Share your calendar in Outlook, Windows Live, Office Online, and everywhere else

Back in the day, my family's lives rotated around a month-to-view calendar that my mum pinned to the kitchen wall. These days, the kitchen calendar may still be there but things are a bit more complicated with our 21st century lives being busier than ever and electronic diaries stretching our pockets to the limit.

I've been playing with TimeBridge recently (thanks Matthew!) and jolly impressive it is too. If you've ever struggled to find a convenient date to meet up with someone, give TimeBridge a try. The Outlook add-in functions well, and the web interface of joyfully simple.

Users of Microsoft Outlook and Windows Live can also reduce calendar chaos in lots of ways. With Outlook 2007 it's really easy to share a snapshot of your calendar in an email. You can also share calendars in the Windows Live Calendar beta. Here's how to import your Outlook calendar into Windows Live.

Watch this video from the Windows Vista blog to see how Windows Live Calendar and Windows Calendar in Windows Vista work seamlessly together:

Video: Demo: Windows Live Calendar (BETA) #1

In fact, as long as you can save your calendar as a .ics (iCalendar) format, you can pretty much do whatever you like with it. Of course, the trouble with an iCalendar file is that it's static so any changes to your calendar won't be dynamically updated. To get round this you can publish your calendar on Office Online so that other people can see as little or as much information as you'd like to share. Other Internet calendar services include www.calendardata.com, Google Calendar and www.icalshare.com.

And if that wasn't enough hyperlinking for one day, to learn more about the two key ways you can share your calendar, read this page from Microsoft Office Online.

Note: This blog entry was originally posted on usefultechnologyblog.spaces.live.com. View original post