Google announced on Monday that the online Google Calendar now supports Apple's iCal through the CalDAV standard that Apple has been promoting. Google has released a Mac application called Calaboration that locates your Google Calendars and lets you add them to iCal. Calaboration requires Mac OS X 10.5 and later. Google Calendars will sync with iCal, and you can use iCal to respond to Google Calendar invitations.

Mic Stremel reports seeing a problem Entourage and Exchange where the invitation is grayed out and not available. We first reported the problem two years ago. Stremel's report:

I say your report on this problem, and have run into a couple of issues involving this situation. I have seen two users running Entourage 2008 on an Exchange 2003 environment. In some cases they can accept or decline meeting invites, but other invitations the buttons are greyed out. There does not appear to be any consistency on when the buttons work or not. However, I had not set up these users on Mac Mail. And, they can use Outlook Web Access, and/or Outlook on a Windows machine to accept/decline meeting invites, but NOT through Entourage. I've uninstalled/re-installed Office, and also created a new Identity for Office. Still, no luck.

I've searched far and wide on most Mac/Entourage blog sites, and no clear answers.

If you've seen this problem

Matt Klusza is having problems logging into Active Directory from Leopard. He keeps getting an error message saying that the username and password are incorrect. He said he checked our Leopard/Active Directory Tips and Reports page and could not find any information. Klusza's report:

I am struggling to fix a small error here related to Leopard 10.5 Directory Utility.

We have a department room with 10 Mac Pros on Ethernet. Each Mac Pro is bound to Active Directory by Directory Utility. No local accounts because students have their Active Directory username/passwords. No LDAP configuration.

A student told me that he couldn't log in. I tried with my username and it won't let me log in, either. I then logged in as a local admin since I am an Apple Technician and clicked on System Preference's Date/Time Pref pane and set up correct time zone and locked it. Next, I opened Directory Utility application and clicked "Services" icon and clicked on "Active Directory". I unbinded this computer ID and re-binded with correct "Network Administrator Required" username and password provided by our ITS Department. The box appeared saying that I entered an incorrect username/password.

I had to ask my ITS Department Network Administrator to remove this specific computer ID off from the server for me to re-bind this. After the removal of this specific computer ID, I attempted to re-bind and it wont let me to due of incorrect username/password. I am completely puzzled.

I also am trying to find a specific folder to clean up Directory Utility's caches. I know we can delete caches from Tiger 10.4's /Library/Managed Preferences folder. But I can't do the same thing with Leopard since Leopard killed "Netinfo". Is there a way for me to clean up the cache on Leopard or any advices would be appreciated.

If you have a suggestion

Two readers responded to the report Reader's Boot Camp Win XP maxes out Mac CPU. Robert Pendell suggested a Windows utility to look into the problem, which could be a Windows driver:

I do not have a Mac or Boot Camp but if the Task Manager isn't showing anything try using a program called Process Explorer. (It was developed by SysInternals and is available from Microsoft's Website in the TechNet area.) Check to see if the process labeled "System" has a high CPU usage mark on it. If it does then a driver is taking up the load. Double-clicking on it and going to the threads tab may help which driver is taking up the CPU load.

If you've tried this

John Lockwood had another suggestion and some explanation...

Brian Wilson found a fix for the intermittent problems with Leopard 10.5.5 is having seeing Windows SMB shares. His fix was similar to one we reported a year ago for an earlier version of Leopard. Wilson said:

If you have intermittent problems connecting to a PC running Windows XP where your PC icon appears in your Mac finder but refuses to connect sometimes, then ensure you do the following:

On the Mac go to my System Preferences->Network and if you are connecting wirelessly select the Airport connection and hit 'Advanced'. Under the WINS tab select your workgroup. In my case, this is 'workgroup'. It doesn't seem to matter that this is in lower case whereas it was created as 'WORKGROUP' in Windows. Insert your PC's IP address into the WINS Servers box (e.g. 192.168.1.7) and hit OK.

This completely eradicated any intermittent problems I had.

If you've tried this

Gyalwa updated his previous report about slow VMware Fusion 2 performance with multiple displays:

Please report that the update 2.0.1 does not fix the inability of VMWare Fusion 2 to smoothly operate in Multi-Screen Mode on Apple Cinema Displays.

If you've seen this problem with Fusion 2.0.1

Gary Maedl says that Windows XP is using most of his Mac's two processor cores even when no applications are running:

I've been running Boot Camp with Win XP SP3 since Boot Camp was first released. Generally, I love it. However, on occasion, I get a really strange system behavior with no apparent cause or fix. My machine (MacBook Pro 17" 2.33 GHz Dual Core 4 GB RAM) will run with CPU 1 at or near 100 percent and CPU 2 at around 60 percent in Win XP. When it is doing this, nothing (no application) is running on the Mac.

If I leave the machine for a time (hours), it still runs at this load even though no applications appear to be running in Windows. The last time this happened, I had to totally rebuild the machine. Now it has just started again.

If you've seen this problem

Many have reported that the Mac OS X 10.5.5 update caused the Leopard Finder to stop seeing network shares. Allen O'Loughlin now says the Connect to Server dialog doesn't work. He's tried some of the suggestions on our Leopard Tips and Reports page, with no success:

I can't use connect to server anymore. Network shares all working prior to 10.5.5 without fail. Now can't access shared folders or printers. Connect to Server hangs. Have tried recreating the Airport connection, tried turning off IPv6, tried entering workgroup name into WINS. Nothing helps.

If you've seen this problem

Ian R. Hargest updated his Nov. 14 report about the Leopard update 10.5.5 update's problems with SMB file browsing. He fixed the problem by restarting all of his network hardware:

After much troubleshooting, and requisite swearing, turns out my problem was caused by my networking gear. After troubleshooting my Ubuntu server for a couple hours and coming up empty, I figured I'd reboot the network stack just to take it (cable modem, VoIP router and wireless router) out of the mix. Lo and behold, both my Mac and XP client machines were able to recontact the server.

I'd not changed anything on the server; I'd only been looking for something that was amiss. I hadn't changed anything on the Mac nor the XP clients. Strangest damned thing.

If you've seen this

John Grubb echoed yesterday's report that Windows XP loses dual-monitor settings not just in Boot Camp, but on PCs:

Windows XP frequently loses its video settings on Dell machines. I am constantly resetting dual monitor preferences for employees with Dells running Windows XP. All of our employees use dual screens, both with laptops (docked) and desktops too.

XP loses the video settings at least every other reboot if not every on nearly every machine. They call it a nuisance. I call it FRUSTRATING.

So any Mac user who sees this issue either in Boot Camp or virtual environment, take heart. It's not your Mac machine. It's another case of broken Windows.

Derman Enterprises has released Sync'Em 1.10, software for Mac OS X for syncing Mac and one or more Exchange and Google accounts. The new version adds syncing for Exchange and iCal calendar events. Sync'Em also syncs contacts between Exchange, Google/Gmail and Address Book

If you've tried Sync'Em 1.10

Novell released GroupWise 8 (US$143 per license), its groupware collaboration software supporting Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux clients. The new version supports Web 2.0 dashboard-type tools that can bring in RSS feeds, blogs, or other web sites into the GroupWise Home View. There are also improved calendar functions and contact management, and support iPhones, BlackBerrys and Palm handheld devices.

Two readers say that problem of Windows dual-monitor display settings becoming lost after rebooting Windows is not limited to Boot Camp, but that the problem is with Windows XP. Gary Chou said that the problem occurs on a non-Apple PC:

My work laptop runs Windows XP Pro and also resets dual monitor settings after each reboot. I have to toggle the dual monitor setting each time and also rearrange the proper desktop arrangements (i.e. how Monitor 1 is positioned with respect to Monitor 2). I believe this is a Windows issue rather than a Boot Camp issue.

Richard sees this with VMware Fusion as well in Boot Camp:

Similar problem in VMware Fusion as well. I have Fusion 2.0, which allow dual monitor for Windows XP and Vista to use two monitors. In my XP, I setup for two monitor, took a snapshot, then I restart XP with the snapshot. It worked for a few times but then it will switch back to single monitor. I thought it was a Fusion program, but sounds like it's a Windows XP issue.

If you know of a fix

Richard Eppert confirms a previous suggestion that Microsoft's Sysprep works for cloning Boot Camp images using Winclone:

Marc Berger is correct, using Sysprep is the way to go. I use exactly the same procedure on our Winclone images and I have our Vista Winclone image pickup the same GPO's that our Dell PCs use after the system is imaged, so the Vista environment looks exactly the same.

VMware has released VMware Fusion 2.0.1, a maintenance update that fixes several dozen issues surrounding performance, stability, and various other bugs. VMware released Fusion 2.0 in September as a major new version with a number of new features.

If you've tried the VMware Fusion 2.0.1 update if it fixes any problems you've seen.

For those using PowerPC Macs, Microsoft's now-discontinued Virtual PC is the best way to run Windows. Brian Reilly has posted information about using it to run Windows Vista in Leopard:

As a regular Virtual PC 7 user, I've come across your site on multiple occasions. I recently complied a guide to running Virtual PC 7 in 2008. The article includes the Leopard fix that you already have on your Virtual PC 7 page, but also includes how to run Vista, some VPC7 benchmarks, and a video comparing Word 2008 (mac) to Word 2007's start up time: 12.6 seconds for Word 2008 running natively compared to 9.6 seconds for Word 2007.

Yesterday, Mark/Space released The Missing Sync for Windows Mobile 4.0.4 (US$40, free update), an update to the company's Mac OS X software for syncing with Windows Mobile smart phones. The version 4.0.4 update includes direct sync support for Entourage 2008 (as well as with Entourage 2004) without the need to go through the Mac's Sync Services. The new version also includes support for Entourage categories and improved device mounting.

The Missing Sync for Windows Mobile 4.0.4 enables users to synchronize Entourage contacts, calendar events, and tasks with categories. Other features of The Missing Sync for Windows Mobile include syncing music, photos, video, files, and much more with support for iCal, Address Book, iPhoto and iTunes.

Mark/Space has released The Missing Sync for BlackBerry 1.0.3 (US$40), an updated to the Mac OS X software for syncing to BlackBerry handheld devices. The new version adds sync support for BlackBerry Bold 9000 series smart phone. The software can sync between BlackBerry Bold and Entourage, iCal and Address Book, and well as iTunes playlists, iPhoto albums and various video formats. The software also works with other BlackBerry models.

The Missing Sync for BlackBerry 1.0.3 can sync contacts, calendars, tasks, and notes with Entourage or Address Book and iCal. It can also sync iTunes playlists, iPhoto albums and various video formats.