How to Manage Your Google Calendar with Your Mobile Phone

For anyone on the go, Google Calendar is great system for managing appointments. One of the best parts of it is that you can view and manage your calendar without having to be at a desktop or laptop computer; you can do it with your mobile phone. Even better, there are several options, so you can pick the one that best matches your style and your phone plan features.

Mobile Web
If your mobile phone has an Internet access plan, go to www.google.com/calendar. You can view your events, add new ones, delete ones you no longer need - pretty much anything you can do from a desktop computer. There are two things that might be downsides, depending on your plan and your patience.

The first is that doing heavy calendar work will eat into your bandwidth some, though Google Calendar is not a terribly bandwidth-intensive application. The second is that you have to wait for it to load, though you can save a little time by having it remember your username and password (just don't lose your phone - or change your password immediately if you do). For those using 3G or EDGE networks, it's not a big deal. People on slower GPRS networks, however, might get frustrated if they're simply trying to look up an appointment quickly.

Text messages to GVENT
For those who don't have a mobile phone Internet plan or are looking for a faster choice than using the mobile Web-based calendar software, there's GVENT. That's Google's shortcode for managing a calendar via SMS, or text message. By texting certain commands to GVENT, or 48368, you can check your appointments, add new ones and more. Texting "next" to GVENT will cause Google to send a message back with the next event on your calendar.

Texting "day" and "nday" will give you your events for the current day and the next day, respectively. Texting an event, like "lunch with Anthony at 1 p.m. Saturday," will add it to the calendar. It doesn't matter what order you say the event, time and date in. Google will figure it out. Just remember to watch how many texts you send unless you have an unlimited texting plan. Using GVENT requires registering your mobile phone number with Google. You can find the registration option in your Google Calendar's settings.

Jott
Jott, a free service, allows you to dictate notes to yourself. You call a toll-free number, say your note, and a transcriber e-mails it to you. The service also has Google Calendar integration. After setting it up, you simply call the number, say "Google Calendar" and say your calendar event, like the above-mentioned lunch with Anthony. The transcriber will add the event to your calendar. As with using GVENT, described above, it doesn't matter what order you say the time, date and event in. Because Jott is free and requires no texting or Internet access, it's the thriftiest option for adding events to your calendar. Plus, in case you need to add something while driving, it's much safer than the first two methods.