How often do you find yourself needing to look up school holiday dates and public holidays for where you live?  

I know that the 'Australian Public Holidays' is a standard Calendar that is available in the Calendar app on my Mac and iDevices, but I would rather just see the public holidays and school term dates for my own location.

Just today, I decided to investigate if I could get the Victorian school terms (for at least this year and next) into my Calendar, so that I could easily look up future term start and end dates.

It turned out that was very easy to do.  I just went to the www.vic.gov.au website, and visited their iCal Downloads page.

That page has calendar downloads for school term dates, and also for Victorian Public Holidays, for up to 2025.  

For anyone else who is interested, just click on the below links to download an 'ical' file that you can then open, to import the dates into your Calendar.  You simply choose which 'calendar' to import to. (I created a new 'School Terms and Public Holidays' calendar to hold these dates.  If you are not sure how to create such a calendar, check out this Handy Hint for iTandCoffee Club members.)

Victoria

• VIC Public Holiday dates
• School Term dates

If you are not in Victoria, here are a couple of links for other states.

• NSW term dates and holidays
• QLD School Holidays

If you live somewhere else, why not Google something like what I Googled, which was "calendar of school holidays download location-name".​

Having added the 'term' dates to my calendar, I can then quickly look up a list of term dates for future.

I just tap the 'magnifying glass' at the top of the calendar screen to perform a search, and enter term.

My calendar app then shows me the term dates for the next 12 months.  (On my Mac, the list of dates goes right through to 2025.) 

Many iPad, iPhone and Mac users have reported that they have recently received a heap of 'spam' calendar invitation in their iCloud calendar.  

I have not suffered this problem yet, but would be curious to know of iTandCoffee clients or subscribers who have.  Leave a comment if this has happened to you.

If you have suffered this annoyance, here is an article about what you can do about it.

• Get iCloud Calendar Spam Invites? How to Stop Them       ​​

Of course, if you need help with any of the suggestions from the article, don't hesitate to contact iTandCoffee to make an appointment - 1300 885 420 or bookings@itandcoffee.com.au                                                         

The Calendar App on the Mac (and the iPad and iPhone) allows for the creation of multiple Calendars, each that can have a different colour.  I use this feature to segregate my business, personal and family events.

Here are some previous Handy Hints about to topic of multiple Calendars:

• Creating and using multiple calendars on the iPad and iPhone 
• Sharing Calendars from your iPad and iPhone

For many people, the Calendar app has unnecessary Calendars that they would rather just merge  - perhaps to have a single Calendar.

This has previously been quite a tricky exercise.

In MacOS Sierra, merging of Calendars has become a very easy thing to do.

Find out how you can Merge Two Calendars in this week's Handy Hint for iTandCoffee Club members.

• Merging two Calendars in MacOS Sierra

If you are not yet a member of The iTandCoffee Club, find out more here.

This is such a handy feature of iOS 9!  

When I schedule events in my calendar, I get an alert when it is time to leave that is based on current traffic conditions.  So, if traffic is bad, the alert will pop up earlier than I anticipated, prompting me to get moving!

I have always had a default alert for my Calendar events, meaning that a reminder for 30 minutes before each event always pops up.  (Check out this handy hint if you are not sure how to do this.)  

But I now also get an alert earlier than 30 minutes before the event if the traffic conditions are such that I need to leave earlier!

All I have to do is to make sure that I include the location of my event when I add the event to the calendar.  

​The location must be an 'official' location that is recognised by the Maps app.  But this is fairly easy, as suggested locations are popped up as I type, allowing me to select the applicable address/location as soon as it appears.

But where did I turn on the 'Time to Leave' feature of my Calendar app?

Find out more in this week's Handy Hint, for iTandCoffee Club members.  Not yet a member?  'Join the Club' today!

I have a confession to make.  While I do teach clients to stick with the standard Apple apps on the iPad and iPhone as much as possible, I have broken that rule when it comes to the Calendar app on my iPhone.

I just don't like the fact that my iPhone's Calendar app does not show a good 'week view' of my calendar.  

I know that it does give a 'week view' if I turn my phone on its side (into landscape mode), but even that view does not show enough of each day - I have to scroll up and down to view earlier or later in the day.

For the past couple of years, the app that I have been using  for viewing my calendar on my iPhone is called 'Week Calendar', a paid app that costs only $2.99.

It uses the same calendar information as the Apple's Calendar app, and gives me a much better view of my week.  

​I have shown some examples below (with some of the details blurred out).  You can see in the two images below that I have been able to 'spread out' or 'contract' the calendar to show more or less of the hours of the day.  This is something that you just can't do in Apple's Calendar app, even in landscape mode.

Below is the best I can see of the same week on my iPhone's Calendar App.  I can't change the 'scale' so that I can see more of my day and just don't see enough of the day in this view.

For anyone out there who is interested in getting this app, here is the link to the app in the App Store.

A reminder about a birthday just appeared on my iPhone screen and my Mac screen.  

But this reminder was not one that I specifically entered into my Reminders app or my Calendar.

So how did my iPhone know to remind me about this person's birthday?

Well, there are a couple of ways that my iPhone, iPad and Mac know to remind me about people's birthdays.  

Once way is that I have recorded the birthdays of friends and family in my Contacts App.

Here is a past Handy Hint on this topic for those of you who are members of the iTandCoffee Club.

• Making sure you never forget birthdays - using the Contacts app!

But I also get reminders for other peoples' birthdays, where these people are not in my Contacts.  Where do these ones come from?

If you are a Facebook user, you also may be receiving reminders about the birthdays of your Facebook friends.   You can control whether you receive these reminders and, if you are not receiving such reminders, you can make some adjustments to turn the reminders 'on'.

Check out this handy hint for details of how to turn Facebook Calendars reminders on and off in the Calendar App, and how to adjust your settings to allow or disallow Facebook's access to your Contacts.

• Controlling Facebook notifications about birthdays and events

Perhaps you don't actually want your Contacts and Calendar apps to access your Facebook.  This is easy to change, and is covered by the below handy hint.

• Including or excluding Facebook information from Contacts and Calendar apps

(To view any of the the above handy hints, you will need to be an iTandCoffee Club member.)


​

Answer:  

This is because your device is only downloading a limited amount of Calendar data from your iCloud (or other Mail) account.  Limiting the amount of Calendar data can help save space on your mobile device.

If you want to see more calendar data than you are seeing, this can be sorted very quickly by visiting Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars. 

Go to the Calendars section towards the bottom of the Mail, Contacts, Calendars set of options, and tap on the Sync option.  

Then choose how much calendar data you want to see on your iPhone (or iPad).   You have the choice to see all your calendar data, or to restrict the calendar data sync'd to your i-Device to between 2 weeks' and 6 months' worth of data.

Related Articles (for iTandCoffee Club members)

Below are some other previously published handy hints about the Calendar App.  An iTandCoffee Club membership is required to view these past Handy Hints.  Not yet a member?  Why not join today!

• 'Save The Date' provided in an email or message
  
• Quickly create an event in your iPad or iPhone's Calendar
  
• The Week View on your iPhone's calendar
  
• Sharing Calendars
  
• Creating and using multiple calendars
  
• Making sure you never forget birthdays - using the Contacts app!
  
• Dealing with missing events in the Calendar

In the days before my iPhone and iPad, our family always had a calendar attached to the kitchen wall, showing everything that was going on for the 6 members of our household.

However, once I got my first iPhone and started using the calendar on that (sync'd with the calendar on my computer), it became quite a chore to keep the physical wall calendar 'in sync' with electronic calendar.  

This meant that there was no longer an up to date calendar visible to the rest of the family (should they, on the rare occasion, want to show some interest in what was going on - rather than just relying on me telling them what was going on.)

For a while, I tried regularly printing off the month's calendar from my computer and Blutacking it to the wall.

After upgrading my original model iPad, this old iPad then became our electronic version of the 'wall calendar'.  It now sits on the kitchen bench all the time, serving 3 key functions: it's our address book, wall calendar and recipe-lookup device! 

This works really well, as anyone who wants to know what is going on when can look up my calendar on this iPad.  (Except when someone steals its charger or unplugs it, and lets its battery run flat - which happens regularly!).

But, what if you want to be able to share certain events so that they appear in your partner's calendar, or perhaps in your kids' calendars on their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch?

iOS 8 introduced a new feature for families called Family Sharing.   This offers one way of sharing a calendar with the entire family.  This will be covered in a separate handy hint.

We don't actually use this method of sharing calendars, because I don't want to share all events with all family members.  I want a calendar that I share with my husband, and one or more others that I share with my kids - each with the purpose of communicating specific events to them (since they are not interested in seeing all family events in their calendars).

In fact, my eldest daughter has set up a calendar that she has shared with me, that tells me when she has 'booked me in' to be her taxi driver!   Isn't that wonderful?

Find out how you can set up shared calendar's in this handy hint, available any time for iTandCoffee members.

This hint is broken into two parts - one that looks at setting up multiple calendars on your iPad and iPhone, and the other that looks at how to then share individual calendars with one or more other iCloud users.  Each part offers a downloadable, easy to read PDF that is extracted from iTandCoffee's full guide about the Calendar App on the iPad and iPhone.

Join the club now to access tips, features and special offers available only to iTandCoffee Club members.

If you are not an iTandCoffee Club member, this tip will be available in the iTandCoffee newsletter dated 3rd April 2015.

Subscribe here before that date to receive our great weekly newsletter. 

Recently, I posted information about an App that was free for a short period, called Week Calendar.  

This app is still my 'go to' app on my iPhone, for seeing my 'week at a view', even when my iPhone is in 'portrait' mode.  Unfortunately, this is something that the standard iOS Calendar app does not provide - which is a great frustration for many iPhone users.

My Week Calendar app allows me to easily view what's booked when, and see my availability at a glance - great when someone is asking for an appointment. 


Of course, it also provides other views of my calendar (day, month, year, today) should I need them, but I tend to stick to the 'week view' most of the time.  Here is an example of my week in Week Calendar!

Fantastical

In Fantastical, not only can you view the day's reminders, you can also 'tick off' the reminders as they are completed, or touch on a reminder to edit it from within the Fantastical App.  

This is so much quicker than opening up the Reminders app to go and modify (or tick off) any reminder. 

Now I have 3 favourite Calendar Apps!

I now also use two other calendar apps on a regular basis, because I find that these apps offer features that neither Week Calendar nor the standard iOS Calendar apps offer.  

These two great calendar apps are

• Fantastical (which is fantastic!), and 
  
• Sunrise  (which has been recently acquired by Microsoft)
  

The reason these two apps are so useful to me is that they both integrate my Reminders into my Calendar.

This means that, for each day, you can see a list of your events for the day, PLUS a list of any reminders that you have set for that same day!

For someone like me who uses Reminders ALL THE TIME to keep on top of my busy life, being able to view my reminders in my calendar is such a massive help and has made a real difference to my days.

Sunrise

Sunrise will also show you all your reminders from your iOS Reminders app, but it won't allow you to 'tick off' or edit them. I go to Fantastical when I want to do this.

But the key reason I also use the Sunrise calendar is that it also includes my Evernote reminders - which, unfortunately, are not included in my standard iOS Reminders list, so are not included in the Fantastical list of reminders.  I am hoping this might change over time, but for now I rely on Sunrise.

Given that I am using Evernote more and more to set reminders about bills, school notices and other documents that I receive and store in Evernote, Sunrise is where I go to view my Evernote (and any other) reminders for the day.  

The other thing I love about Sunrise is that it allows me to 'Open in Evernote' any Evernote reminder that I see, so that I can immediately view the content of the Evernote Note, to view the bill, notice or other document of which I am being reminded.  

This digital recording of bills, notices and other important documents saves me scrounging through papers to find further information about the reminder - once again saving my sanity by giving me immediate access to the information I need to run my household and business.

Widgets for these apps

But wait, there's more!

Both if these calendar apps have additional features called 'widgets'.  Widgets are mini versions of apps that you can add to your Notification Centre.

Here is what I see when I swipe down from above the top of my iPhone's screen to view my Notification Centre.

You can see here that I can see a preview of my day, via each of these apps.  

If I want further information, I can tap on either to go directly to that app - giving me quick and easy access.

The topic of how to set up these widget will be a topic for another day (sorry!).

Do you want to become more organised through your technology? 

If you want to learn out about becoming more organised using Reminders, Calendars, Evernote, Widgets and more, why not come along to the iTandCoffee class called 'Bring your busy life under control using your iPad and iPhone'.

Register you interest here, and we'll let you know when the next class series is scheduled.

I have had an issue with my Calendar on iPhone and iPad ever since I upgraded to iOS 8.  

I use a booking system called BookFresh, and was previously able to view all my appointments from my BookFresh calendar in my iOS Calendar and on my Mac's calendar.  

This was achieved by subscribing to the Bookfresh Calendar as one of my iCloud Calendars on my Mac, which meant that the calendar then appeared on every other Mac and iOS device connected to the same iCloud.

After upgrade to iOS 8, I have found that my Bookfresh bookings are no longer automatically refreshing to my iPad and iPhone - which is incredibly annoying when I rely so heavily on my iPhone while on the go, to check details of my next appointment!  

The appointments correctly refresh on my Mac - just not on the iOS devices.

The only way I have been able to get my iOS 8 devices to refresh the Bookfresh events in their Calendars is 

• by doing a hard re-boot of the device (Sleep and Home buttons held down for about 10 seconds), 
• or by going to my Mac and choosing 'Get Info' for the subscribed iCloud calendar, the changing the 'Auto-refresh' setting to a different value, Saving, then setting it back to '5 minutes' (and saving again).  A real fudge!  And I need to keep remembering to do this whenever I place a booking in my booking system!

This takes my back to the days of iOS 5 when the same thing used to happen.  It was resolved in iOS 6 and 7, but appears 'broken' again in iOS 8.

I haven't been able find anything about this problem on the Apple Website or other online forums.

A call to Apple Support looked initially like it solved the problem (uncovering the second option suggested above for getting the calendar to refresh), but only worked at the point I made a change in 'Get Info' and then not again until I changed something in 'Get Info' again.  This was something I didn't realise until after the call had been terminated!

I will be calling Apple again about this one, but if anyone has a suggested fix for this issue, please leave me a comment.

Transfer Pro is an app that allows you to transfer photos between you computer and your iPhone/iPad really easily, without needing to use iTunes.  

Check out further details about this app here.

Here's an article published this week that I scooped about Transfer Pro.