iCal and Google Calendars

Warning: This is an out and out geek post for Mac users.

I use iCal to remember where I'm supposed to be. It's handy because it's a neat little app and it syncs with my iPod which I always have with me and I don't yet have one of those fancy bluetooth phones to do the same job. I also like the new Google Calendar and since I use Linux at work and don't always have access to my Mac, Google Calendars is also a useful tool. My problem is that I want to merge both calendars and it's a bit tricky to do. My solution isn't perfect but it does allow me to see both calendars in both apps. So what you do is this :

1. In iCal publish your calendar to your .mac account (if you don't have a .mac account but do own server space somewhere you can publish to that too).
2. Make a note of the location of the file - iCal will tell you what this is.
3. Run iSync and sync everything up.
4. In Google Calendars add an "other calendar" and in the "public calendar address" tab enter the file path you made a note of from iCal.
5. Your iCal data should now appear in Google Calendar.
6. In Google Calendar's "My Calendar" click on the arrow next to your personal Google Calendar data and pick "calendar settings".
7. From the page that opens get the iCal path for this calendar and make a note of it.
8. Back in iCal use the "subscribe" options to subscribe to your personal "Google calendar" feed. Pick an "update every ..." option that suits you.
   
9. That's all there is to it.
   

So you can now see the items you added in Google Calendars in iCal and vice versa. Granted you can't edit Google Calendar events in iCal or iCal events in Google Calendars but you can at least see both sets of data in both apps and my Google Calendar data now gets copied onto my iPod so until someone comes up with a better solution it will have to do.