Calendar Features

In the quest to migrate from Palm Calendar, I have opted to use Google Calendar (GC) as my primary calendar, and synchronise my mobile and desktop calendars accordingly.

Converting Palm Calendar to iCal (.ICS) format

The ?second generation of Palm Calendar is stored as an .MDB database on the computer, and can be easily manipulated using Microsoft Access.  It should be a proper relational database (there is a separate Category table), but probably by design it hasn't been done correctly.  The 'Category' field is 'text' which stores a number which relates to a named category in the Category table.  Converting the .MDB file to a standard iCal file has not been difficult, and I made an MS Access program to do so.  Not long after that, Pimlical was released with GC support, and apparently can do the same.  Since I do sympathise with them, I would recommend you try Pimlical.  For direct conversion from Palm to GC, apparently dba2csv does the trick (you would need to check whether it handles the current generation of Palm Calendar).

Synchronising

Thunderbird/Lightning can synchronise with GC via built-in CalDAV, or Provider (add-on).  Pimlical http://www.pimlicosoftware.com/ now supports GC (I have not tried this).  In my opinion GoogaSync http://www.googasync.com/ seems to be currently the most reasonable method to synchronise multiple calendars for Symbian.  I am aware of another service called GooSync that is not too different.  I think Dreamlife is developing their own method of synchronising.

Compare Calendars

Here is a comparison of various calendars, in relation to Google Calendar, Lightning, Palm and Nokia (Symbian):

	Google Calendar	Lightning/ Provider	Lightning/ CalDAV	Palm DB5	Pimlical	Nokia n97 mini	SBSH calendar	HandyCal	DreamLife
				$27.95(DB6)	$19.95		$19.95	$29.95	€35
Calendars	multiple	multiple	multiple	single	multiple	single, multiple via GoogaSync	single, multiple via GoogaSync	single, multiple via GoogaSync	?
Categories	none	single	single	single	multiple	none	multiple	none	+++
Categories sync to GC		remembered by GC though hidden, if sent by Provider	don't think so		not sure		not sure if remembered by GC		?
Offline w GC		R/O	R/O		yes

Currently I am waiting for SBSH calendar to be released for the n97 mini (touch screen UI).  Until then I will put up with the built-in Nokia calendar.