iCal and Google Calendar

I have become a huge fan of Google Calendar due to its shared calendar function. I use Outlook at work for my primary calendar however I had a need to create a personal shared calendar for family and friends and Google Calendar works very well. It is simple and straight forward and shares calendar info very nicely. I was even successful at helping my folks set it up so they can view my wife's and my calendar.

Now that I have a Mac, I have the option of using iCal. I have not delved into it much but hear it is a very solid calendar app. I recently found the need to try syncing iCal with Google Calendar. I did a bit of searching and found this page that gives a very thorough set of directions to sync the two calendars. This is only a one-way sync through iCal downloading Google Calendar's info. The cool part is that I could d/l multiple calendars that I have control over and iCal displays them very similarly to Google Cal.

One problem: it is a one-way sync. That is where I found a link to SpanningSync.
Specs for Spanning Sync v2.0:

* Contact syncing! Spanning Sync now syncs Address Book with Google contacts.
* Contact photo syncing!
* Trickle syncing! Changes in iCal and Address Book are automatically pushed to Google as they're made.
* Improved, easier-to-use preference pane UI.
* Dramatically improved network performance.
* Improved support for syncing huge (10,000+ events) calendars
* Improved support for syncing large numbers of contacts
* Improved support for multi-Mac configurations.
* Improved compatibility with MobileMe.
* New user-friendly log window for troubleshooting or checking status.
* Improvements to the "create troubleshooting report" system.
* Tons of other bug fixes and improvements.

Looks like a highly regarded option for MobileMe type syncing. They even claim (and are supported by testimonials) that it syncs between Macs and the iPhone. I am not ready yet to d/l the shareware since I don't have multiple Macs or an iPhone but have a friend that may try it out for me. I update this post if I get a chance to look it over.

So far I am pleased with the one-way sync and am glad for Google's willingness to sync up with others software. Now on to try Google Docs.