4 ms·

You get what you pay for. My calendar on my phone routinely forgets to remind me, even though clearly the entry says "remind me 1 hour before" and other events

You get what you pay for. My calendar on my phone routinely forgets to remind me, even though clearly the entry says "remind me 1 hour before" and other events with the same reminders work fine. Are there any good calendar hosting companies where I could pay a few $$ a month for decent features, bug fixes, and service?

mark_l_watson 10y ago
5 minutes ago my FastMail calendar sent me an email reminding me of a dental appointment tomorrow morning. FastMail in general seems reliable (except for the long outage they had 3 years ago).
- jjnoakes 10y ago
  Thanks, I'll look in to it. Hopefully reminders come in forms other than email, there's a decent android app, and I can access an exported ical format programatically for backup purposes.
  - brerlapn 10y ago
    Fastmail is quite reliable, and they support CalDAV and CardDAV. Their android email client is fast but doesn't work offline--fortunately they support IMAP Push and work very well with whatever 3rd party email client you prefer. I haven't moved my personal domain over there yet, but I've been using a paid tier for several emails with them for over 10 years and have been very happy. I haven't tried the exported ical format programmatically, but some of their devs are active on HN and if you shoot their help desk a question about it I expect they'll get back to you promptly.
banach 10y ago
My iOS calendar, synched with Google calendar, always works. Been depending on that form of reminders for at least two years now, and I can't recall ever being let down by it.
- jjnoakes 10y ago
  Thanks. I run Android; maybe I just need a different app to get the reminders right, but still sync to Google's calendar, since it's free and available everywhere. Or maybe it's time to brush up on Kotlin and just write it myself.
r3bl 10y ago
I was wondering the same thing yesterday. Searching around only returned me smartphone apps that connect to Google Calendar, with a couple of actual alternatives (Zoho, which I'm using as a primary email provider and can't set the freaking timezone right, and Outlook calendar, where I absolutely despise its web design). It's like nobody's even trying to implement this properly. I'm trying out Yahoo's calendar now.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
banach 10y ago
My iOS calendar, synched with Google calendar, always works. Been depending on that form of reminders for at least two years now, and I can't recall ever being let down by it.
may 10y ago
https://www.fastmail.com/ https://www.fastmail.com/
QuantumRoar 10y ago
Take a look at posteo.de A German privacy focused mail provider where you also get a calendar. I didn't use the calendar yet but their mail servers are faster than anything else I've seen. And you can encrypt your whole account on their server so that noone but you can read your mails. Edit: their English website is https://posteo.de/en https://posteo.de/en
raisedbyninjas 10y ago
I've been meaning to turn on birthday reminders on Google Calendar for a while now. It turns out it doesn't even have such a feature.
- r3bl 10y ago
  Partially incorrect. While Google's calendar does have a "Birthdays" calendar, it only includes birthdays from your Google+ contacts, and there's absolutely no way of adding a custom birthday into it. So, you would have to have a Google+ account and add every single person you want to include birthdays in as your Google+ contact. Outlook's calendar has an option of connecting to Facebook and collecting birthday info from your friend list if you wish to. I know that Russian Mail.ru calendar also has this option (+ optional email alerts for birthdays). Pretty handy if you keep your Facebook friend list nice and short. You don't have to add all of them manually.
JohnTHaller 10y ago
Important question: Are you using Google's Calendar app or are you using the OEM calendar app that came with your phone? It's an important distinction. The second rate calendar apps pushed out by the phone manufacturer are generally pretty buggy and hardly ever see proper updates for security or bugs. Solution: Download Google Calendar from the Play Store here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.calendar&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... Open it up and give it access to your calendar, contacts, etc as requested. Then go and disable the calendar app that came with your phone.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
Seconded on Fastmail. They also don't seem to be interested in selling your info.
falcolas 10y ago
> You get what you pay for. My company pays quite a bit for Google services (including calendar), and I personally have had this problem bite me for meetings which don't show up in the feed until well after they've occurred.
- jjnoakes 10y ago
  Does your company get support for its money? If so, ask them to increase the priority of fixing the bugs you are seeing, since you are paying them.
  - raverbashing 10y ago
    This is how it would work at a company that's not completely deaf to user complaints Unfortunately this is not the case of Google
    - jjnoakes 10y ago
      This seems to be the case for users who don't pay for Google services, but all of the companies I've dealt with who pay for Google services seem to get responses to their problems. If you are paying for Google services and you aren't getting your money's worth, look elsewhere, IMO.

mark_l_watson 10y ago

5 minutes ago my FastMail calendar sent me an email reminding me of a dental appointment tomorrow morning. FastMail in general seems reliable (except for the long outage they had 3 years ago).

jjnoakes 10y ago
Thanks, I'll look in to it. Hopefully reminders come in forms other than email, there's a decent android app, and I can access an exported ical format programatically for backup purposes.
- brerlapn 10y ago
  Fastmail is quite reliable, and they support CalDAV and CardDAV. Their android email client is fast but doesn't work offline--fortunately they support IMAP Push and work very well with whatever 3rd party email client you prefer. I haven't moved my personal domain over there yet, but I've been using a paid tier for several emails with them for over 10 years and have been very happy. I haven't tried the exported ical format programmatically, but some of their devs are active on HN and if you shoot their help desk a question about it I expect they'll get back to you promptly.

banach 10y ago

My iOS calendar, synched with Google calendar, always works. Been depending on that form of reminders for at least two years now, and I can't recall ever being let down by it.

jjnoakes 10y ago
Thanks. I run Android; maybe I just need a different app to get the reminders right, but still sync to Google's calendar, since it's free and available everywhere. Or maybe it's time to brush up on Kotlin and just write it myself.

r3bl 10y ago

I was wondering the same thing yesterday. Searching around only returned me smartphone apps that connect to Google Calendar, with a couple of actual alternatives (Zoho, which I'm using as a primary email provider and can't set the freaking timezone right, and Outlook calendar, where I absolutely despise its web design). It's like nobody's even trying to implement this properly. I'm trying out Yahoo's calendar now.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

banach 10y ago

My iOS calendar, synched with Google calendar, always works. Been depending on that form of reminders for at least two years now, and I can't recall ever being let down by it.

may 10y ago

https://www.fastmail.com/ https://www.fastmail.com/

QuantumRoar 10y ago

Take a look at posteo.de A German privacy focused mail provider where you also get a calendar. I didn't use the calendar yet but their mail servers are faster than anything else I've seen. And you can encrypt your whole account on their server so that noone but you can read your mails. Edit: their English website is https://posteo.de/en https://posteo.de/en

raisedbyninjas 10y ago

I've been meaning to turn on birthday reminders on Google Calendar for a while now. It turns out it doesn't even have such a feature.

r3bl 10y ago
Partially incorrect. While Google's calendar does have a "Birthdays" calendar, it only includes birthdays from your Google+ contacts, and there's absolutely no way of adding a custom birthday into it. So, you would have to have a Google+ account and add every single person you want to include birthdays in as your Google+ contact. Outlook's calendar has an option of connecting to Facebook and collecting birthday info from your friend list if you wish to. I know that Russian Mail.ru calendar also has this option (+ optional email alerts for birthdays). Pretty handy if you keep your Facebook friend list nice and short. You don't have to add all of them manually.

JohnTHaller 10y ago

Important question: Are you using Google's Calendar app or are you using the OEM calendar app that came with your phone? It's an important distinction. The second rate calendar apps pushed out by the phone manufacturer are generally pretty buggy and hardly ever see proper updates for security or bugs. Solution: Download Google Calendar from the Play Store here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.calendar&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... Open it up and give it access to your calendar, contacts, etc as requested. Then go and disable the calendar app that came with your phone.

Aelinsaar 10y ago

Seconded on Fastmail. They also don't seem to be interested in selling your info.

falcolas 10y ago

> You get what you pay for. My company pays quite a bit for Google services (including calendar), and I personally have had this problem bite me for meetings which don't show up in the feed until well after they've occurred.

jjnoakes 10y ago
Does your company get support for its money? If so, ask them to increase the priority of fixing the bugs you are seeing, since you are paying them.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  This is how it would work at a company that's not completely deaf to user complaints Unfortunately this is not the case of Google
  - jjnoakes 10y ago
    This seems to be the case for users who don't pay for Google services, but all of the companies I've dealt with who pay for Google services seem to get responses to their problems. If you are paying for Google services and you aren't getting your money's worth, look elsewhere, IMO.