27 Feb 2009 tags:

I've put the entire Drupalcon Schedule into a Google Calendar. This allows you to access it on your smart phone or any other internet-enabled device. I am also putting in social events, with links and addresses (which can automatically be linked to a map). If there are any changes to the schedule, I will be able to make the update through my phone as soon as I hear about it.

The URIs: iCal, HTML, XML

If you are already using Google Calendar, you can import this calendar by clicking "Add -> Add by URL" under the "Other Calendars" block, and paste in the XML URI I provided above. For non-Google calendar users, you can import the iCal feed into your favourite calendar app, or just view the HTML version.

Once you've got the entire schedule into your personal calendar app, you will be able to copy the events that you are going to attend into another calendar that will represent your personal Drupalcon schedule. You would then have a personal Drupalcon agenda to have with you!

I did this last year and found it extremely useful (unfortunately, I didn't share it - I didn't even hear about Drupal Planet until last year's Con!). I am hoping to make it even more useful by including the social events and, if I have time, the BOFs, too.

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Submitted by Shawn DeArmond (not verified) on February 28, 2009 - 02:24.

Thanks so much for this!

I did, however, fight with different time zones for a while. (I'm in California right now.) Allow me to share how I dealt with this.

When I first subscribed to the iCal version of the schedule, everything appeared in iCal, but three hours early. I enabled Time Zone Support in iCal > Preferences > Advanced, and a new little menu appeared in the upper-right-hand corner of the iCal calendar window. When I switched it to Washington DC, all the times were correct! All my events for today and tomorrow were now not displayed the way I want, but at least I could switch it once I actually land.

Then, I synced it to my iPhone. Same problem: all the events were three hours early. Fortunately, the iPhone also has a time zone setting in Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Time Zone Support. Once I changed that to Washington DC, the Drupalcon schedule times were correct.

I changed everything back to Pacific time for now, but when I land on Monday, I'll have the whole schedule (correctly timestamped) ready to go.

Thanks again!

Shawn

Submitted by Dan Karran (not verified) on February 28, 2009 - 02:36.

Thanks for this.. should be very helpful next week!

Submitted by Barry Sampson (not verified) on February 28, 2009 - 14:44.

Awesome, thanks very much for this.

Submitted by Sloane DellOrto (not verified) on March 1, 2009 - 02:59.

Hey thanks for posting this, what a great time saver! And Shawn, thanks for the instructions, you saved me a lot of confusion and wasted time! :)