CalTalk is a helpful app that enables the sharing of iCal calendars over a local network using the Bonjour protocol built into Mac OS X 10.

You can share iPhoto and iTunes like this out of the box.

CalTalk lets you add iCal to the list, just as Address-o-Matic adds the same option for Address Book.

After launch, the app resents you with a window containing two panes:

The second window allows you specify which calendars to share.

The first window shows you your network and the available users. Mine’s blank because my Mac is on the only computer in the house that is switched on.

A Preferences window allows you set further options, including which port you want to use, security settings and so on.

CalTalk is donation-ware and is available from the developer’s web site .

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• Weekly Update
• Address-O-Matic: Shared Address Books
• Scalp: Share iCal over FTP, SSH or SFTP
• Google Calendar and iCal Tutorial
• Zimbra iSync beta released

Plugins and addons

I’ve added Address-O-Matic (sharing Address Books via Bonjour) to the Address Book section of the Hawk Wings Plug-in and Add-on List.

Event Maker (To dos and events from a Mail.app message) was added to the iCal section.

Backend

I noticed today that something had broken the CSS for Internet Explorer. It should be fixed now, but apologies. I don’t think about Internet Explorer users (6% of Hawk Wings visitors) as much as I should.

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• Event Maker 0.4.3: Quick to-dos, events from Mail.app
• An automated email of the week’s upcoming events
• Zimbra iSync beta released

Address-O-Matic is a utility that allows you to share Address Books on Macs connected to the same local area network.

It makes use of Mac OS X’s Bonjour service to publish contacts from one Mac designated as the server and to allow client Macs to subscribe to those contacts.

An icon in the menubar anchors the utility’s drop-down menu:

You can determine which contacts or groups to share over the network. The Preference pane contains further options, including the ability to set a port for the service which your firewall will not block:

Other options for sharing your Address Book over networks exist. Check out Address-o-sync and Whereabouts.

Address-O-Matic is shareware (USD 20) and is available from the developer’s web site.

Related posts

• CalTalk: Sharing calendars over Bonjour
• Weekly Update
• Snail Mail 1.4: Smarter, more reliable
• SBook5: A smarter Address Book
• Printing Address Book contacts