SATA drive dock but no Google Checkout

Recommended by Daring Fireball readers: ThinkGeek :: External USB SATA Drive Dock.

Sold by ThinkGeek, which I'd forgotten about. It's nice to see they're still in business.

Unfortunately ThinkGeek does not use Google Checkout. Makes me wonder how geeky they really are.

I'm done with creating vendor specific accounts. If a vendor doesn't support Amazon or Google Checkout, or at least an OpenID authentication, forget 'em.

Which iPod was best?

I've bought six iPods. Four are still in use in our home, including my first - the third generation firewire sync iPod.

From left to right: 3G iPod, 5G iPod, 2G Nano, 3G iPhone.

Not shown are a 2nd generation shuffle that I was happy to lose to the washing machine, and the great 1st generation shuffle that my mother owns.

So which iPod was best? The answer depends on use of course, but it's not entirely obvious.

1. Absolute worst: The second generation shuffle and its proprietary charging and sync connector. Yech.
2. Best music player: A close race between the 5G iPod (#2) and the Nano. They're both great music players; the scroll wheel and interface features make them much better than the iPhone for listening to podcasts. If I had to choose one I'd favor the 3G for its additional video features and greater capacity.
3. Most versatile charging and accessory compatibility: Nano and 5G iPod both charge with Firewire, USB and all auto accessories. Yech to my iPhone.
   
4. Most powerful device: Ok, the iPhone is good for something.
5. Fastest sync: I swear the Firewire 3G is 3 times faster at sync than anything else. I really miss Firewire.
6. Best accessory range: The old 3G iPhone had a special connector for adding on radio, recording, broadcast etc. It came with a small remote control cable.
7. Best suited to a person with visual and motor limitations: The first generation shuffle.
   

So certainly there's progress, but it's mixed.

Convert Bento Library to Filemaker Database

I came across this app while looking for alternatives to FileMaker's very limited Bento product: FmPro Migrator 4.36.

It will convert a SQLite Bento Library into a FileMaker database - versions 7-9.

Sounds quite interesting and worth remember ...

Not exactly what I want just yet -- I want to be able to access my OS X PIM data (address book, calendar, tasks) from FileMaker.

Still looking for that solution ...

Windows Search 4 broken by recent update causing MDAC corruption

My XP box index is complete, but Windows Search 4.0 returns nothing. The Event Viewer has no interesting Windows Search Service events; the indexer seems happy, but the search isn’t working. Rebooting didn’t help.

On any search I get "Nothing found in All Locations for query ...".

The only hints I could find wer ea recent post with a Vista problem: SearchIndexer.exe causing problems after Search 4.0 update on Vista Home Premium system. - MSDN Forums and Desktop Search help has no recent advice.

I’ll try doing a windows update, then if that doesn’t work a uninstall/reinstall cycle.

Windows Search was much happier when I was using Office 2003. It hasn’t been the same since I went to 2007.

Update 10/20/08: I miss Lookout for Outlook. Also, Spotlight and all of OS X. Anyway, the Windows Update and reinstall didn't work. This time I'll uninstall, track down my index and trash it, and try again. As before the index is built, everything looks fine, but searches return nothing.

Update 10/20/08: Still not working. I'm running out of ideas. Next step is to uninstall Windows Search 4 and install Google Desktop Search! Instant search works in Outlook, but desktop search doesn't work at all. From a post on MSDN that I wrote:

A few days ago Windows Search 4 stopped working in my corporate XP desktop (all updated). All deskbar searches return "Nothing found in All locations for query ..." regardless of the query. I can't indentify any precipitating event but this is a managed corporate desktop. Anything can happen to it.

Web searches work. Instant searches in Outlook 2007, which use the Windows Search engine, are also working.

The index is fine and it's being maintained correctly.

I've run Office 2007 Diagnostics. I've rebuilt the index. I've uninstalled Windows Search and reinstalled. I've reviewed the Applications event log. I've deleted the index and indexed only a small bit of Outlook 2007. I've relocated my index to a new directory.

Nothing makes any difference. Instant Search works, the indexer works, Windows Search 4 doesn't work.

My corporate desktop is encrypted (SafeBoot), but I've not run into any problems there.

I don't know what to try next. Actually, my next step is to uninstall Windows Search 4 and install Google Desktop Search. I need search to work and I can't go on a lot longer without it.

Later I also reinstalled Office Pro 2007 -- to no effect. I did try Google Desktop Search, but for me it was far too simplistic. It also crashed every day.

Update 10/25/08: The hardest problem I've solved in years. I finally found a 2006 post on an MSDN board about the same problem. Search worked in Outlook 2007, but not from the desktop. It turns out that desktop search uses Microsoft's data query infrastructure (MDAC), and that infrastructure can be broken.

Repair of a broken MDAC stack is occult. Fortunately Paul Nystrom had the answer in 2006

http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=901078&SiteID=1

This generally occurs when you have a corruption in your MDAC stack. You can find instructions for repairing your MDAC stack here (note this solution is not officially supported by Microsoft):

http://www.pqsystems.com/kb/activekb/questions/165/

For some additional information:

MDAC stands for Microsoft data access components. These components allow WDS to query it's index for resutls. When MDAC gets corrupted WDS can not retrieve results from the index resulting in empty query results.

Paul Nystrom - MSFT

I followed the repair advice on the referenced page (I have XP SP 3 installed):

How to repair a copy of MDAC 2.8 SP1 on Windows XP with SP2 installed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Right-click on C:\Windows\Inf\mdac.inf and choose "Install".

. ..point to the i386 folder in one of these places:

1. C:\Windows\ServicepackFiles\i386 (it may not like this location, if not, go to the next one)

2. The \i386 folder on your XP installation CDROM.

This reinstalls and repairs MDAC 2.8.

I used the servicepack files folder first. When asked for a file that wasn't in there I used the \i386 folder our corporate IT had on my drive.

It worked. Thank you Paul.

Hardest fix in years. Without Windows Live Search and Google I wouldn't have had a chance.

So what happened? My guess is that there's a problem with the sequence I took, moving through Windows Search 4 on Office 2003, then XP SP 3, then Office 2007. Somewhere in that sequence I broke MDAC.

The Wikipedia article on MDAC is informative:

The current version is 2.8 service pack 1, but the product has had many different versions and many of its components have been deprecated and replaced by newer Microsoft technologies. MDAC is now known as Windows DAC in Windows Vista.

XP is starting to remind me of Windows 98.

My Apple AV composite cable no longer works with my 3G iPhone.

If you have an Apple AV cable, you may want to see it if still works with your iPhone after the 2.1 update. I just posted this on Apple's discussion list:

Apple - Support - Discussions - My Apple AV composite cable no longer ...

I purchased an Apple composite AV cable from my local Apple store shortly after I bought my 3G iPhone.

It worked then.

I haven't used it much, but this morning I tried it again.

This time I got a message something like this:

"This accessory was not made to work with the iPhone. Would you like to turn on Airplane mode to reduce interference?"

It works with my older 3rd generation iPod.

This isn't an after-market cable. I bought it (yes, $50) at an Apple store because I knew Apple had shut out non-Apple connectors with the new generation devices.

I've seen various messages about failures of the AV cables after the 2.1 update. Most refer to aftermarket cables, or Apple cables purchased indirectly (may be counterfeit).

Has anyone else run into this?

I suppose I'll have to go back to the Apple Store with the cable and receipt and see what they can do about it.

I'll update this post with what I hear from my Apple store. If it turns out Apple deliberately broke their own cables that worked with iPhone 2.0 ...

Update: I read a post that suggests the connectors are a funny fit with the new iPhone -- that they may not always contact fully and this produces the message. I'll inspect closely and try again.

Update: Yes, it's the cable. If it's not fully seated you get this error. The old iPod connector used a locking connection with a positive click, the AV cable uses a lockless connector that differs from the newer lockless iPhone connector. I suspect the AV cable connector was a transitional design that may have more connectivity issues.

Bento 2: Modest good news, lots of bad news, slow as spit

The good news about Bento 2 is that it gives Leopard users access to their Address Book, Calendar and Tasks. Mail too, I think. That's probably worth $50 for me, especially if the current version FileMaker can't access these stores (I use an old version of FMP, haven't yet seen a good reason to upgrade.)

The bad news is the queries (called smart collections) can't be nested.

So you can define a query, but you can't reference it in a second query.

iTunes allows nested queries, I use them extensively. iPhoto doesn't, I miss 'em.

Some aspects of databases are hard to understand, but iTunes shows that regular users can learn to appreciate nested queries.

So, unfortunate omission.

I'm going to see if I can use Bento to help merge my Gmail and personal address books. If it works for that, I'll buy.

Even without the nested queries.

Update: I watched the videos. You create relationships by drag and dropping records. The 1 many relationship is seen through a "portal" window in a Bento form. Problem is, I don't see how you create a relationship by, say, relating all persons common last names in a single view. Bento would be more interesting if it were integrated with FileMaker, so we could use Bento to access iCal and similar stores but use FM to do more useful operations.

Update: There's no FileMaker Pro integration. The two are completely separate products using unrelated data stores (SQLite for Bento, as in /Users/account name/Application Support/Bento/bento.bentodb/Contents/Resources/Database). You can't link from a FileMaker Pro database into a Bento Library. Yuck. The only way out of this would be if someone figures out a way to use a more powerful SQLite app to manipulate Bento data. I'll watch for that.

This Nov 2007 Daring Fireball post has some more leads for understanding Bento.

Actual Technologies sells a connector that may allow a FMPro app to access SQLite data, may be read-only.

Bento is apple scriptable ...

Update 11/2/2008: Still in my trial period, I tried using Bento to enter several items quickly into my large iCal (several calendars, total 6,300 events). This is a trivial task with Outlook and its multiple views, but it's not supported in iCal.

Opening the Bento database, which includes the iCal tables, took minutes. Adding a single record took a minute. Type lag was severe.

Bento operations were excruciatingly slow on my single-core G5 iMac; manipulating my calendar reliably pegged the CPU. I was surprised how crude the UI was for specifying a calendar in a filtered view; I expected a drop down list but instead had to type the calendar name.

When doing data entry the type lag was gruesome. Yes, in a bloody database app there's type lag. It ain't doing fancy type layout, where the heck is the lag coming from?

When viewing a "collection" you can't create a new record. Lame.

This is an achingly inefficient load of software. It's miserable.

Deleting multiple iPhone camera roll pictures

It's odd that Apple hasn't fixed this bit of missing functionality; on OS X there's no obvious way to mass delete pictures taken with the iPhone camera!

In XP, ironically, it's very simple. XP mounts the camera store as a drive. You can't write to it (I tried of course), but you can select and delete.

In OS X most people recommend using Image Capture to "download and delete".

This tip points out you don't really need to download:

macosxhints.com - Delete multiple photos from the iPhone's Camera Roll

... Launch Image Capture and hit the Download Some button, and you are then free to roam the camera roll, selecting and deleting multiple images...

In case this isn't clear ... Launch Image Capture and click "download some", but you don't need to download any. Select all, then click the "delete" icon in the toolbar. All images are removed.

This is another odd bit of missing iPhone functionality! Of course it's not as critical as the missing calendar API, missing search functionality, the missing cut/copy paste function, the missing tethering tool, ...

iPhoto library sharing - the official Apple method

Apple's kb has an article on Sharing iPhoto libraries among multiple users.

Wild, it's more like what one would read on a geek site.

Turns out it can be done more or less safely. Problem is you need an external drive that ignores permissions -- or you can use a disk image in the shared item folder.

Is this some kind of sign that iLife '09 will support multiple iPhoto Library merges?

Ok, so I'm grasping at straws.

Update 3/9/09: The article was revised 1/12/09. I think they added a disk image option to turn off permission checking. If you go the disk image route remember that the standard disk image is hell on backups. Every time you change one byte in a 40GB Library the whole image has to be backed up. Sparse bundle images mitigate this problem, but Retrospect doesn't back up sparse bundle image backup properly (Time Machine does).

I might try this in a folder where my wife and I both have read/write privileges, though I'm concerned Apple didn't mention this obvious solution. I'll want to verify that this actually happens:

Keep in mind that while one user is viewing this library from iPhoto, another user will not be able to open this library at the same time. Instead, an alert message appears indicating that the library is already in use. You will need to quit iPhoto from the other user account before the next user will be able to view or edit this library.

Update 3/9/09b: Ok, I see the problem. It has to do with the way OS X (BSD Unix) manages permissions and it's a deep problem. Even if I create a shared folder and move my Pictures there, each file inside the "Library" (package) is still mine alone. Even if I change permissions on every file so "Parents" can edit them, newly added images will still get one or the other user's permissions. Yech!!

So to share a Photo library between multiple users you really do need to use something that ignores permissions -- or you need a future version of OS X -- or you need to use the Mac OS X Hints ACL hack.

Update 3/10/09: No changes with iPhoto. As I wrote on this Discussion thread, I think the problem is deeply embedded in the design of OS X (BSD Unix?) file sharing:

I don't think this is something that iPhoto can fix, it's really more of an OS problem. I THINK that the problem goes something like this:

1. OS X assigns new files permissions associated with their owner.
2. OS X allows only one owner per file.

So even if one set all the permissions on thousands of Library files to a multi-user group, the first time someone added new items to the Library there would again be inaccessible files.

Using an external drive or a disk image works because one can then ignore permissions, thereby eliminating a vast amount of security as well!

It's really a fairly deep OS problem. I wonder if Snow Leopard tries an alternative approach. I think XP file sharing doesn't have this particular problem, but I can't say for sure.

Interestingly the Apple kb article seems to imply that images ignore permissions. Thinking about how they're used, I bet that's true. Oddly enough, I can't find good google hits on this.

Alas, I can't go the sparsebundle route because my backup software (Retrospect) needs an update to manage these appropriately.

Update 3/19/09: I'm told Retrospect treats the Sparse Bundle as just another package. I'm doing some testing; after copying an iPhoto Library to the Sparse bundle I have:

Original iPhoto Library: 3.7 GB
Sparse Image Bundle version: 3.8 GB in 488 8MB bands (view package contents)

iPhoto editing in the Sparse bundle library can be hard on backups. I changed a rating on a single image, and five bands were revised (40MB of dat to backup).

Now I need to see how Retrospect behaves.

Incidentally, even though file privileges are ignored on this image, they still exist. So if you let multiple people work on Library, then move it to drive where privileges are NOT ignored, won't the Library be trashed until all privileges are corrected?

This feels like a nasty hack to work around a really bad file system design.

Update 4/9/09: Supposedly Apple has secretly fixed this in iLive '09!

Update 5/6/09: I updated another post with information about Retrospect and sparse bundles based on informed comments. It doesn't look good to me.

Using FrontRow for visually impaired OS X users

Front Row is designed for remote control at a distance. So the UI is pretty good for someone with poor vision, and it's much simpler than iTunes.

On the other hand, the remote is only intuitive to computer geeks. It's also difficult for someone with motor problems to use; the menu button, for example, is flush.

You can improve the menu button by putting fuzzy side velcro tape on it, but an alternative is to use the undocumented Front Row Key commands.

Undocumented, save for a generous blogger who compiled a list. See his site for the full list, here's my annotated version of an excerpt of it. Note that I used Keyboard Preferences to change the activation/quit key to F13. Unfortunately the F13 key doesn't behave exactly like the Menu button -- it starts and quits rather than moves in and out of menus.

rgbdream.com - Front Row Key Commands

Activation

Enter Front Row	F13
Quit Front Row	F13 (actually any key not used by FR will exit)

Menu actions

Up	Up-arrow
Down	Down-arrow
Select	Space
Previous menu	Escape

Playback controls

Play/Pause	Space
Rewind	Left-arrow
Fast-forward	Right-arrow
Previous track	Command + Left-arrow
Next track	Command + Right-arrow

Volume

Volume Up	Command + Up-arrow
Volume Down	Command + Down-arrow

Depending on your context sometimes the arrow keys also navigate menus and control volume.

I'm experimenting to figure out the right balance of use of a modified remote and the keyboard. I think the remove may win overall, but using the arrow and enter keys might be useful. You can use the kb volume keys to change volume.

MobileMe - Remote system control would make it useful

Apple's MobileMe is monumentally uninteresting -- less useful than .Mac.

Actually, it's worse than that. It's inferior to Google Apps, but since MobileMe is an Apple revenue stream they're incented to discourage Google Apps.

This is unfortunate, because if Apple made some modest changes to OS X 10.5 and MobileMe I'd buy a family package of both.

I want a remote system control option built into MobileMe. In particular I want to have full control of my mother's Mac Mini at all times -- without requiring her to do anything. (See also.)

Apple has all the pieces for this to work; even their toy VNC based remote control would be suffice.

[I first drafted this for .Mac in 2005. Found it while doing some cleanup; it's still true today.]

Toggle grayscale display on OS X with this AppleScript

I was looking for something that would give my mother a few more months of computer use. The OS X grayscale accessibility option looked interesting, but there's no keyboard shortcut for this option.

I thought I could record an AppleScript shortcut, but the accessibility pane is not scriptable. (Apple had, I think, a reasonable accessibility record with Mac Classic, but they tossed that out with OS X. They've been notably half-hearted for years, but some recent threats from Massachusetts may inspire future improvements.).

Apple recommends using System Events, but that's way beyond my limited AppleScript skills. I've made several stabs at figuring out AppleScript, but the damned language just annoys me. I wish they'd deprecate the original and adopt Python's syntax, scoping, etc.

But I digress.

Baltwo, a generous Apple forum poster [1], has written a post with the AppleScript System Events script I was looking for. It works in 10.5.5 ...

Apple - Support - Discussions - Keyboard shortcut to switch between ...

tell application 'System Preferences' to activate
delay 1
tell application 'System Events'
tell process 'System Preferences'
click the menu item 'Universal Access' of the menu 'View' of menu bar 1
click the radio button 'Seeing' of the first tab group of window 'Universal Access'
click the checkbox 'Use grayscale' of tab group 1 of window 'Universal Access'
end tell
end tell
tell application 'System Preferences' to quit"

The script, of course, will break with significant UI changes to the Universal Access pain. It works for now, I'll test it out with 10.4.11 though I think some of the System Events scripting might require 10.5.

Apple has greatly improved their AppleScript support site by the way. I've thought for years that AppleScript would go the way of OS X Services, but it continues on.

[1] You can now "subscribe" to users, and I've "subscribed" to his posts. I wonder sometimes if these are real people, or pseudonyms for Apple employees. written a very large number of forum posts.

Reading in a dark room? A useful trick

My mother has macular degeneration, so I was experimenting with the OS X grayscale feature.

This is one of OS X's accessibility features. Grayscale is a secondary option for what's mislabeled as the "White on Black" display. In fact the option isn't "White on Black", it inverts pixels to produce a negative image. So, yes, text is white on a black background, but colors are inverted to.

The default normal setting is "Black on White". You switch to grayscale with a checkbox. The alternate setting is "White on Black", which can also be switched to grayscale.

It's a bit of weird UI, and there's no keyboard shortcut for the grayscale option. That's a shame, as I suspect being able to toggle the standard display to grayscale would be more useful than the color inversion option.

There's a keyboard option for the inversion though. The default is "Command-Option-Control-8", though like all OS kb options it's easy to change to another combination. I'm sure kids use this feature in the school computer lab all the time.

The tip for non-visually impaired persons is that either the grayscale or the Black on White option both grealy reduce screen light output, and probably reduce battery drain.

It also brings back memories of the pre-VGA days on the early PC, when grayscale displays were a big improvement on the Hercules Graphics Card output. I once worked ran Mac OS Classic 7 with a massive > 100 lb grayscale secondary display, running OS X this way puts me back in grad school ...

Apple's Task Fiasco: iCal, Mail.app and the iPhone. It's got to be Jobs fault.

Back when I was patiently waiting for 10.5 to go from moderate disaster to worthwhile, I noted some curious behavior of Tasks in 10.5: What is a task and a note - OS X iCal/Mail/Gmail vs. Outlook vs. Claris Organizer.

From what I read then it semed 10.5 Mail.app was following an unusual Tasks/Notes behaviors last seen in Claris Organizer (later Palm Desktop), and that Mail.app was becoming a PIM without a Calendar.

Which is kind of weird, but I figured it would all make sense when I got 10.5.

Wrong.

First, a digression.

Millions of people use OS X. Lots of well regarded bloggers write about OS X. So how come I'm the only one to get worked up over Apple's astoundingly screwed up approach to Tasks? I mean, I Google to see if anyone else has noticed the problem and I come up with my own comments from before I had 10.5?!

Shades of the Truman Show.

Ok, back to the post.

I think there are still a few deluded people who think Apple is uniformly excellent.

I can cure them of that. Try this experiment with the very latest version of OS X 10.5.5.

1. Create a task A in Mail.app. Notice that you cannot add a Note to it. Your "task" is a one liner.
   
2. Create a note B in Mail.app. Notice that you can "promote" it to a Task ("C"). You will now have a Task C with a Note B [1]
3. Switch to iCal.app. Look at Task C from Step 2. It doesn't have a Note in iCal. Add a note "D" in iCal to Task C.
4. Switch back to Mail.app. You will see Task C with Note B, but you will not see Note D. If you hold your mouse over the task long enough you'll see a read-only view of the iCal Note.
5. Paste plain text into a Mail.app Note. Observe the formatting -- particularly the multiple lines between paragraphs.

So both iCal and Mail.app have their own Task model, with some sort of synchronization of the titles but not the notes. iCal and Mail.app each have their own peculiar implementation of a Note associated with a Task.

I can't recall a comparable design screw-up in 20 years of lots of OSs and platforms.

So how did Apple botch this so badly, and how is this connected to the curious absence of tasks on the iPhone?

Here's my best guess. I don't usually pin Apple's glories or sins on Steve Jobs, but I'll make an exception this time. This has to be his fault.

This smells like a nasty collision between two powerful design teams, neither willing to compromise. When Jobs cares about something, he does seem to resolve these collisions. Obviously he didn't.

Jobs loves the iPhone. It has no tasks. That's another clue.

My guess is that Steve Jobs hates Task lists. He probably has some sort of trick memory and doesn't need them. Maybe it's his rebellion against the left brained world.

We aren't going to see Apple Tasks on the iPhone, or Tasks working on the desktop, until Jobs moves on from Apple.

In the meantime, I suggest

1. Pretend Mail.app does not have tasks.
2. Do not use the Mail.app feature that allows one to create a task linked to an email
3. Do not create a task from a note in Mail.app
4. Do feel free to use Notes in Mail.app if you can imagine any use to them.

If you've read this far, please submit feedback to Apple.

• ical feedback
• mail feedback

Maybe something like this:

Currently Mail and iCal both have a form of "Task" or "To Do" item, but they have different behaviors and Task notes are not shared. So a Task Note created in Mail cannot be read in iCal and vice-versa.

This is not what we expect from Apple. It is embarrassing.

Please integrate Tasks between iCal and Mail. Tasks should have identical attributes, features and Notes in both applications, and should sync with MobileMe and the iPhone.

PS. You can't delete Mail.app tasks, you can only complete them. Sigh.

Update: I found someone else who thinks Apple's implementation is cracked, but I don't think he got as far as sorting out the whacky Notes behavior.

OS X bug: Admin can't take ownership of a locked file

I just ran into a 10.4.11 bug. If I get a chance I'll see if it's fixed in 10.5.

If a regular user locks a file in a shared folder, an admin user cannot unlock it and they cannot change ownership or privileges. The file is inaccessible.

The useless error message is: "The operation could not completed. An unexpected error occurred (error code 120)."

You have to log in as the regular user, click get info on the file and uncheck the locked attribute. Then you can change permissions.

It's easy to see how this bug happened. The "Locked" attribute goes back to Mac Classic 6 -- if not earlier. So this is a collision between a very old access control mechanism and OS X privileges.

I wonder if even "root" can take control of this file.

The error message suggests Apple missed this one. I wonder if it was fixed in 10.5 ...

View Your Google Calendar in Outlook 2007

In theory one can subscribe to .ics (webcal in Microsoft's world) calendars using an obscure setting in Outlook 2007's mail data file options.

In practice, despite using Google's secret .ICS URL (no authentication required), and changing the URL from http to webcal, it didn't work. It seemed to work, but nothing happened and the next day the entry was gone.

This web page describes what didn't work, but the comment I'm quoting does work:

View Your Google Calendar in Outlook 2007 :: the How-To Geek

... I found the way to get around the 'cannot verify that the URL is a valid calendar' problem (for Google calendars, at least) was to:

1. paste the private URL for the ICS file into your browser (Firefox, in my case) location bar
2. change the http:// prefix to webcal://
3. hit enter
4. the browser should then offer to launch the external application (Outlook 2007) for you to handle this URL.
5. Follow the Outlook 2007 prompts and it should subscribe to the calendar ...

Comments are great. Thank you Daniel Pauly.

My guess is that some security fix broke the original function and Microsoft hasn't repaired it. I used IE 7 to do this (Daniel used Firefox), in my IE settings it assigns calendar handling to Outlook.

So now I can see my home calendar next to my work calendar. Not too bad, though not fabulous. Read only of course. If you sync your iPhone with Outlook 2007 this would be a good move towards work/home calendar integration.

BTW, you can't subscribe to a Microsoft Online Calendar from Google Calendar. It should work, but doesn't. Posts on this go back over a year in their Google Group. On the other hand, OS X iCal might be able to subscribe.

ICS is a lousy standard, or at least has been poorly implemented.