SVA Dot Dot Dot Lectures: Jason Santa Maria on web vs. print. “These things might seem obvious, but they’re not the conversations we’re having.”

Interesting news came out of Google yesterday.

We just completed a substantial 20-year green Power Purchase Agreement that allows us to take responsibility for our footprint and foster true growth in the renewable energy sector. On July 30 we will begin purchasing the clean energy from 114 megawatts of wind generation at the NextEra Energy Resources Story County II facility in Iowa at a predetermined rate for 20 years. Incorporating such a large amount of wind power into our portfolio is tricky, but this power is enough to supply several data centers.

By making such a long term committment Google is "giving the developer of the wind farm financial certainty to build additional clean energy projects."

Image Credit: Reed B Thatcher aka rbthatcher over at Threadless

In an odd twist, Facebook's assets are frozen as it fends off what seems to be a frivolous lawsuit in New York. There, an order for a case filed in Allegany County state court by Paul Ceglia claims that in 2003 he paid Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg $1,000 to build a website "designed to offer the students of Harvard university access to a wesite [sic] similar to a live functioning yearbook with the working title of 'The Face Book.'" For that meager $1,000 investment, Ceglia was to receive a 50% stake in the site. Now he's looking to get 84% ownership of Facebook which many investors believe is worth as much as $15 billion (USD).

Judge Thomas Brown has issued a restraining order preventing Facebook from performing any asset sales. Of course Facebook vehemently opposes any such allegations as they continue to fight this in court. It's important to note that this isn't the first time Zuckerberg has been accused of stealing the idea for Facebook. ConnectU has accused Zuckerberg in the past of stealing the source code which he has built his empire upon. And while this case in New York isn't the first it's completely within reason to believe it won't be the last.

Back again with another installment of some Twitter hi-lites from the month of June. If you're not following us on Twitter (@TastyCMS) jump on over and say hi.

The new iPhone iOS 4 is now available for download. There are so many great new additions to the new operating system. I'm particularly loving multitasking, app folders and an integrated inbox for mail. iOS 4 also offers 2 Microsoft Exchange accounts (it was limited to just 1 until now). If you have an office email account using Exchange and a Google account there was no way to have both on Exchange. This meant that you couldn't have your email accounts, calendars and contacts integrated. In theory, having 2 Exchange accounts should just work. However, after attempting to get them to work I realized it was best to stay with one Exchange account for the office and continue to use Gmail over IMAP.

One great thing about Gmail on the iPhone in iOS 4 is that when you add a Gmail account from the Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account... > Gmail it defaults to IMAP assuming you've configured your Gmail account to be IMAP. Previously you had to add an IMAP Gmail account by going to Other. No longer! If you do it this way do not select the option to sync your calendars. We're going to use a more reliable method later. But first things first: enable IMAP.

Enabling IMAP in Gmail

You'll first need to make sure your Gmail account is configured for IMAP. Following the instructions at http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=77695 we get:

1. Sign in to Gmail.
2. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page.
3. Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
4. Select Enable IMAP.
5. Configure your IMAP client and click Save Changes.

Syncing your Google calendars with the Calendar App

All of you Google calendars, even those shared with you from other people, can be accessed through your Calendar App if you've configured it correctly. To get your Google calendars to show up you'll want to add them via CalDav. Following the instructions at http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=151674 we get:

1. Open the Settings application on your device's home screen.
2. Open Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3. Select Add Account...
4. Select Other.
5. Select Add CalDAV Account.
6. Enter your account information:
   • In the Server field, enter [ google.com ]
   • In the Username field, enter your full Google Account or Google Apps email address.
   • In the Password field, enter your Google Account or Google Apps password.
   • In the Description field, enter the name you'd like to appear on the account.
7. Select Next at the top of your screen.

After you've completed setup, open the Calendar app on your device and syncing will automatically begin.

By default only your primary calendar will be synced to your device. You can sync additional calendars by visiting the following page from any web browser:

• https://www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect

This is an important step. You might even want to do this first.

Note: One thing I noticed was that not all of the colors matched. Even after following the various tips here I was unable to get my primary Google calendar's color to match on the website and on my iPhone. In the end I just made the color on the website match as close as possible to the color that was being set for it on my iPhone so they were at least the same.

Adding other calendars like US Holidays

Even though I have US Holidays in Google Calendars there's no way for that calendar (or the Weather Calendar) to by synced with the iPhone Calendar App. To get around this I added Apple's iCal US Holiday calendar. Following the instructions at http://www.knowyourcell.com/apple/apple-iphone-4/iphone-4-guides/506391/how_to_add_us_holidays_to_your_iphone_4_calendar.html we get: 

1. Open the Settings application on your device's home screen.
2. Open Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
3. Select Add Account...
4. Select Other.
5. Select Add Subscribed Calendar.
6. In the server field, input: ical.mac.com/ical/US32Holidays.ics - then select Next.
7. Select Save.

After following these steps you should now have all of your mail accounts in one inbox and all of your calendars in your Calendar App.

Just a follow-up to our previous post from September 18, 2009 "Have you listed your business under the Google Local Business Center?" Google Local Business Center is now known as Google Places. Same service, different name.

The change actually took place on April 20, 2010 but we're finally updating our notes.