Groups

Enter the name and address of the group. Set the Access level to “Team” and check the checkbox labeled “Also allow anyone on the internet to post messages”. When done, click “Create new group”.

Create New Group

This next step is technically optional, but necessary if you’d like to restrict normal members from seeing the contents of the forwarder. If this is the case, we need to set custom permissions and de-select all but “Owner” for “View member list”. If this doesn’t concern you, feel free to skip this.

Custom Group Permissions

Finally, we need to add actual addresses to forward to. And this is the beauty of Google, is that you can forward to as many email addresses as necessary. If you only need to enter a single address, that’s fine too.

Add Group Members

Much like labels in Gmail, Google has gone a step beyond, by allowing you to forward emails to any number of users on and off the domain. This feature has a minor learning curve, but just as users quickly adapted to labels instead of folders, managing groups is no more difficult than individual forwarders.

Update 2: I’d like to thank Elena for finding the address to add contact birthdays: https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/%23contacts@group.v.calendar.google.com/user

With iPhone OS 3.0, Apple introduced new functionality for calendar synchronization. No longer is this ability limited to Exchange and MobileMe; with CalDAV and ICS support, you can sync or subscribe to many calendars. This is a boon for those of us that use Exchange for work, as previously we were unable to sync any other personal calendars and instead, had to rely on a desktop program.

The two most prominent supporters of CalDAV for calendar bidirectional synchronization is Yahoo! and Google. Below, I’ll show you how to sync your main Google Calendar with CalDAV and also subscribe to additional calendars via ICS files.

CalDAV Calendar

1. Open up Settings from the home screen
   

   Settings

2. Swipe down and select “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”. At the bottom of the account list, touch “Add Account…”
   
3. We’re not adding any of the built-in accounts, so select “Other”
   

   Add Account...

4. At the bottom, select “Add CalDAV Account”
   

   Select Account Type

5. Now, enter the credentials. For Google Calendar, use the following information. According to Yahoo!’s documentation, you would instead use “caldav.calendar.yahoo.com” for Server.
   • Server: www.google.com
   • Username: <user@domain.com>
   • Password: <yourpassword>
   • Description: <Calendar Description>
   

   CalDAV Settings

6. The iPhone should now verify your account and auto-discover the rest of the settings. Really, that’s it!

Subscribed Calendar (ICS)

For Subscribed Calendars, the process is much easier due to some magic on Apple’s part. Simply email yourself a link to the ICS file and click it to open! Where do you get the URL for a calendar? I’ve got a couple of screenshots to guide you through that process:

1. Click the down arrow next to the calendar you want to subscribe to and click “Calendar settings”.
   

   Google Calendar Settings

2. At the bottom of this page, you’ll see several buttons to access XML, ICAL, or HTML versions of a calendar. To avoid sharing your calendar, simply click the ICAL button listed under “Private Address”.
   

   Calendar Private Address

3. A modal dialog box will pop up with the URL. Simply copy and paste this to yourself in an email.
   

Update: Commenters have pointed out, that you only need to open the link directly from the email, and the iPhone will take care of the rest… Genius!

Multiple CalDAV Calendars

It’s possible to sync secondary calendars from Google (i.e. those that are not the “main” calendar). This is simple, but you need a special ID similar to the ICS URL. Go back to you calendar settings page where the Private Address is listed. Above there is a section labeled Calendar Address. To the very right is a Calendar ID. Copy this ID into an email and compose a URL like the following:

• https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/ [ your Google Calendar ID ] /user

This URL is different than what the Google Calendar Help page suggests. Email this URL to yourself, copy it, then paste it into the “Server” field from above. The rest of the settings should copy itself into the Advanced Settings.

Miscellaneous

A couple notes:

• You can definitely set the CalDAV calendar as a default calendar, but I had problems making the change until I first went into the calendar app and let it populate. Afterward, I was able to drill back down to the “Default Calendar” setting in “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”.
• While CalDav is a bidirectional synchronization, it does not support Push like Exchange and MobileMe. Synchronization will happen just like like mail does: At every Fetch interval and also “on-demand”, which is whenever you open the app.

1. Download and install MySQL Connector/NET 6.0
2. Start a new Integration Services project in BIDS
3. Right-click in Connection Managers and create a new ADO.NET Connection

   

4. In the Provider dropdown, expand .Net Providers and select MySQL Data Provider. Press "OK"

   

5. Fill out the Server name, User name, Password and select the database name for the target MySQL server. Be sure to test the connection and press “OK”

   

6. Rename the connection to “MySQLDB”

   

7. Open up the Toolbox and drag a Data Flow Task from the toolbox onto the Control Flow surface
   

   Add Dataflow Task

8. Double-click the Data Flow Task to switch to the Data Flow view
9. Create a new variable, “MySQLResult” with the Data Type of Object. We will be using this as the final destination for the data, so we don’t need to connect to a file or database to store the data from this test
   

   MySQLResult Variable

10. Drag a new DataReader Source component onto the Data Flow surface
    

    Add DataReader Source

11. Double-click the DataReader Source to open the Advanced Editor. On the Connection Managers tab, select the previously-created MySQLDB connection
    

    DataReader Source Connection Managers

12. Switch to the Component Properties tab and enter the SQL query in the SqlCommand property. Note that the query must be compatible with MySQL syntax, not SQL Server.
    

    DataReader Source Component Properties

13. Switch to the Column Mappings tab to verify that the query is successful and the all the columns were pulled from the database. When done, press “OK”.
    

    DataReader Source Column Mappings

14. Create a new Recordset Destination by dragging it from the toolbox to the Data Flow surface
    

    Add Recordset Destination

15. Drag the green Data Flow Path from DataReader Source to Recordset Destination, so they connect
    

    Connect Source to Destination

16. Double-click the Recordset Destination to open its Advanced Editor
17. Under Custom Properties, select the dropdown for VariableName and select the variable we created before, User::MySQLResult
    

    Recordset Destination Component Properties

18. Switch to the Input Columns tab and select those columns that you want stored in the Recordset Destination. When complete, click “OK”
    

    Recordset Destination Input Columns

19. Right-click the green Data Flow Path and choose “Data Viewers…”
    

    Data Flow Path Data Viewers

20. Select “Data Viewers” from the left pane and click the “Add…” button
    

    Data Flow Path Editor

21. Under the General tab, select Grid and press “OK”
    

    Configure Data Viewer

22. Run the package
23. If you’ve done everything correctly, you should see a Data Reader Output Data Viewer window pop up with the contents of the query we specified earlier.
    

    Data Viewer Output

SQL Server Integration Services makes connecting to other systems very easy. The MySQL ADO.NET provider works well, but requires more configuration than a native Source component.

What is it? It’s a bidirectionally synchronized folder in The Cloud. It synchronizes and shares files between your computers in addition to provided access through the web interface. I have 3 different computers I use on a regular basis, so keeping important files synchronized is a boon to productivity.

Let’s say you need a few files at work. Copy them into your Dropbox folder at home and and be on your way. By the time you arrive to the office, the files have already replicated to all registered computers, and they’re ready to use.

Dropbox Nautilus Overlay Icons

On the desktop

How does it work? A tiny program runs in the background that monitors a special Dropbox folder. Any changes to that folder are copied up the server and then down to all your other computers.

Dropbox Tray Icons

In addition, overlay icons are displayed on files and folders to indicate the sync status. I can’t say enough about how well this integrates into the graphical shell, providing a nuanced view into the inner workings.

Dropbox Explorer Overlay Icons

The simplicity of the whole system is what makes this software so powerful. Though most details are obscured, there’s still a few nerdy details that can be had with a little research:

Dropbox claims that files are transferred over SSL in addition to storing them encrypted on Amazon S3 servers. It supports change tracking, so you can revert to a previous revision if necessary. Also, the company claims to transfer only file deltas (changes), which helps conserve bandwidth and speed transfers.

Dropbox Tray Right-click Menu

On the web

In addition to the client goodies, Dropbox has a wonderful web front-end that provides a superset of desktop features.

There’s several management options that can only be accessed from the web: account type, contact information, and computer management. Because these are items not often changed, I don’t mind that they’ve been left out of the client application; it helps reinforce the simple mantra.

Dropbox Web Interface: Manage Computers

You can also add files via the website directly. This speaks to the universal usefulness, even while accessing files on a foreign computer.

Another interesting feature is the availability of an Event Feed in the form of RSS. If you’re somehow sharing an account, this feature would work well to notify each other of changes. Even included is a direct download link to that file. My only suggestion, would be to also provide a link to that particular revision, instead of only the most recent copy.

Dropbox RSS Feed

Dropbox also directly supports various shared-use scenarios. It’s got built-in photo gallery support, collaboration features, and the ability to supply a public link to any file.

Conclusion

I certainly don’t use Dropbox for everything: Most documents I keep in Google Docs and large amounts of data still lives on my NAS. Also, I’m not willing to synchronize a whole movie just to transfer between computers – traditional networks and sneakernets still have their place. Even still, I’d be crazy to not take advantage of the ridiculous simplicity that this service offers.

With Dropbox, I truly fell in love with a brand-new product. If you’d like to experience Dropbox for yourself, get an extra 250MB free by using my referral link.

1. Turn off syncing on your iPhone (Settings→Mail, Contacts, Calendars→NuevaSync→Contacts→OFF)
2. Connect iPhone to computer
3. Open iTunes
4. Select your iPhone from the Devices list
5. Click the Info tab
6. Set Contacts syncing to Google Contacts
7. Apply (bottom right)
8. Sync (bottom right)

What stinks? I loved Firefox‘s “/” inline search functionality; seems like Ctrl+F is my only option in Chrome. Proxy settings are controlled by the OS, making quick switches like FoxyProxy unlikely. Furthermore, custom plugins/addons seem to be absent – not totally unexpected in an initial beta release. Interestingly, I can see which plugins are already loaded through about:plugins. No built-in spell check. This is a real shame, since I’ve come to rely on it even in my IM clients.

All-in-all, I do like it, but until at least some of my gripes are ironed out, I can’t say I’m ready to switch. That said, I’ll be glad to keep testing it.