How to actually get Kontact to Sync with Google Calendar.

After spending the last few days figuratively banging my head on a brick wall to get Kontact to sync with my Google Calendar I found the proper way to do it, alebeit by accident. Everyone else's how to simply isn't working. So here is the correct procedure.

All do give the correct first few steps;

For Debian flavored distros:
sudo apt-get install akonadi-kde-resource-googledata

for RPM based distros, using yum:
yum install akonadi-googledata

Next they tell you to Select Akonadi Google Calendar Resource. This is incorrect, you should actually select Google Calendar and Tasks.

The following window will appear when you do;

Your's of course will be empty. Click on the Add button at the top to setup access to your Google services. In the next dialog box enter your Gmail address and password.

Lastly you need to accept the following so you can get your calendar and tasks loaded into Kontact;

That's it, your done and Kontact now has access to your Gmail services.

Using Linux As A Promotional Tool

Okay before anything else I need to state the following. The following video is showing how I set my system up to support my Football Team the Houston Texans using graphics and files I created specifically for that purpose. I will not release this setup as a distribution because of the many copyright issues that doing so would cause with the NFL and the Texans. This setup exists only on my Laptop and that is it. However, it does show how Linux can be setup to promote any business, organization, charity, product, service or just about anything one can think of.

I also need to apologize for the quality of the beginning of the video showing the boot up and log in process. I had to use my phone to capture the video as Virtualbox was balking on many things so I couldn't record the screen. The video is nowhere near professional quality but it gets the idea across.

I am running LinuxMint 17 KDE version for this demo.

What's important to look at here is that:

The entire boot to desktop process is all showing the Organization I am supporting.

The creation of the elements used are simple and fairly straight forward to create and incorporate into the Linux system. Though some technical knowledge is required, things can be kept simple or if desired things can be made to be even more impressive using various engine functions in Plymouth, Ksplash and Kwin to wow the target audience.

Those who wish to promote whatever, can do so, essentially for the cost of a DVD, and even print labels on to the DVDs using a specialized printer, which gives a even higher polish to the end product.

It also promotes Linux.

The variations are many, Boot Splash, Login Themes, Desktop Environment, Icons, Desktop Themes and Graphics, and what applications can be used.

Many LUGS use their own distributions to promote themselves. This just taking the concept further.w

Kmail and Gmail: Filters and Operations

Its been a long time since I posted anything here but then, haven't had much to post. However, I recently had a fight with my email management solutions. Thunderbird 32 does not have a Lightning extension available for it. Not good when you rely on your calendar like I do. Also I have discovered that Thunderbird isn't as compatible with Gmail as some other solutions. So I went back to Kmail but did a few things very differently.

As best as I could I made all my email filters at Gmail. Reasons for this is I'm simply tired of making filters. Putting the responsibility on my cloud service (a.k.a. Gmail) means they will always be there regardless of what email client I use.

Thunderbird for some damnable reason did not setup all my gmail folders (Personal and Work were ignored) and that caused me some issues. Kmail, on the other hand does recognize them and loads them.

Nepomuk is the default database for Kmail and as we all know it, and Kmail, are both rather buggy. However, using the IMAP protocol Nepomuk doesn't become a big issue, and Kmail works a whole lot better.

As you can see I have a rather extensive set of folders and sub-folders (Gmail calls them Labels) All folders, filters, and email remain on the Gmail server, Kmail downloads no email (it simply loads the email you are reading like a browser, which is handy.)

Here are the instructions for making labels in Gmail. Here are the instructions for using filters in Gmail.

There is one huge advantage of using Kmail over Thunderbird as well, Kmail actually lets you move email between folders (labels) on the Gmail server. Thunderbird balked on that big time. 

If your primary email account is Gmail, you may want to look into this solution.