30Boxes + MSN Direct + Outlook 2003 + Remote Calendars = Awesomeness

I’ve been using 30Boxes for almost a week now and love it. I love being able to have my calendar online so I can modify it and love having such an easy interface. I’ve also had MSN Direct for just over a year now. MSN Direct is the front end to SPOT: Smart Personal Object Technology. In short, my watch is like a pager: I can get MSN Messages, the weather, news, quote of the day, this day in, sports scores, stock prices and the real reason I pay $60/year…synchronized calendar. My Outlook calendar syncs to my watch, ensuring that I don’t miss anything critical…which I tend to sometimes do.

But I had two problems: First the Outlook 12 Technical Beta doesn’t work the MSN Direct plugin. Second, Outlook doesn’t natively support the iCal format.

There is a work around though! I still have my old server that I don’t really use for anything even though I should. So I decided to put it to good use. I installed Outlook 2003 and, thanks to a heads up from the 30Boxes Blog, I installed Remote Calendars, a “COM-.NET Add-in for Outlook 2003…[that allows a user] to subscribe, reload and delete a generic remote iCalendar (RFC 2445) from Outlook 2003.” Bingo.

I can go to 30Boxes and do my calendar thing. RemoteCalenders automatically checks my iCal feed every once in a while to see if anything has been added. If it has, it loads it into Outlook 2003 and the MSN Direct plugging sends it to my watch. Am I wired (or wireless) or what?

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