We’re like most families in that we are trying constantly to make sure family, work, church, etc. calendars are synced up.  I use Apple’s iCal to keep my calendar on my laptop.  I have known for a while that I could sync my iCal with Google Calendar, but had yet to take the plunge.  I really wanted the ability to sync my iCal to Google Calendar as well as sync my iCal on my production computer at the home office and Kim’s iCal on her mac.  In other words, enter a calendar event on one computer and it puts the event on all of our computers.  I had heard mixed reviews of Google Calendar’s built-in sync tool.  Enter Spanning Sync.

Spanning Sync is a relatively inexpensive program ($25 for a year subscription, $65 to just purchase outright) and had gotten great reviews.  It does everything that I need and is working like a champ so far.  There are tons of applications I could see for this but for just trying to organize the Jones household calendar, it is just right.  Basically, Kim can add a calendar entry on her computer.  All of the computers sync every half hour so within 30 minutes that event shows up on each of my iCal calendars.  Same works for either of my computers.  It can be set to sync at shorter or longer intervals.  If I have a meeting on my calendar, it syncs with Kim’s iCal calendar.  You can limit different categories so some can show and others may not.  Definitely recommend it.