Official Google Blog: Google Calendar Sync

Official Google Blog: Google Calendar Sync
Though this application has been out since March 2008, I've only just downloaded and installed this app (its the middle of August 2008).

First Thoughts
My initial reaction was: "Great! Now I can finally have my Outlook calendar events from work show up on my Google calendar on my laptop, and I can manipulate my work calendar from my Google calendar. Woo hoo!"

This is still an early application so its functionality is limited to syncing only your primary Google calendar with your Outlook calendar. If you're like me, you have a few secondary and even tertiary calendars in Google. None of those events will sync - yet. I hope the creators at Google are working on a fix for that. But, even still this application is helpful and welcome!

Install: easy, Options: few
After the initial download and install (quick and painless), then you can select your sync options (2-way, or 1-way), as well as the sync frequencies (1o min. minimum, 120 min. avg.). I thought I'd choose 30 minutes as my sync frequency.

Then I performed the initial sync and waited... and waited... and waited as Google synced all of my Outlook calendar events to my Google calendar. (Note: if you have a lot of Outlook events like I do, then this will take a little while and may drive you crazy! My iPAQ using Active Sync allows me to choose between "all", 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 or 6 months - this would be a welcome upgrade for Google to implement!).

Sync: All events, Every time
Next, I put a test calendar event on my Google calendar and performed another sync. And waited... and waited... again. Here's when I learned that this Google application will sync all your Outlook events every time it syncs. (Note to Google creators: updating only changed or new events would be much better!)

I decided to change my sync frequency option back to the default of 120 minutes since it takes so long to sync (because I have so many Outlook events).

Conclusion
I'm certainly happy that this Google app is now live. I have some suggestions for improvement, but I'm not complaining! Finally, my calendars have a chance to be unified. Thanks Google creators!