendars devoted to the schedule ofBoston’s major league baseball team

You might think that you could subscribe to one of these calendars simply by loading it Unfortunately, it’s not that simple Instead, you must right-click the link to

down-an online calendar down-and copy its web address, or URL, to the clipboard To do this withInternet Explorer, right-click and choose Copy Shortcut Then, switch to WindowsCalendar and click the Subscribe button This displays the Subscribe wizard, as shown

in Figure 20-14

Paste the URL for the calendar into the text box and click Next Windows Calendarwill connect to the Web and discover details about the calendar In the next phase ofthe Subscribe wizard, you’ll see the name of the calendar (which you can change),along with options for how often it should refresh (or synchronize with) the remotecalendar If there are reminders or tasks included with the calendar, you can option-ally enable them as well This is all shown in Figure 20-15

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Publishing Your Calendars

If you have access to a web server to which you can copy an ICS file, you can publish yourown calendars as well Since this action isn’t as common as subscribing, WindowsCalendar doesn’t include a Publish toolbar button However, it does include a full-featured

if slightly-hidden Publish Calendar wizard that steps you through the process To find it,select a calendar and then navigate to Tools➪Sharing➪Publish This displays the PublishCalendar wizard shown in Figure 20-16

Figure 20-16:With this simple wizard, you can publish your own calendars online

To publish a calendar directly to a web server, that server will need to be compatible withthe web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) standard, a set of tech-nologies aimed at making it easier to manage files on remote web servers If you don’thave access to such a server, you can always export your calendar to a local ICS file and

free to change them, of course If they do change a calendar you’re subscribing to,you can get the changes by setting up a refresh schedule when you subscribe, or bysynchronizing, which we describe below

then upload it to a web server using FTP or whatever uploading tool you may choose touse However, when you do this, you lose the best feature of publishing, which is the abil-ity to keep the remote (or published) version of your calendar up to date as you makechanges to it from within Windows Calendar.

In the Publish Calendar wizard, you will first provide a name for your calendar (WindowsCalendar uses the calendar name by default) Then, enter a URL where you’d like to pub-lish the calendar This URL is formatted just like any web address, using the HTTP prefix Ifyour web server is named windowssecrets.comand you have dedicated a remote folder forcalendar sharing called ical, you might type in the address www.windowssecrets.com/ical.Then, determine whether you want the published calendar to be automatically updatedwhen changes are made and decide whether to include Notes, Reminders, and Tasks.When you’re ready, press the Publish button

Now, Windows Calendar will publish your calendar to the web site you specified At thispoint, you can continue making changes to the calendar; unpublish it, if you’re not happywith the results; or announce the calendar, giving friends and family an opportunity to dis-cover it and, hopefully, subscribe The latter two options are available in Tools➪Sharing

Synchronizing Your Calendars

With the proliferation of local and shared calendars on your system, you’re going to wantsome way to ensure that everything is up to date Fortunately, Microsoft has included asynchronize function in Windows Calendar that performs two key functions If you have aremote calendar to which you’ve subscribed, synchronizing will ensure that you have thevery latest version And if you are publishing a calendar, synchronize will ensure thatthe remote copy is up to date with the changes you’ve made locally You can choose tosynchronize only the currently selected calendar or Synchronize All, which will sync upall of your calendars, in both directions Both options are available in Windows Calendar’sTools menu

Searching Calendars

In keeping with the Windows Vista search-centric user interface, Window Calendar vides a handy search box in the upper-right corner of the application window, from whichyou search for both appointments and tasks If you just type a term into the search box, bydefault, Window Calendar will search all appointment and task events and will displaythe results in a Search Results pane that appears at the top of the Windows Calendar win-dow, seen in Figure 20-17

pro-However, you can also limit searches with certain criteria If you look to the right of thesearch box, you’ll see that there is a drop-down menu This menu enables you to limit thesearch to today’s events, the next 7 days, the next 14 days, the next 31 days, this calendarmonth, all future events, or the currently selected day

Figure 20-17:The Search feature in Windows Calendar works with both appointments and tasks.

Printing Calendars

Finally, Windows Calendar includes a nice printing component, which enables you toprint your calendars in various attractive ways This is handy for people who need a quickprintout or haven’t otherwise embraced the notion of personal digital assistants (PDAs) orsmart phones

Before you print, you need to decide which calendars to include in your printout Any endars that are selected, or checked, in the Calendars list in the Navigational pane willprint So deselect any calendars you’d like to exclude first

cal-Now, click the Print button in the Windows Calendar toolbar This launches the Print dow, as shown in Figure 20-18 Here, you can configure various print options

win-Under Print Style, you can pick between Day, Work Week, Week, and Month print styles.You can also specify a date range and other options The actual printouts are quite nice.They provide an attractive calendar look but none of the Details information found witheach appointment

Figure 20-18:When printing calendars, you can choose between various view styles.

up with your activities Hopefully, this chapter has inspired you to discover this tion’s many and varied features

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