14 DAY TRIAL // Touted by its makers as an “iCal Pro,” BusyCal is a desktop-calendar application developed by BusyMac that lets you share calendars with others on your local area network and sync with Google Calendar. The app doesn’t require a dedicated server, and calendars may be shared with read-only or read-write access. BusyCal is now at its first official release – 1.0 Final.
BusyCal requires that each computer has the app installed, for you to share calendars. If you go offline, editing calendars can still be done and, when you reconnect to the network, your changes will be automatically synced with others. Besides calendar syncing, BusyCal also provides the ability to create To-Dos, including recurring To-Dos that display in the calendar and auto-forward until completed. The capability to display events in several customizable views, including a List View and scrolling Month and Week Views, is also available. You can include graphics, sticky notes, and live weather forecasts with your calendar, as well as apply custom fonts, styles and colors to events.
“BusyCal is our new product that combines a beautiful, personal desktop calendar with our award winning calendar sharing and syncing technology — in one integrated application,” BusyMac says. “Designed for families and small workgroups, BusyCal allows users to easily and cost-effectively share calendars on a local area network and over the internet without the need for a dedicated server, and to sync with Google Calendar,” the company bluntly describes its new software.
According to BusyMac, the app's main features include the ability to display graphics, icons and themes, the capability to add sticky notes to your calendar and share them across your network, live weather feeds within the calendar, rich text support, multi-user editing/offline editing, iPhone sync via iTunes and Mobile Me, Google Calendar sync, and more.
A single user license for BusyCal costs $40, while the software requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or later. BusySync customers can upgrade to BusyCal for as little as $10, while those purchasing multiple copies of BusyCal benefit from a 20% discount.