Google Calendar Sync in iPhone 3.0

This is good! It wasn't very straightforward until I found the URL specified on Google's Getting Started with CalDAV page (see the "Enable Google Calendar in Apple's iCal" link).

Here's how to set up your Google Calendar on your iPhone:

* On your iPhone, tap on Settings
* Open Mail, Contacts and Calendar
* Tap on Add Account...
* Select Other
* For Server, enter this URL and replace YOUREMAIL@DOMAIN.COM with your Google login/email address: www.google.com/calendar/dav/YOUREMAIL@DOMAIN.COM/user
* Enter your Google user name and password
* Click the Next button and it will attempt to connect to your Google Calendar and verify that your iPhone is set up correctly.

Now when you open your iPhone's calendar, you'll see all of your Google Calendar events. Very cool.

ZIP Code Lookup with the Google Geocoder

I have a client who has ended up (due to a misunderstanding by me) with a list of user registrations having some addresses without ZIP codes. So I decided I could probably fix all of them by using a ZIP code lookup service. The U.S. Postal Service has a web service for this, but after signing up and trying it I decided it was a real pain. The sign up process was a little heavy handed, but worse was the test server they restricted you to using until your "application" was "ready," and then you would need to contact them for access to the real site.

I figured there must be a better way, so after some searching (including programmableweb.com and data.gov), I found that Google's Geocoder can do this.

So my simple, kind of raw REST demo of using the Google Geocoder for ZIP code lookup is working. Useful and simple, take a look.

Make Your Own Twitter Badge with jQuery

For the geekily inclined, you can easily make your own Twitter badge using jQuery and the Twitter API and display your latest tweets on your website. Step-by-step instructions. Do it now!

Performance of jQuery Selectors in ASP.NET

My old post about the problems with control ids in ASP.NET and using them with jQuery did not describe the small performance hit of using the "ends with selector," e.g., $("input[id$='txtDateStart']"). This post at encosia.com has some good tips for optimizing this a bit.

jQuery and REST and Flickr and Google Maps Demos

My demo page has been updated, massively, over the past few weeks with REST demos using jQuery, Flickr, the Google Maps API and some other stuff. It's fun but I also want to build up to something more novel and powerful using these techniques. No promises, but fingers crossed that I find time to keep moving forward.

As far as blogging goes, well, it's been over two years since I've updated this. Doesn't bother me right now.