I’ve signed up for the public beta of 30 Boxes the web calendar system that everyone seems to be talking about.
It looks very pretty but seems to have one major flaw. I can’t find a way to import data from another source. I have a .ics file which I’ve been using to store my calendar for the last few years. It’s been updated by a number of different applications over the years (currently I’m using Mozilla’s Sunbird). I certainly don’t want to type in all of those events again. In fact, thinking about it I’d much rather keep my calendar data in my .ics file that lives on my server. But I’d like 30 Boxes to be able to subscribe to that file so that other people can see my calendar (or, at least, the parts of it that I want to share with them).
So that’s two features that 30 Boxes seems to be missing – the ability to import from an external data file and the ability to subscribe to a calendar which is stored elsewhere.
I’m sure these functions are on their way, but it seems a bit strange to launch without them. They seem pretty fundemental to me. Without these functions 30 Boxes is useless to me and (I suspect) most serious users.
Update: Lloyd finds exactly the same problem with 30 Boxes before going on to talk about another of my pet hates – US companies who try to impose their illogical date format on the rest of the world.
There are more web based calendars than you can shake a stick at these days – I even wrote one myself a few years back !
This is good, but also bad, as option paralysis is stopping me ‘jumping in’ and using any of them seriously.
The key you’ve hit on though has got to be inter-operability. If you get tired of one calendaring system, or they start charging you for access, there has to be a way to get your data out to another system, and back again in case you change your mind.
Interested why 30boxes is popular if it can’t do this yet.
(PS – just started playing with http://spongecell.com last week)