Setting up and Basic Use of Google Calendar
Google Calendar is an easy to use calendar client. The strength of Google Calendar, along with an easy-to-use interface, is that it is stored, and shared, online. You can make any number of calendars under your account, and set them up to be public, semi-public (as in shared only with certain people), or private. This allows you to co-ordinate and communicate your events with other people.
As an extra benefit, if you use any other Google applications (like Google Mail), the same account is used for all the applications, so you can access and use multiple integrated-features acorss the Google system.
Setting up a Google Calendar account is simple, requiring only a few basic steps.
Once you have loaded the Google Calendar site, you will need to setup a new account (if you don't already have a Google account). On that front page, there will be a big link saying "Don't already have a GooGle Account? Create a New Google Account". Click the link.
You will be prompted to fill in a series of blanks. This is just your usually basic information (name, email address to confirm account, desired user name and password). Fill in the blanks and confirm. This will create your account.
From then on, you will only need to load the Google Calendar front page, and use the login box to log into your account.
The first time you officially log into your account, you will have one more prompt to fill out. This is just asking for your to reconfirm what basic information you want displayed on your calender (first and last name, location, and time zone of use). This aids in synching up your calendar with the Google system (and there by, other clanedars you share with).
Congratulations! You have now setup your Google Calendar account.
Using Google Calendar is as easy as setting it up. The main screen will display with your calendar. To add an event, simply click on the calendar at the day/time you want to add in your "event" (such as "12:00" on "Tuesday"). This will pop up a balloon, which you can use to name your event ("Breakfast with Mom" or "Meeting with Investors").
You can further edit your events. Clicking the event you've created, you can click for more options, which will pull up a new screen. Here you can edit the details of the event (length of time, what day, where the event is), add Guests that can see the event (sharing the event), and even add discussion to the event (like a chat or blog).
As one final option you can easily experiment with, from your main screen you can add additional calendars, display multiple calendars, share entire calendars, and color code calendars, as well as search for other users and user calendars.
You should now be ready to start using your new calendar client.