Google Calendar

Productivity hounds, your moment is here. Google released a new Chrome app giving offline access to Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. Continue to view emails, draft responses, and view documents when your flight doesn't have WiFi or the office's Internet connection goes down.

The Offline Google Mail app is available in the Chrome Web Store for free download. The app has the same basic layout and feel as the web app designed for tablets. Once installed, use Gmail without a connection by clicking the offline icon on the "new tab" in the Chrome browser, and go to work!

The offline modes of Google Calendar and Docs lets you views events and documents, Internet connection or not. Offline editing in Docs isn't quite ready, but Google hopes to make it available soon. The Offline Google Mail app is available immediately, while Docs and Calendar offline apps will roll out over the next week.

Many of us rely on our phone's calendar to remember important personal and work appointments, dinners with friends, or any other thing that may slip our minds. So it was more than annoying for my co-worker when she realized that her Facebook app on her Droid Incredible was not only synching her friends' profile pictures (this is good) and phone numbers (not always so good), but also every birthday on her friend list. While it's nice to keep your close friends' and family's birthdays mindful, whenever she looked at her calendar it looked like she was perpetually busy, since the feature doesn't distinguish between synched birthdays and appointments. Add to this the fact that since she shares this same Google calendar with her boyfriend, his phone is also filled with superfluous appointments. Luckily, unsynching Facebook birthdays from your HTC phone is often just a quick setting change. To learn how to do this, just read more

Today's installment of Tech Dating 101 deals with making plans as a couple. My boyfriend loves to cook and we are always having people over or going to friends' places for dinner. When we coordinate with another couple it usually involves texting back and forth to set up a time that works for everyone. Lately I've been noticing that this may not be the best way to do things. Find out why after the jump.

Google just introduced a bunch of helpful updates to Google Calendar aimed at making the service easier to use. The latest version is cleaner and simpler and includes a few helpful new features. Google Calendar pages got a slight design change, too, making them look more like pages in other Google apps, and the most-used features were moved to the top of the page for easy access.

Find out more about the changes after the break.

I use Google Calendar all the time, both to manage my own schedule and to plan events with family and friends. Now, Google has taken what it does best — search — and applied it to Google Calendar.

Called "Smart Rescheduler," the new technology is available in Google Calendar Labs — a similar service to Gmail Labs. It automatically searches for the best time to schedule or reschedule a meeting by checking all participants' availability. To use the feature, enable it in Labs, and then select your meeting parameters from the dropdown menu. Set lengths for your meeting, and a time and date range. Then search for available times. The tool shows you times when all attendees are free, and a few alternate times when there are a limited number of conflicts. Select a time, and the meeting is scheduled easily around all participants' availabilities. Calendar success!

• Google Calendar has just implemented a handy snooze button for notifications you want to disappear momentarily — Lifehacker
• Check out an in-depth review of the Apple iMac — Gizmodo
• Carve your very own 3D pumpkin using a game called Pumpkin Chop on Xbox Live Indie Games — Kotaku
• A database marketing firm says that Facebook accounts for 25 percent of US online pageviews — The Silicon Alley Insider
• A university in Australia has introduced a mandatory Twitter course for its journalism students — Switched
• Wal-Mart is expected to roll out tech-support services by the beginning of the holidays — CrunchGear

• iTunes 9 includes a new interface, application management tools, and media sharing — Engadget
• A Facebook app for Android handsets surfaces — Gizmodo
• With Google Voice you can now forward emails and reply to SMS — Lifehacker
• The cutest video about Google Street View you'll ever watch — Boing Boing
• Here's how you can use Facebook Chat without having to open FB — Digital Inspiration
• Keep track of your fave sports teams schedules and add birthday reminders for your contacts in Google Calendar — TechCrunch

Google Calender has tons of features that make it easy to stay organized, and one of my fave tools is the daily agenda email.

To get your daily agenda, just go into your GCal and look in the left margin for My Calendars. Click the down-arrow button and then click Notifications. Check off the "email" button next to Daily Agenda. Click save and you're all set.

The daily agenda emails will hit your inbox each day at 5 a.m., so even if you forget to open up your calendar that day, you'll still know what's going on. And you can get separate agendas if you have different Google calenders for different groups.