Missing Link

Snow Leopard: Beating Microsoft at their own game.

by John on Sep.02, 2009, under Personal

snow_leopardIt should come as no surprise to anybody that I am an Apple fan. I use Mac’s almost exclusively (I do have a Windows 7 / Ubuntu Linux dual boot workstation in my home office…. along with a 24″ iMac ) and am sometimes very outspoken about the benefits of using Apple hardware and devices.

The reason for that is simple: for MOST things, and MOST people, Apple’s products just work.  And, when it doesn’t just work, it’s usually fairly easy to GET it to work.  It’s NOT perfect, and I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes it can be downright annoying when it doesn’t work. Overall, though, I find myself a whole lot less frustrated with Apple computers than I do PCs.

Apple just released late last week their latest upgrade to their venerable OS X lineup – OS X 10.6: Snow Leopard.  Many of the most important changes to the OS are under the hood and not easily seen by the average user, but will most definitely add significant performance improvements moving forward. There were a couple of things that were changed that had me excited – the most important of them being native support for Microsoft Exchange.

Like it or hate it, Exchange is a mainstay in the business world. In an effort to make Mac’s more business friendly, Apple has cleverly added in support for it into Mail, iCal, and Address Book.  Using Exchange Web Services (what we all assume will eventually replace MAPI, which Microsoft has indicated is now deprecated), these apps are able to provide a fairly good replacement for Microsoft’s own Entourage (which, up until VERY recently has not supported EWS).

I was excited to see it in action, and on Monday when I finally got a copy at work I excitedly installed it and – with the giddiness of a kid on christmas morning – I fired up Mail and created my Exchange account. And it just… worked. Mostly.

The accounts created just fine for Mail, iCal and Address Book. I could send and receive mail, I could look up Exchange users in Address Book, and I could see my calendar items show up properly in iCal.

A buddy of mine set out to test whether or not the meeting invite functionality worked as expected, and he sent me some meeting invites which I saw in Mail and accepted, and they showed up on my calendar.  The same functionality is available within iCal as well, and works well.  Then I ran into the one problem: I could not create iCal invites.

The following Screen popped up telling me that “iCal can’t save the event “New Event” to the exchange server.”

Screenshot_icalerror

After searching online and finding practically nothing regarding this, I decided to look through Console and see if I could see any errors when I would try creating a meeting.  Sure enough, there were:

9/2/09 11:38:15 AM iCal[1299] -[EWSTimeZoneType:0x114d241d0 initWithStandardTimeZoneName:] TimeZone for US/East-Indiana is nil

9/2/09 11:39:28 AM iCal[1299] error = Error Domain=CalExchangeErrorDomain Code=-4 UserInfo=0×116217bd0 “iCal can’t save the event ‘New Event’ to the Exchange server.”

I remembered seeing in the Advanced tab of the iCal preferences an option to enable time zone support – so I went and made sure that was enabled. I thought perhaps, given the messages iCal was putting in Console, this was a timezone issue.  I checked the timezone settings in iCal to find it set to just Eastern Time, and didn’t seem to be set to use Eastern Time with Indianapolis as my closest city, so I configured it correctly in iCal.  I checked my system’s timezone settings and they too were not set (something in the upgrade must have changed this, as they were set before the upgrade), so I set those too.

After making these two changes I’ve been able to send meeting invites without any problems.  Now all is right in the world.

The Exchange support is pretty darn cool. It’s not perfect, and it doesn’t offer feature parity with the likes of Outlook, but it’s not meant to. It certainly performs snappier and has a cleaner interface than Entourage. Plus – it’s just darn cool to get an Operating System (for $50 for a 5 machine license) that has native, out of the box, support for Exchange.

Now – to be fair and open and honest – to use these features you MUST be running Exchange 2007, WITH service pack 1 and security rollup 4 (or greater). It WILL NOT work with earlier versions – so don’t get it and get mad when it doesn’t work because you don’t have the right version of Exchange.

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31 Comments for this entry

  • sayerbloke
    September 2nd, 2009 on 1:53 pm

    My brother tried picking up his copy again today, but the shop are now saying they won’t have it in until friday at the earliest.

    Reply
  • John
    September 2nd, 2009 on 1:57 pm

    ouch! I thought I had it bad having to wait until this past Monday…

    Reply
  • Chad O
    September 3rd, 2009 on 3:40 pm

    How did you view the errors in the console? I’m having a similar issue and am trying to troubleshoot the iCal/Exchange 2007 sync problmes.

    Reply
  • KittyMarie
    September 4th, 2009 on 8:00 am

    Sorry, my eyes glazed over after the second sentence…:)

    Reply
  • KittyMarie
    September 8th, 2009 on 7:39 am

    I would put money on that…

    Reply
  • Peter Van Tienen
    September 10th, 2009 on 3:45 pm

    I too was having the issue where iCal couldn’t save the event to the Exchange server. I found it was only happening when I was adding a cal invite that included an attendee. I was getting the attendee’s email address from Mail (select and copy address). It was copying the persons full name and their email address in . When I was trying to save the calendar event it was giving me the error you had above. When I modified the email address to just the “address” it worked like a charm. A little frustrating I guess since I was asking Mac Mail to copy the address…

    Hope this helps.

    Reply
    • John
      September 10th, 2009 on 3:49 pm

      Thanks for your feedback Peter!

      Did you happen to look in Console to see what errors iCal was logging there? I’m wondering if they are the same underlying issue or are two separate issues.

      Reply
  • Digerati
    September 13th, 2009 on 9:23 am

    Hi John,

    A very good and informative blog.

    “How does snowleopard beats microsoft at their own game ?”

    Your articles are very informative and I have helped a few friends by following some of your articles, dont get me wrong or that i am trying to start a apple v microsoft discussion here. but to be honest, Snow Leopard is a Service Pack, with “under the hood” enhancements and some features which Apple should have had since the time of leopard, ofcourse they have transitioned from a different platform (PowerPc) and which is why they are polising it all the way along.

    In my humble view SL 10.6 is a service pack, Also, Apple releases almost as many updates for their OS (weekly, monthly) as Microsoft does for their OS.

    What I am seeing over the internet is flashy and catchy headings on SL reviews but honestly no one has clearly specified as to what have really changed in this NEW Operating System, its just a Service Pack.

    Once again, dont get me wrong as I use mac and windows both and I like both of them

    Have a good day ahead

    Reply
    • John
      September 13th, 2009 on 9:52 am

      No worries – it’s a valid question to be sure.

      10.6 does have the look and feel of a service pack, but it’s not. Much like windows 98 looked almost exactly the same and felt exactly the same as windows 95 – a lot changed under the hood but not a lot with the graphical interface. It most assuredly is a new OS, even if it looks largely the same as the last version.

      How does it beat Microsoft?
      For starters, on price. For a 5 computer license I paid $50. That works out to $10 per computer. Look at Microsoft with windows 7 (which looks like it’s just an improved form of Vista, and more of a service pack than new OS… Your own argument works against that just as well as 10.6) where you’ve got to spend hundreds (especially if you want all the features available in the OS)

      second, it’s leaner and meaner. What do I mean by that? It’s the first time I’ve upgraded an OS and had more hard drive space, 7gigs even, than when I started. It’s also a bit snappier on performance. Not hugely snappier, but I’ve noticed an improvement. Windows 7 (which I also use) is not bad in this regard (speed) but it’s not slimmer – the performance improvements take it back in line to where Vista should have been at release.

      But where I really beats Microsoft at it’s own game is exchange support. 10.6’s exchange support beats entourage hands down – even web services edition of entourage. I’ve used (suffered) with entourage for many months. I have not looked back since moving to 10.6. The fact that for a $30 upgrade you get native support out of the box for exchange is crazy. None of microsofts os flavors – even those targeted to businesses – feature that. You have to spend at least another hundred on the office suite with outlook. The headline had more to do with this (and the fact that it spanks entourage heavily) than anything else really.

      Reply
      • ShoX
        June 1st, 2010 on 11:57 am

        You didn’t quite get, that Entourage is for Mac and MS has not the biggest intentions to provide better Software for Macs than for heir own PCs?

        And “freeing space” means they WASTED space in 10.5

        MS Office (the real, big, useful mother of Entourage) beats the SL-support hands down…. Why?
        Because it is BUILT for just doing that.

        So now STOP bugging around that Mac is better than Windows or Linux or whatever, because if something in ANY OS goes wrong, usually YOU or the Programmer of the PROPRIETARY Software fucked up.

        So guys, get knowledge and stop exposing yourself to laughter.

  • Chris
    September 14th, 2009 on 5:26 pm

    I’m having this issue too and I’m getting the usual:

    2009-09-14 18:22:39.767 iCal[3775:7c7f] -[EWSTimeZoneType:0x1156675b0 initWithStandardTimeZoneName:] TimeZone for Canada/Eastern is nil
    2009-09-14 18:22:40.101 iCal[3775:7c7f] error = Error Domain=CalExchangeErrorDomain Code=-4 UserInfo=0×11652ed60 “iCal can’t save the event “test” to the Exchange server.”

    I have tried setting my Excahnge account to UTC and the client and so on, but it still comes back with this “Canada/Eastern is nil” thing. Is there some other place Mac OS hides the date setting? Is there a text file that can be changed?

    Thanks!

    Reply
  • Chris
    September 14th, 2009 on 8:45 pm

    Actually, I may have yet another solution here! I deleted everything I could find related to iCal that weren’t in the main Applications folder.

    Specifically, I deleted the “Calendars.synschema” folder & the “com.apple.ical” folder. Once I did that I relaunched iCal and it took a while to resynch, but now it behaves just fine.

    Strange. Must be some sort of corrupted info left over from Entourage.

    Reply
    • John
      September 17th, 2009 on 8:24 am

      That IS strange, Chris. I’m glad you were able to get it working so easily.

      I had to set the timezone in both my system preferences and ical itself to get mine to work, though I’m betting I could have gotten the same result from doing this.

      Reply
  • Catherine
    September 17th, 2009 on 6:56 am

    Thank you SO much – I have battled with this error since upgrading to SL and switching from Entourage to Mail at the same time – and not found any relevant help on the forums.

    Just so you know, mine didnt work exactly like yours and you might find this interesting: I got the same error when checking Console. So I checked the iCal preferences and ticked to enable time zone support. I then checked System Preference and chose my time zone (EAT – Cape Town). Sending a invite to people still didnt work. I then went back into the iCal preferences and unselected Time Zone Support – and then it worked! I then went back into iCal preferences again, re-ticked it and it still worked.

    So there is certaibnly something weird happening there but at least my problem has gone away and I can be a happy camper again!

    Thanks again!

    Reply
    • John
      September 17th, 2009 on 8:22 am

      Glad I was able to help point in the right direction!

      Thanks for the additional feedback – it certainly seems the issue is definitely with timezone. I had to set the timezone manually in iCal and my System Preferences to get it to work.

      Anyways – glad you were able to get it working!

      Reply
  • Eugenio Martinez
    September 17th, 2009 on 4:44 pm

    I have another weird error…. I cannot create events of any type…. I can move events from one day to another but can´t create… and I get the following error:

    “9/17/09 4:40:19 PM iCal[305] error = Error Domain=CalExchangeErrorDomain Code=-3 UserInfo=0×115382360 “iCal can’t save the event “test” to the Exchange server.”

    9/17/09 4:40:24 PM [0x0-0x28028].com.apple.iCal[305]2009-09-17 16:40:24.760 iCalExternalSync[316:903] [ICalExternalSync ]The sync server failed to let client iCal pull changes”

    I thought I was so close to make things work… could someone help me?

    Reply
    • Eugenio Martinez
      September 17th, 2009 on 4:54 pm

      Really strange…
      Because I have my iCal to sync every minute…
      If no changes were made on my calendar i will get every minute the same error:

      9/17/09 4:40:24 PM [0x0-0x28028].com.apple.iCal[305]2009-09-17 16:40:24.760 iCalExternalSync[316:903] [ICalExternalSync ]The sync server failed to let client iCal pull changes”

      Reply
      • Eugenio Martinez
        September 22nd, 2009 on 8:51 pm

        John, beside the error I was getting, the problem was the same….. I had on my system (México Central time), and on Ical had the same (Mexico Central Time), and it didn´t work, but they I selected another city on ical but that has the same (Central Time) and everything worked out…… why?? don´t know but I´m happy as hell!!!,,,, thanks a lot!!!

  • John
    March 14th, 2010 on 6:29 am

    A note for those on the East Cost of Australia… ALL the east coast time zones are the same, with the console error always reporting ‘Canberra’… I fixed my calendar with the below steps

    - confirmed system time zone correct
    - turned on timezone option in iCal
    - changed the iCal time zone to Perth
    - made a calendar entry with an attendee and sending, which now worked fine
    - changed time zone back to eastern time
    - tested making a new entry with an attendee and it worked

    Not sure if that second step is needed or not, but the above is exactly what I did and I can now create invites with attendees where as I previously could not. Thanks VERY much to OP!!!! :)

    Reply
  • John
    March 14th, 2010 on 6:33 am

    I meant to say ‘not sure if 4th step is needed’ (I added steps after I wrote 2nd lol)

    Reply
  • Eugenio Martinez
    March 16th, 2010 on 4:27 pm

    John, I still have the same issue, I did all the updates on exchange and on Snow Leopard, still having the same issue….. selecting a Time Zone “Central Standard” solved my issue, but now I have a problem…. because here in Mexico our summer saving time will change three weeks past the US change…. so I have one hour of difference between Central and Mexico Central…. If I choose Mexico Central I can´t create events….. do you know another possible solution??? thanks in advance!!!!

    Reply
  • Khürt L Williams
    March 26th, 2010 on 10:52 am

    I never got iCal working with Exchange 2007. I talked to my Exchange admins and they assured me that they met the requirements that Apple stated on the web site. Mail and Address Book work flawlessly. My solution was to setup Entourage to sync to iCal. So now I can manage my calendar in iCal and be assured it syncs back to the Exchange server.

    Reply
    • John
      March 26th, 2010 on 10:59 am

      Hi Khürt,

      Were you getting any particular error messages in Console for iCal when you were having issues with it and Exchange? If Mail / Address Book work with Exchange then your admins are correct – Exchange meets the requirements (The webservices required weren’t available in earlier versions of Exchange). My problem was relating to properly setting the Timezone data in iCal and on my Mac and making sure they matched.

      I would check Console, though, as that should give you an error message pointing to where to look for a solution. I hate Entourage, so I prefer using straight iCal. Since doing my fix it has worked flawlessly for me. Shoot me the error message from Console and I can help you track down the issue.

      Reply
  • jbscfcmc
    June 16th, 2010 on 10:43 pm

    I have Mac Ox 10.6.3 and a Macbook Core2 Duo. I am trying to convert my old calendars from Palm Desktop to iCal and sync through my University’s Exchange server, so that I can easily synch with my new iPhone (finally ditching my old Palm). [Mail is synching fine between my Macbook and my iPhone, but iCal is another story.]
    My calendars are 80% my own (and complicated) and 20% stuff that comes to me from work through the Exchange server. I have been able to export my calendars from Palm Desktop, import into iCal, and make the necessary adaptations for iCal. What I have found is that my iCal files of my own prior appointments will NOT go into a new calendar on the Exchange server, no matter what I try. (I have tried exporting and importing, going online, etc.) The error message I get repeatedly is
    “iCal can’t delete an occurrence from the repeating the event “xxx” from the Exchange server.
    The account “YYY” currently can’t be modified. To discard your changes…click Revert to Server. To save you changes in your computer until the problem is resolved, click Go Offline.”
    I have all kinds of recurring events that are modified or deleted for exceptions when I am traveling, etc., and I gather Exchange is choking on these.
    However, I can import my calendars into a local calendar on my Macbook. Unless I want to start over from scratch (which means 20+ hours recreating my calendars, no thanks), it looks like I will have to synch my own calenders through iTunes or maybe MobileMe and maintain my work calendar separately through Exchange.
    I have already worked on the time zone issue above, and I don’t think that is likely to be the problem.
    If anyone has any other ideas to simplify this, I would appreciate it.

    Reply
  • John
    September 22nd, 2009 on 9:25 pm

    The issue is with the handling of time zones in Snow Leopard. In my case, my local time zone (Indiana East) is odd, because up until recently we did not observe daylight savings time like most of the United States. It appears that some time zones choices are “funky” like that, and apparently can cause issues. I’ve been told that – as you noted – selecting a different city in the same time zone quite often will resolve the issue completely.

    Thanks for your continued feedback – much appreciated!

    Reply
  • John
    March 16th, 2010 on 9:25 pm

    You should be able to choose cities in Mexico too (try clicking on Mexico on the map, it should allow you to click around to cities there – I was able to anyways).

    Reply
  • John
    June 1st, 2010 on 12:25 pm

    Interesting arguments….

    I actually know a few folks out at Microsoft, all of whom confirmed that the reason Entourage does not have the MAPI protocol (depricated now anyways), is because the Exchange group refused to give the Mac Business Unit (responsible for Office for Mac) access to it. That just shows that Microsoft is perfectly willing to cripple their own software just because it’s on a competing OS / platform.

    You are perhaps the first person I’ve ever heard who tries to turn “Freeing up space” into a negative. Yes – there was space that did not need to be taken up in previous versions of the OS (look at Windows – an OS that everybody recognizes as full of bloat) – instead of letting that continue, however, Apple remedied it and freed up space in the process. I fail to see that as a negative… no matter how you look at it.

    MS Office, for Mac, which includes Entourage…. does not beat SL support. I’ve used both. Entourage is atrocious, cumbersome and kludgy. SL Exchange support is simple, elegant and works. It’s also built in to the OS, meaning I don’t have to buy additional software in order to use Exchange based email (outside of a web browser), calendaring and address book functionality. It works, out of the box, and all I have to do is put in an email address and password.

    Also – if you’ve bothered to do any homework on me you’d realize that I don’t go around simply saying Mac OS is better than Windows or Linux. I actually firmly believe that each OS is mostly good, and have their uses. Mac OS is a great every day OS for me – I like it, enjoy it, and prefer it. Windows (esp. Win7) is equally a good OS, and some people like it and prefer it. Good for them. Linux also is making great strides in many areas. I use all three, depending on what I’m doing.

    So – hop off the Microsoft bandwagon for a bit, get your facts straight, and understand what you’re trying to act like an expert on. It’s pretty obvious you’re not a Mac user, as you’ve obviously got no idea what you’re talking about re: Office for Mac.

    Reply

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