My Life in 30 Boxes Or Less

My Life in 30 Boxes Or Less

Sunday, May 28, 2006 8:46 PM (permalink)

I spent some time on Sunday playing around with the latest in an interminable slew of calendar applications, called 30 Boxes. I have been looking for a good calendar app for a while, and while there are lots of purty Ajax-whiz-bangy ones coming out, they have all failed on one or more of my three criteria:

• Ability to share calendars with friends/family without requiring them to sign up/join something
• Ability to post to/read from my calendar from my mobile phone
• Doesn't look like it was beat with a ugly stick

Most of the apps I have seen that pass #3 will fail #2. If the goal of a calendar app is merely to use the latest Ajax/Ruby/Yada technology, then that app will most likely not be looked kindly upon by my Blackberry. Sure, there are lots of apps out there that will produce an iCal feed, which I could then subscribe to and sync using something like Pocketmac, but I don't want to sync anything. I don't think I have ever had two flawless syncs in a row--there are scores of days on my Blackberry calendar with duplicate events, prematurely deleted to-do items, etc. No, I don't want to sync anything--I want to write once, read anywhere. As I mentioned in a previous post, I wish Apple would enable this by enabling true two-way communication between iCal and any calendars iCal publishes to the web, but that doesn't look like it is happening anytime soon.

Until Google makes those Wi-Fi hotspot boxers I suggested to them, my mobile is the most reliable means I have of interacting with the various tools I use to stay sane on the road. There are some tools I use (like Alex King's TasksPro and the awesome mobile edition of NewsGator) that both work great and look great on my Mac and my phone. I haven't yet found a calendar app that fits the bill, but 30 Boxes is very promising.

First of all, the 30 Boxes calendar itself looks and works great--presentation is very clear, and the natural language input box to add events and appointments (something Spongecell has also sussed out) works very well. The "full-screen" version of the calendar (essentially the regular version, minus browser toolbar) is also particularly well-implemented--if you didn't know better, you could almost mistake it for a desktop client (here's mine).

More importantly, they have a mobile interface that, while not quite as slick as the one on TaskPro, is functional and neat. I can add appointments and check dates pretty quickly (as fast as my superhuman T9-enhanced thumbs can go, anyway) and more improvements are promised. If I can access and edit my contacts, tasks, dates, feeds and email on my mobile phone without having to sync anything, I am a happy camper.

Where 30 Boxes falls short, for now, is in the sharing department (see my #1 criteria, above). While I can sign up a "buddy" and give them access to my calendar, currently there is no way to simply publish my calendar for the general public (though the folks behind 30 Boxes say this is coming.). In fact, the only "public" page that buddy and non-buddy alike can access is this aggregator page that appears to track everything but my calendar. I admit to still being fuzzy about the nebulous benefits of this whole social networking thing--while I am sure my wife could be talked into signing up as "my buddy" so she can liberally sprinkle Rake Leaves throughout my calendar, I don't need to "social network" with my parents; I just want them to have access to my schedule without signing up for anything (something Trumba has figured out pretty well.) Time will also tell if the calendar is the appropriate water cooler around which to "collect" my buddies, Flickr photos and feeds. Dunno about that. For now, however, I will continue to give 30 Boxes a spin, and I look forward to seeing how this app develops over the next few months.