If you’re like us you’ve probably had a bunch of problems with Apple’s implantation of CalDAV in iCal (at least in Leopard). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen it get locked up or all kinds of messy, and usually the only way to fix it is to delete a bunch of cache files, reset the sync history, etc. Normally this is tedious process. Well no longer cause there’s an app for that! CalDAV Fixer to save the day!

All this does is run a shell script that clears out your sync history, then moves all the potentially corrupted CalDAV data from your calendar library folder to the trash. If something disastrous happens you can roll back by dragging all the .caldav folders from the trash back into ~/Library/Calendar. After you run it you’ll have to re-setup your CalDAV accounts.

Leopard only!

I offer this up without any warranty, implied or otherwise. Also with no promise of support whatsoever. If it breaks your stuff, sorry but I warned you. TBG is not responsible for any data loss or any sort of loss whatsoever. Be it financial or otherwise. Always back up your data before running!

SPOILER ALERT: You can always improve on something great!

We’re now in our third year of The Barbarian Group’s collaboration with Kashi. We’re calling this release a refresh rather than a redesign. To clarify, think about the project as a house. When you do a redesign, it’s like tearing down a home to its foundation and starting fresh. That’s not what was needed here, for our foundation was already stable, our website was already successful. Think of this release like remodeling a kitchen, it’s an improvement of what was working, and an optimization of what wasn’t. So we put on our thinking caps and many months later, we’ve surprised ourselves yet again!

The countless improvements to the site are too many to list, but some of our favorites include: a redesigned navigation system, a dynamic footer showing the current community activity, a vastly improved commenting system, a simplified sign up and log in system, an improved look and feel, and of course, a ton of IA and UX refinements. And that’s just what the user see’s. The site is faster, more enjoyable, easier to use, and most importantly, easier to find what you are looking for and more likely to discover things you didn’t know were here. On top of this, we are already working on a number awesome super secret features and updates to be launched soon, so stay tuned for those in the coming months!

We love this client, and we hope you enjoy the site!

Last Friday, Pfeffer and I engaged in a back office battle in order to decide who was entitled to the shanty in the back room. The first part of our battle involved shotgunning a beer, a ritual I had never participated in before and one that Pfeffer claimed to be a touch too messy for his liking.

The next Monday, as I was unpacking my belongings in the shanty and watching Pfeffer sulk while he drank his coffee, we chatted about the previous Friday’s shotgunning event. We decided it was nice way to end a hard week at work. A great stress reliever if you will.

So we decided to make it a tradition and this Friday celebrated the end of the week on the roof. We were joined by our lovely Mayor of The Barbarian Group, Nick Bonadies. Nick had extended an invitation to all offices to join us in celebrating Shotgun Friday but after opening up the video conference line all we found was one Anthony Dines asleep on the couch in SF. Oh well, to the roof we went and Sabih joined us and captured the event on video.

You know that Red Bull makes an energy drink. You may even know that Red Bull puts on those wild events where people drive shit off a dock into water. BUT did you know that Red Bull invented it’s own sport (Red Bull Air Race) or a helicopter that can do a back flip? Has two Formula 1 teams? Hosts a Cliff Diving world series? Could definitely take your dad in a fight? Throws the biggest world wide break dance competition? Made downhill full contact ice hockey racing a real thing? Probably not.

That was the problem for Red Bull online: diffused presence, minimal cross-pollination of their awesome properties, poor search, and no clean way to show off and share their sickness. The truth is, Red Bull is everywhere, and they wanted to show everyone who has ever taken a sip of their magical beverage what they mean by “Red Bull Gives You Wings”.

We spent the last few months working with Red Bull and just launched the new Redbull.com! It’s pretty fabulous really. We took all their different properties across the globe, housed them within one awesome CMS, made the site content driven, and got out of the way of all the sick content that you really want to see. Oh yeah, and it’s built in HTML (unlike their previous sites that had heavy use of Flash) so it’s now search friendly and easily shareable and trackable. Bitchin, right?

Take a look at the homepage. It’s built to be modular and highlight the best of the best. It even has a feed that is sortable by media type.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the potential abuse, misuse, and overuse of push notifications on iPhone OS 3.0. I wrote about it on my site: Badge Blindness and iPhone Push Notifications.

Warning: I use a colorful word or two and disparage digital advertising. Needless to say, my views don’t necessarily represent those of my employer, colleagues, or industry. But you know I’m right.

If the benefit isn’t clearly obvious from the title, let me explain why you would want to set up something like this in your office network. Bandwidth is expensive. Especially if you need a bunch of it and require a solid SLA. Apple updates can be HUGE; the most recent Mac OS 10.5.7 combo update clocked in at a whopping 729MB. Now imagine you have an office of 20 people all using the same internet connection to download the same package from the same place. Madness right?

They’ve just saturated your inbound link and business is grinding to a halt! If you’re in this position you’re already too late, and you’ll have to make up for it using some fancy QoS rules or blocking traffic from the Apple software update servers all together. Don’t live in fear of the next Mac OS update because now you have time to set up your very own Apple software update server!

Lets get to the good tech bits…

Starting today, I will be posting a series of Proust-style interviews with various Barbarians. The interview, 20 questions plus a bonus question, takes place over IM at work and may be edited for extreme vulgarity and boring content.It’s my hope that we all learn a little bit more about the people that make The Barbarian Group so awesome. For clarification: my responses/ notes are in bold italics.

For the first ever installment of the Questionnaire Extraordinaire we interview Barbarian developer, Alex Bisceglie, and learn many new and obscure things. Let’s begin!

So I’m working on a video player.
Big deal.

So I can change the color of the controls of the video player.
Big deal.

So I can change the colors with CSS.
Whoa.

Thats right. Click through to read more.