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How to merge calendars in iCal onto MobileMe

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I had a maddening afternoon of trying to accomplish one thing: merge two or more MobileMe calendars into one using iCal in OS X Snow Leopard. After lots of Googling and coming up dry, I finally found a solution that worked.

I wanted to merge a couple of the calendars on MobileMe together, and I discovered that the simple method of going into iCal, exporting the calendar to the desktop, and re-importing it into the MobileMe calendar of my choosing resulted in some sort of very annoying permissions error that pops up for one of Every. Single. Event. in your entire calendar. Not to mention, the result is that none of your imported events are written to the new calendar.

But I found a workaround!

What you need:

  • A Mac running Snow Leopard
  • An iOS device running iOS 4.x
  • MobileMe calendar upgraded to the new calendar system

Here’s what I did:

  1. In iCal, I selected a calendar I wished to be used in the merge and selected File > Export… > Export… and stored it on my desktop (or wherever you prefer). I did the same for all calendars I wished to merge.
  2. I then created a local calendar by going to File > New Calendar > On My Mac. I named it “Merge”.
  3. Next, I went to File > Import… > Import… and imported each calendar, one by one. I was prompted with a screen that asked me which calendar I wanted to add the events to. I chose the “Merge” one I created in step 2. I now had a local calendar called “Merge” that contained the events from all the calendars I wished to merge. It would be awesome if the next step was simply “Drag calendar into MobileMe calendars,” but alas, no such luck.
  4. I plugged in my iOS device, launched iTunes, and went to the “Info” sync section of my iOS device.
  5. I turned on “Sync iCal Calendars” and synced only the “Merge” calendar. Because I wanted all of my events, I made sure that “Do not sync events more than X days” was unchecked.
  6. After performing a sync, my iOS device now had my MobileMe calendars and a calendar called “Merge” that is “On my [iOS Device Name]“. Almost there!
  7. I went into my MobileMe account in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars and disabled my MobileMe calendar. I was prompted with what I wanted to do with my calendars, and I chose “Delete from my iPad.” After all, the truth is in the cloud, right?
  8. I immediately re-enabled calendar sync, and was asked if I wanted to merge my calendars with MobileMe. I said yes, launched the Calendar.app, and happily saw that my “Merge” calendar was alongside all of my other MobileMe calendars.
  9. Back in iCal, I deleted the individual calendars that I merged and renamed “Merge” to the name I wanted. Voila?

Basically, iCal does not currently support importing .ics files to MobileMe, but iOS does. So, we get everything imported locally to the iOS device and then get it to perform a merge. This effectively imports your local calendar onto MobileMe.

Promises to ponder while watching Undercover Boss

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I really liked the first episode of Undercover Boss. Overall, I think it’s a great idea.

Seeing some of the people being diligent in small things reminded me of a few verses. Here are some promises for you if you feel under-appreciated at your job:

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. (Col. 3:23)

Your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matt. 6:4)

And this one sums up the whole first episode from both perspectives of corporate and blue collar:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.

Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him. (Eph. 6:5-9)

An airplane etiquette tip for people with small kids

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Now that we’re parents, we can officially criticize other parents — on legitimate grounds — for their poor parenting decisions and not be told, “Well, wait until YOU are a parent!”

For the sake of other passengers’ olfactory sanity, and as a gift to humanity in general, I can think of little or no reason that you should ever (EVER!!!) change your child’s POOPY diaper using the middle seat of your row.

Airlines went through all that hassle to install changing tables in at least one on-board lavatory for a reason. Deciding to wing it in your own seat is about as pleasant to the rest of us (even the ones with kids!) as if you yourself dropped your drawers and used the barf bag to do your own business out in the open because you’re too freakin’ lazy to go to the lavatory TWO ROWS BEHIND YOU.

Oi. Thank goodness for Rosanna’s French Vanilla Softlips chapstick, which make a great smelling salt in such cases.

Date on milk: expiration or sell-by date?

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A topic of dinner tonight (positively thrilling conversation, here) was on the date stamped on milk cartons. Rosanna refuses to use milk when it within a couple of days of the date on the carton. She says it doesn’t smell bad but it doesn’t smell fresh.

I, on the other hand, don’t mind it if it’s not as fresh as it could be. To me, if it ain’t funky, it’s good to go.

But the main question: Is the date on milk cartons the “sell-by” date, or the expiration date?

What say you?

I’m Meeting The Beatles

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We recently purchased The Beatles Stereo Box Set. I’ve known that The Beatles are regarded as the greatest band of all time, but I’m not familiar with the majority of their work.

It was Rosanna and her dad who really turned me on to them in the first place.

I’ll post some links to the songs I’m liking. It’s a shame that their work is still not downloadable digitally, which cost me an evening of importing.

Then there’s the album art, which I happened to find a great resource at IGN for this endeavor:

IGN: The Beatles Stereo Box Set Packaging

And yes, I figured with as much as I’ll be linking to Amazon, I might as well potentially make some money like Abraham Piper does. Poor seminary students need food, too!