Gmail Wish

Wish Gears had GPG integrity so Gmail could sign and encrypt emails via the web UI...

Jalali GCal moved to Google Code

Finally I created a project for Jalali GCal in code.google.com. Here are the Installation Guide and the downloads list.

Thanks to Mehdi Ahmadizadeh, the new versions work fine with current Google Calendar UI. Also some ideas from Shayan have been implemented.

Here are latest features (for version 2.4):

• The userscript is now available in two editions: English and Persian. Using Persian edition gives you Persian numbers and months' names;
• The font of Persian texts in Persian version is bigger than the default texts;
• The name of the Jalali month is shown in the first day of the month (in the table).

Hope you enjoy it. Feel free to report enhancement requests, bugs, and issues.

On Bugmail RFE and My Bugzilla Accounts

After my RFE, about adding an option to Bugmail to not put my email address in To/CC fields of email header, rejected as WORKSFORME by one of bugzilla maintainers (Mozilla bug 410671), I had to change my Bugzilla email addresses (GNOME, Mozilla, and freedesktop.org for now). I have added a "bugs+" to the beginning of previous one, so it's bugs+<my-name>@<this-blog-domain> from now on.

The reason for this change is that I prefer to use the Mute feature of Gmail, so I can get rid of some discussions, which I cannot unsubscribe them directly. Now I get them in the same mail box, but Gmail doesn't detect them as a To or CC one for me, so when I mute a bug, I won't see the thread again. The more interesting part is when a bug's title changes, I'll get it again, which seems very useful.

Jalali GCal, Version 1.2

Here are an update for Jalali GCal (old: Jalali Calendar for Google Calendar). Installing the new one will replace the previous version. Also I changed its description to Jalali calendar for the web interface of Google Calendar. All features work well on Firefox 1.5 on my Linux desktop. Bug reports are welcomed.

Update: Jalali GCal moved to Google Code

Jalali Calendar for Google Calendar

A couple weeks ago, I wrote the Jalali GCal user script (a JavaScript that Firefox runs on the web page if you have GreaseMonkey extension installed) to add Jalali Calendar (A.K.A. Iranian Calendar) to Google Calendar application.

As you can see in the screenshot, it adds Jalali year, month, and month days beside the Gregorian ones. (which makes it really useful for me! ;) This version (v1.1) supports all views: Day, Week, Month, Next 4 Days, and Agenda!

To use it, you should install GreaseMonkey (for Firefox 1.5), then open Jalali GCal user script and install it. Now refresh Google Calendar page.

Of course it's under LGPL license. I hope you like it.

Update: Jalali GCal moved to Google Code

Your Google public Calendar is NOT public!

I use Google Calendar in day life and also maintain GUADEC 2006 iCal file and keep it synced with the schedule of The GNOME Conference. Stop! don't try to add that iCal link to your Google Calendar account. It doesn't work and you will get an error message.

Here are what happens:

1. Google's robots crawl the web and index all calendar files (i.e. iCal), and of course they check the robots.txt file to make sure they are allowed to do this.


2. Unfortunately, Google Calendar AJAX application checks robots.txt. May be it uses the indexed file at Google's server and so it's a side effect of the previous fact.


3. Unfortunately again Google's robots.txt file doesn't allow crawlers to index your public calendars.

Our iCal link is just an HTTP forward to the address of the file on Google's server. And yes, because of facts 2 and 3, you cannot add our iCal URL to your Google Calendar account! Not Google only, you cannot use it on any other web application that respect to robots.txt files. And of course you won't have your public calendar indexed in any search engine; but Google! It reminds me on how Microsoft tried to make its website somehow Netscape couldn't show it properly.

By the way, if you want to add GUADEC 2006 calendar to your Google Calendar account, just search for "GUADEC 2006" there, and add it directly. And send me a note if you need write access to it.

Update: Problems:

1. An organizer application (feed reader, calendar, etc) SHOULD NOT use robots.txt files, as it's NOT a crawler, it's just a user agent which do exactly what a user tells it (like a browser).


2. Google MUST allow other web crawlers to index public calendars, and NOT make a monopoly .