Transfer new events from iPod?

Question

I have iCal at home and work. I don't want a .mac account and it seems like I should be able to sync my calenders with my iPod, i just can't figure out how to do it.
When I open the Calendars folder on my iPod in Finder and open one of the iSync calendar files there, it switches to iCal and the message "This calendar contains new events. Please select a destination calendar." But there aren't any new events and when I select a destination calendar, it duplicates the events already listed (because they are already on iCal and on my iPod).
It seems like there should be a way to import only new events so they are not duplicated over and over. Any one know of one?

Answer 1

The calendars that you see in the folder marked "Calendar" on your iPod all have names that start with ISync. They are files of your individual calendars, and you will only see them on your iPod. You won't see these files in your computer. You'll see them in your Finder window because it shows you what is in your iPod's hard drive, if you've checked "enable disk use" in your iPod's preferences in iTunes. Think of them as copies of what you have done so far in each of your individual calendars. I still think of calendar as meaning everything on my calendar, but iCal sees calendar as meaning each subject or category of the whole database. The database is everything, all of the categories you have in iCal. The ISync file for a specific calendar/category is everything you have in each individual category up to the point that you sync your iPod with your computer.
If someone wanted to copy just their "Work" calendar/category to a computer at work, they could import the ISync-Work.ics file from their iPod's "Calendars" folder to their computer at the office. That sounds like what you have described. It wouldn't add or update just one event, though, as you've discovered. It will import everything that's in that category. This is good if you don't want your personal calendars from your home computer or your iPod copied to your work computer. However, if someone did need all of their calendars, everything in their other computer's iCal from home copied to the work computer, then using iCal to make a back up is the better choice. I make a back up of my iCal to my computer regularly just in case I need it for any reason. If I want to have everything the same on my work computer, I can use my iPod's hard drive like a flash drive or portable drive. I can then go to iCal on the other computer, and choose "Revert to Database Backup". Technically, that means to go back to a previously saved version of everything you had in iCal. You could revert to iCal as you had it last year, last month, or yesterday. But you can also "revert" to the backup you made this morning or five minutes ago. It's puts in everything that was backed up to that point. Even if I am only updating one event, this takes very little time to do it this way. At this time, I don't know that there are any other options, other than the way you've been doing it and the way I've described. It's important to note, also, that If you've deleted events from one computer, the other computer is going to be exactly the same as the first, if you go this route.
It also sounds like it is time for iCal to get some kind of update to better meet people's current needs. We'll just have to wait for Apple or someone else to create an update or write a program that gives iCal more flexibility!
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