You can save your myUSI Calendar entries by exporting them to a file format that is compatible with other calendar programs. The myUSI Address Book offers two calendar formats that it can export directly to, including iCal and  XML. The iCal format is pretty standard and can be imported into most desktop calendar programs like Outlook and web calendar applications such as Google Calendar.

Luckily, it also is format compatible with the new myUSI Calendar application.

If you would like to move your Calendar information from the old myUSI to the new myUSI, here are the steps:

1. Login to the old myUSI by going to www.usieagles.org before May 22, 2009.

2. From the main myUSI page, click the Calendar icon in the upper right corner of the myUSI page.

3. From the main Calendar window, click the Options tab.

4. Then click the Export link in the left hand grey Calendar Options sidebar.

5. Choose the calendar(s) that you would like to export from the Calendars list and click the Add>>  button to move them to the Calendars to Export list.

6. Choose either to Export all events or set a Beginning and Ending date range to export into the iCal file.

7. Select iCal for the Export Format and click the Export button.

8. When the Save Dialog window comes up for your particular browser, choose where to put the export.ics file for safe keeping.

Later we will have instructions for importing an iCal file into the new myUSI Calendar application.

The myUSI support team is experimenting with using screencasts to better support our users.

You can right click on the image below and save the video file to your desktop and it should play with most media players available in Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

If you have the Quicktime plugin, it should play in your browser.

The file is encoded in MP4 format and is 12.8 MB in size.

For more information on what’s happening with and how to get ready for the new myUSI site, go to http://usi.edu/newportal.

Related posts:

How do I save my address book entries?

You can save your myUSI Address Book entries by exporting them to a file format that is compatible with other email programs. The myUSI Address Book offers four email applications that it can export directly to, including Netscape Messenger, Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, and Novell GroupWise. If you use one of these applications for email, by following the steps below you should be able to export your address information from myUSI and into the application with little effort.

However, many people don’t use these specific desktop email applications or they use one of a miriad of Web based email accounts. Luckily, most of these programs will accept address book and contact data in a comma separated values, or CSV, file format. It turns out that the Microsot Outlook format that the myUSI Address Book exports is a CSV file. So, exporting your contact data using the Microsoft Outlook option is probably the most portable version overalll.

Exporting (Saving) Your Address Book Entries

If you have not already done so, go to the email Import/Export screen:

Login to myUSI.

Click the email icon.

Click the Address Book tab.

Click the Import/Export button.

Now, locate the Export section at the bottom of the window and choose the program/format that you want to export your contacts to. Probably the most compatible format is Microsoft Outlook (which, as we said, is a CSV formatted file).

Now click the Export Now button. You should see A “File Download” dialogue box (or similar) appear. In the dialogue bot, choose to “Save this file to disk” and click the OK button. In the “Save As” (or similar) dialog that appears, choose a directory where you would like to save the file.

You now have a file (the default name is CPAddressBook.csv) that is a backup of all your contact information on myUSI. You should be able to directly import it into your email program or service of choice.

Note: Importing file problems can result from fields being named different things in your email program or service than they were in myUSI or the fields may be ordered differently. One way to resolve this problem is to export your address book from your preferred email or service of choice and open both that exported (probably CSV formatted) file and opening your exported myUSI exported file in separate spreadsheets.

You should then be able to copy field data from the myUSI file into your program or service’s CSV file with little difficulty. When you are done, a simple import of the program or service’s CSV file with the additional entries from myUSI should sync everything up nicely.

We’ll have a detailed guide of these troubleshooting steps in the future.

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For more information on what’s happing with and how to get ready for the new myUSI site, go to http://usi.edu/newportal.

We maintain a page of quick links to many of the tools and patches discussed in the myUSI FAQ. You can find it at http://media.myusi.org/myusifaq/tools/

On this page you will find tools that help make computing safer for you such as anti-virus software, anti-spyware and anti-malware software, and data protection software.

You will also find free software that we recommend for everyday use, such as the browsers Firefox and Opera. If you are looking for a free alternative to Microsoft Office, we recommend Open Office.

Once on the tools, bookmark it for future use as we will continually provide recommendations to new software, tips, and articles that will enhance your computing experience

If something is missing, let us know, and we will add it.