How to Sync your Treo with Google & iCal

Author: Kyle

6 Oct

One of the best parts about having a “smart phone” like a Palm Treo Centro is that they offer the ability to take your contacts and calendar on the go. Like most gadgets, the power of these tools are in the functions that aren’t obvious when you take them out of the box. So if you have one of those sexy new Treo’s and your still trying to figure out how to magically get your calendar updated without having to plug in a cord, then this post is for you.

Here is what you need to get started on wirelessly and automatically syncing your Treo device with iCal—the default calendar application on a Mac:

Palm Treo device—tonight, I setup my wife’s red Centro
iCal - your desktop calendar
USB Sync Cable
Missing Sync or Palm Desktop & Hotsync Manager
Google Calendar account
BusySync ($25) - Software that syncs your iCal with Google
GooSync ($Free) - the software that will sync your Palm with Google

Obviously, syncing your Treo with iCal requires an investment of time and money in order to make this work. This alone will help you determine how important keeping your phone and computer in sync is.

The below steps will assume that you have already downloaded and installed each software.

iCal Setup

Export your default iCal Calendar to your desktop; name it “google.ics” for later reference

Google Calendar Setup

In Google Calendar, add a new calendar
Importing the “google.ics” calendar from your desktop
Import the contents into your default Google Calendar; for example, I’ll call it “Kyle”

BusySync Setup

Open BusySync in your System Preferences
Click on “Google” (ignoring General, Publish and Subscribe)
Click on “Settings” and add your Google user name and password. Leave the remaining settings as default.
Select the Google Calendar (on the right pane) that you want to subscribe to; this will cause the calendar “Kyle” to display in iCal. This is now your default iCal calendar.
Delete your previous iCal calendar; remember you already made a backup
Select the iCal calendars (on the left pane) that you want to publish to Google Calendars; this is not necessary to sync your phone unless you want to sync more than one calendar, ie: personal and business
Press the “Sync Now” button on the bottom right

You are now publishing your iCals to Google automatically. Any changes made on iCal or Google Calendars will automatically sync to reflect in both locations.

GooSync Setup

Here’s a quick visual overview how GooSync works:

Open www.goosync.com and go to your “Home” tab
Click to “Add Device”
Download the Palm OS Client Software and install; directions are provided on download page
Click on “Connections” and Authenticate your Google settings with your username and password
Click “Home” and under “Google Calendar” select “Customise”
Now displaying your Google calendars, make sure that the “Kyle” calendar has read/write capabilities as indicated by the icon and that the check boxes for “Sync” and are selected
For advance users, check out the tags/categories function. This is how you sync multiple calendars
If you’re interested in syncing more than the default past/future appointments, you can change the default settings under “Sync Window.”

You are now ready to setup your Palm Treo for bi-directional syncing.

Palm Treo Setup

Locate the GooSync application under your Treo’s “All” screen
To alter the settings of this profile tap the Menu icon on your PDA and then select “Options Settings…” from the menu that appears (see screen shot below)
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The “User” and “Password” settings must be set to the same log-in details that you use for your GooSync.com account (these may not be the same as your Google Calendar account).
Click on “Calendar sync options” and setup the software to sync on a regular interval. This will ensure that changes made on your Treo and computer are syncing regularly.