How to Use it Google Calendar

Introduction To Google Calendar:

Google Calendar- is a free time-management web application offered by Google. It became available on April 13, 2006, and exited the beta stage in July 2009. Users are required to have aGoogle Account in order to use the software.

Interface

The interface of Google Calendar, designed by Kevin Fox, is similar to desktop calendar applications such as Microsoft Outlook or iCal on Mac OS X. The Ajax-driven interface enables users to view, add, and drag-and-drop events from one date to another without reloading the page. It supports view modes such as weekly, monthly, and agenda. Users can "quick add" calendar events by typing standard English phrases, such as "Dinner with Michael 7 p.m. tomorrow". Users can also set the number of days to show in their custom view mode.

Content access

Events are stored online; consequently, the calendar can be viewed from any location that has Internet access. For users who might experience a hard drive failure, it also means that no data is lost. The application can import Microsoft Outlook calendar files (.csv) and iCalendar files (.ics, the de facto open calendaring file format). Multiple calendars can be added and shared, allowing various levels of permissions for the users. This enables collaboration and sharing of schedules amongst groups. General calendars available for importing into one's account include those containing national holidays of various countries. Users can also add "live" iCalendar URLs that update regularly.

Compatibility

Because Google Calendar is a web-based application, it runs on virtually any operating system, provided that the OS has a browser which supports the required web technologies. Since it uses recent browser features, browser compatibility includes Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8; Mozilla Firefox2.0+; Opera 9.5; Google Chrome; and Safari 2.0.3.

Google Calendar supports exporting calendar data through a permanent HTTP URL containing iCalendar data, either at a public or "private" (hard to guess) address. This bears resemblance to the Webcal "protocol". Public calendars were searchable until February 2009. The data can be integrated with, among many others, Novell Evolution, and Windows Calendar in Windows Vista (using the subscribe feature). The web link for the location of the calendar can be found in Google Calendar Settings in the Private Address section.

Google Calendar also supports CalDAV using iCal 3.x. Google announced in March 2013 that CalDAV would be limited to "whitelisted" developers only, and other developers would be limited in the future to Google Calendar API.

Consistency and reliability

As in other cloud computing applications, changes to Google Calendar are immediately visible to all users. This allows new features to be added without user action, but also makes it possible for new bugs to be rolled out to the entire user population, without users being able to refuse the update. On March 18, 2010, an update to add the Smart Rescheduler feature caused problems such as automatic invitations to nonexistent users being generated for events that were edited in secondary calendars. Despite negative user feedback, Google chose not to roll back the update, concentrating instead on providing a fix. According to user reports, the fix took effect five days later, on March 23, 2013.

How to Use It Google Calendar.ppt