I’ve been using Google Calendar for a while now and it’s been working out quite well. Since it’s web based, it’s everywhere I am and since it works off .ics files, it can be subscribed to in iCal. It’s almost perfect.

Two of the features I miss the most are being able to edit a Google calendar in iCal and when I subscribe to a calender, the alarms get removed.

So, with a little digging, I found Alarm-It, a small script that re-inserts iCal alarms.

Alarm-It is easy to use once you know how but a little confusing at first glance. Basically you just upload it to your server, customize the alarm preset, turn webcals to true, and subscribe to your Google calendar though this script. By the time it hits iCal, you’ve got alarms.

The downside is you only get one alarm setting. It doesn’t take whatever you put in Google Calendar, rather it just adds a generic alarm. For example, all mine are set to show up 1 hour before the event. I don’t mind though as I’m just loving the fact that I have any warning at all.

If you start getting a file() [function.file] error, that means that your server won’t support the script. That’s another downside as not all hosting allows this action by default. If you get this error, go back to your host for support.

If your host doesn’t throw errors and you get the few minor settings up and running, Alarm-It is an excellent script and I’m very excited to have found it.