It frustrates me that so many different services have a calendar function, and yet it's still a pain in the ass to make sure that my personal calendar is up to date. More often than not I find myself manually creating events using copy-and-paste, instead of the event being automatically created for me by whatever service I'm using.

If you happen to be a Facebook Events user, a utility called EventSync can help you keep your iCal calendar application on your Mac up to date with your Facebook events. It's smart enough to allow you to choose to sync all events, or only those that you have accepted (amongst other options). Development is active on the utility too, and Hawk Wings reports that version 2.0 will include the ability to display the flyers and images associated with the Facebook events.

EventSync is donationware for the Mac platform.

As we all marvel at the miracle of modern technology today (you're soaking in it right now), let's raise a glass to your local System Administrator: the guy or gal or team who keep the servers humming and the network intact and safe. Have a happy SysAdmin day today, the 10th anniversary of the "event," and take your IT crew out to lunch or something.

Here's a gallery of sysadmin pics we found on the internet, but feel free to share your own in the comments or tag a Flickr photo "downloadsquad" and it'll appear in our tag pool.

Looking for a conference to polish your year off? If you are a regular user of Adobe products like Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator, the Adobe MAX event could be for you. But you have to empty your pockets first.

Adobe MAX is an event targeted at Adobe users that aims to connect them with other users, discover what can be done with the applications, and inspire others to create. The conference will being an opportunity to meet other users and grab some sneak peaks at what's coming out of Adobe next. There will be training on Adobe's products and solutions, and networking events. Speakers for the North America event include Grant Skinner, Mike Chambers and Erik Natzke.

MAX will be held in North America, Europe and in Japan, and cost a fortune. $1,295 US for general attendance, so make sure your company will spot you. Students, there is an educational discount, but its only $200 off. A one day pass can be purchased for $595, which is still rather pricey.

• Chicago - September 30 to October 3 2007
• Barcelona, Spain - October 15-18 2007
• Tokyo, Japan - November 1-2

MyPunchbowl, the online party planning application, uses an algorithm to pick the best date for an event based on the actual responses of people that RSVP to the invitation. The "Pick a Date" feature recommends the best date from a set of dates that are supplied by the hosting party, in real time. As responses are received, the algorithm then recalculates the best possible date based on individual's status and VIP stature. The best date can either be selected by the host at anytime, or a new date can be easily made without the recommended date as a guide.

This sure beats spending hours sending out invitations and calling around to try and organize a party that everyone can attend.

Event planning and management driving you crazy? Setdot could be for you.

Setdot is an easy way to manage and plan events online. Registration isn't yet open, but there is a list to join if you are interested in getting in on some hot Beta action.

Through Setdot, users can create stylish and professional looking events using different themes. Setdot can be used for a variety of events including anything from corporate functions, to house parties. You can check out a sample of Setdot in action here. There is support for location maps and a guest collaboration feature.

There is no word yet as to whether this will be a free service, or if there will be a fee for use, but from the sample shown, it is sure to help in the organization of events.

Other online event planning applications include Socializr, MyPunchbowl, Planzo, Skobee and EventWax.

Getting hitched soon? Or know a friend that is? This is the perfect tool to use to ensure everyone gets to your wedding events on time.

Wedding Mapper is an online tool that allows people to map out their wedding and all events associated with it so that friends, family and photographers can locate places easily on an interactive map. The mapping tool is free to use, and doesn't take long at all to set up.

Users can get started by entering the location where the wedding is taking place, then entering the date, or dates, that it will take place and Names of the bride and groom. After that, you're brought to the map where you simply drag and drop pinpoints to specify locations, or enter an address to show the exact spot. Photos, Descriptions, Locations and Comments can be added to each so everyone can be provided with as much information is necessary to get to the event on time, and not get lost.

The site is supported by ads, which can be removed for a one time fee of $9.95. That membership also includes a custom URL, ability to add links to wedding registries or other services, and file uploading for wedding invitations that can be printed out.

[via Emily Chang]

Feel like partying in the DC area tonight, but don't know what's going on? dclicio.us is going to help.

dclicio.us is built with the lovely Ruby on Rails and aggregates events for the Washington DC area. Users sign up for a free account and add their favorite artists, or import them from iTunes, so they can be monitored and notified of the events arrival in the city. dclicio.us Show aggregation shows a listing of events in the DC area, where users can click off and bookmark shows of interest that get added to a special My Shows category. Events can then be read through an RSS feed, and imported and updated through iCal or Google Calendar.

This type of site has a lot of potential for other markets as well, but no word as of yet if dclicio.us plans to expand beyond the beltway.

[via Web2.0Show]

What Friendster and Facebook have done with personal social networking, Socializr hopes to accomplish with event planning. Socializr was created by the founder of Friendster and a player in the social networking phenomenon, so it does have its similarities. A private test has been running since September 2006, with the live launch occurring last Friday.

Socializr is a free online service for people who want to start or share event and party information between friends and contacts. When setting up an account you can import contacts from a ton of sources (Friendster, MySpace, Flickr, Yelp, Evite, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, Gmail, Outlook or CSV). Setting up an event is relatively easy, choose a pre designed Socializr invite for a number of events including weddings, clubbing, Christmas party, birthdays, births, sweet 16's, graduations, and dinner parties, or design your own. Enter your events information and invite away! ( dont' forget the event date, time, location, and details).

[via webware]

EventWax is a web-based service for organizing events. Through the web site, event organizers can publish an event site, accept payments, and manage the event attendees' registration. The initial system was built as a way for a company to organize and manage a conference. The EventWax system is simple to use and can be customized and hosted on your own web site or through EventWax. You can accept payments though PayPal and quickly search the attendee details. All data that the systems captures can be exported as a spreadsheet or XML for easy archiving or referencing. If you organize events, or are thinking about organizing events, try this tool out--you'll love its simplicity, and power.

Check out some screen grabs of the EventWax interface after the jump.

While you were busy learning how to sync your Google Calendars and Gmail with Outlook, the search giant cranked out some unique new Calendar features and fired up their translation engines. First on the list is the addition of 'web content events' - you can now easily add icons to the top of your calendars that display the weather, phases of the moon and when new Google Doodles land on their search page. You can even publish this new data in the iCal format, and instructions on all this can be found at the announcement post.

The other big update is the addition of 17 new languages to the Google Calendar UI, including: French, Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Polish, and English (UK) (those are all links to Google Calendar in their respective tongues).

As usual, these are good updates to a nice Google service, but I can't help dinging them for blatantly missing some of the fundamentals of the calendaring paradigm, such as a bloody todo list (like, um, every other calendar app on the planet) and the ability to set alarms on all events, instead of just those in the default calendar.

I don't want to sound ungrateful though, as I am a happy user of gCal, and thankfully, users in 17 new languages can be too.

Rejoice, fellow Backpack users, for 37Signals today added a much-requested new feature for paid users: a calendar. As you may come to expect from the traditional KISS approach of 37Signals, the calendar is incredibly easy to use and enter appointments into. It's also 'smart', as it can figure out what events like "January 7 Catherine's birthday" and "6:30pm Dinner" mean, and it will place them where they need to go. Users can also create multiple calendars and assign unique colors to each, and events are pleasantly drag-and-drop-able between days. Unlike Google Calendar, this Backpack Calendar can remind you of events no matter which calendar they are entered into, however the reminders (at least for now) are set at a static 30 minutes before the event. Calendars are also shareable and subscribe-able via the iCal format, and just as with Backpack pages, calendar addresses are able to be reset, should you find a need to stop sharing one down the road. The one thing I haven't tested yet is whether this calendar has any kind of accessibility via Backpack mobile. If you try this out, sound off.

As a paid Backpack user (just the Basic $5 plan), I have to say: I am pleased. I retreated from using Google Calendar a little while ago, in part because of the silly limit of only being able to receive reminders for events in the Personal calendar, and no others. Plus, this is another great reason to start using my Backpack account even more, especially since I've found a killer offline Backpack client by the name of Packrat, which I've blogged on TUAW. One downer that I can see from this new calendar being a paid-only feature, however, is that (as far as I know) free account users don't have any way of testing it out. I guess freeloaders (just kidding) could spend the $5 to 'temporarily' upgrade and test it out, then simply downgrade if they aren't happy. Ultimately, I think this calendar feature is almost worth the $5 alone for any Backpack user looking for a little more organization in their lives.