Frequently Asked Questions

Will UMC2009 work in my electronic calendar?

UMC2009 is usable with most electronic calendars on PC, Mac, or PDA platforms. It should work on any platform that imports or uses iCal or vCal formats.

What is the most common mistake people make when downloading UMC2009?

Based on reported issues, the most common mistake new users make is left-clicking on the actual ical or vcal file download link rather than right-clicking when using the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser. Right-clicking brings up a list of alternatives from which the user should left click on “Save Target As.” This permits users to download and save the UMC2009 data file in a folder on the hard drive. Then the user can open Outlook and, from the file menu, import the file that was downloaded and saved.

Users who instead left-click directly on the link trigger an automatic Outlook feature that adds only the first event into their calendar. The system presumes the file contains a single date event (like an appointment), which, of course, it does not. The UMC2009 data file contains 116 events. Internet Explorer is the most common browser, but each browser has a different protocol to follow when downloading a file. Instructions for downloading with some of the popular browsers are given as part of the download process.

When I downloaded the UMC2009 file, why did it put only the first entry in my Outlook?

This sometimes occurs when a step is omitted in the download process. If, with Internet Explorer, a person clicks on the download link, only the first date will be automatically inserted in your Outlook calendar and all or most of the other dates will be ignored. Instead of left-clicking on the file link, right-click on the file link and select "Save Target As." Left-click on this selection. This will open a Save dialog window and give you a chance to save the file that you are downloading in a folder of your choosing. We recommend browsing to "My Documents" in the Save In window and saving the downloaded file in that folder. Then, open your Outlook calendar and import the file according to the installation instructions.

What else should I know before downloading UMC2009?

Before you download and import the file into your calendar, refer to your calendar or PDA documentation. Some calendars do not import iCalendar (.ics) files. If your application uses vCalendar (.vcs) files, you will need to download the file associated with your time zone.

How do I remove the UMC2009 file from my Outlook Calendar?

Importing UMC2009 into Outlook messes up the entries for half of the year.

Assuming you have downloaded the proper .ics file for Outlook, the described situation occurs because of a Windows time setting. To adjust your computer time settings (in Windows XP), go to Start Menu > Settings > Control Panel > Date and Time. Make sure that "Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes" (below time zone selection) is selected. Use the directions above to remove the data from Outlook, and then re-import the UMC2009.ics file.

If you have Windows Vista and receive automatic updates, your system should be automatically configured correctly for Daylight Saving Time. To check this, go to Start Menu > Control Panel > Date and Time. Under the Time Zone section, you should see information about whether Daylight Saving Time is in effect and when it will change.

 

Although I imported UMC2009 into Outlook, the date events do not sync to my Mobile 6 device. Why? (modified 1/25/08)

Apparently Windows Mobile 6 and its Active Sync software is a little overactive. It seems to have learned to distinguish a manually entered event from an imported event, and someone decided that it would be best to, without asking, totally ignore imported events when syncing. (UMC2009 event data is “imported” into Outlook.)

Raj Pillai, from Microsoft, has given us the following workaround. If you have Outlook 2003 or later and ActiveSync with Windows Mobile 6, follow these directions:

This involves a bit of work but it synchronizes all the events with the WM 6.0 device.  What you need to do is create a new Calendar folder and move all the appointments from your main calendar to this new Calendar folder. To do this easily and quickly, follow these steps:

1. Open Outlook 2003 or higher and go to the Calendar.
2. Right-click the Calendar folder in the Folder pane or select New > Calendar, (Outlook 2007), which open the “Create New Folder” dialog box. Create a new folder called Calendar Type.
3. Click View > Arrange by > Current View > By Category (This will list all your events by category.)
4. Select All (Ctrl + A) and drag the selected items into your new folder.
5. Once this is done, import your appointments via the iCalendar file and you will find the appointments in the main Calendar. 
6. From the menu, select File > Import and Export > Select Export to a file > Select "Personal folder file (.pst) and select the Calendar folder (do not check the option to include sub folders) and follow the prompts to create the .pst file.  This pst file will contain only the iCalendar appointments and can be distributed for Import into Outlook just in the manner you were distributing the iCalendar file.

Once the pst file is created, you can delete all the appointments in your main Calendar in Outlook (if you wish), and move the other appointments from your temp folder using the steps given earlier.

 

I have a Blackberry. How can import UMC2009 onto it?

A customer writes: “I have Palm Desktop from my old Treo, and I had you eCalendar on that from my Treo. From Palm Desktop I exported the the eCalendar file to a .dba file. Then I went on to Yahoo and in MyYahoo added the desktop calendar. I imported the .dba file to MyYahoo's calendar. Then I opened the Blackberry Desktop Manager and opened the sync program. There is an option in the configuration program to import the Yahoo desktop calendar. I had to open my internet explorer and go to myYahoo before running the sync. When I ran the sync program from Blackberry it loaded the eCalendar data onto my smart phone. If someone has any calendar program that exports to .dba format this should work.”  

I have a Sony Clie T615C PDA, with Avantgo and Mobile Gabriel. With UMC2009 installed, Avantgo gives me a "Fatal Exception—Reset" message. What's wrong?

UMC2009 events are installed under their own category (UMC2009).  The “installation” of UMC2009 is really an addition of “events” with their respective information. Uninstalling UMC2009 is a matter of removing these events, which can be done by category (remove all events under the category, etc.). The error, raised by the Avantgo software, is a message that indicates some condition has occured that prevents Avantgo from running and resets the program. UMC2009 is data is not a program and makes no configuration changes.

Solution:  Delete Avantgo and all of its associated files from the PDA, and then reload it from the website.