Here’s an easy way to keep the weather forecast up-to-date in iCal under MacOS X. I’m sure some version of this will work with Outlook under Windows; I just can’t give you the exact commands to use for it.

iCal allows you to subscribe to calendars - it will periodically check if the calendar has been updated and import any changes. You won’t be able to edit the calendar, but it will always show up-to-date information in your iCal. This is a great way to share calendars with other people or to subscribe to calendars that are published on the Internet. I subscribe to calendars which provide US holidays, phases of the moon, and new movies release information.

I use Weather Underground as my primary source for weather forecasts. Weather Underground allows you to get a calendar for a particular zip code. Take a look at the Weather Underground forecast for Cambridge, MA. There’s a green iCal badge on the page. If you click on it, Safari will add the weather forecast calendar for zip code 02138 to iCal for you.

There’s a catch - this addition will be a one-time thing. iCal won’t update the forecast automatically.

To do that, you’ll have to do a little more work.

First, right click (or option-click if you have a single-button mouse or trackpad) on the iCal badge. Select Copy Link.

Then go into iCal and pull up the Calendar menu. Select the Subscribe item on it. You should see a dialog that prompts you to enter the URL you wish to subscribe to:

Click in the text box and type COMMAND-V. This will paste the URL you copied earlier into the subscribe box.

Click on the Subscribe button and iCal should automatically pull down the forecast information and then automatically update it in the future.

Once you’ve got this set up, you can also synchronize the forecast onto your iPod using iTunes, and to your cell phone or Palm Pilot using iSync.

[tags]ical[/tags][tags]macintosh[/tags][tags]weather[/tags][tags]weather underground[/tags]

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