Google has made some updates to its Calendar product recently. Google introduced a new tool that gives users the ability to auto-sync their Outlook calendar with their Google Calendar and vice versa. Say goodbye to manual syncs!Keeping calendars, contacts, and other information in sync between devices can often be a pain. Especially if you use different platforms or applications at work and at home. Well, users who take advantage of both Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook's calendar will begin to feel less pain if they use a new tool made available by Google.

The tool, which is a piece of software that must be downloaded and installed on your PC, will automatically sync events between the Google and Outlook calendars. Google said in an entry on its Official Enterprise Blog, "If you add an event in your Microsoft Outlook calendar, it will automatically sync to Google Calendar and be accessible at any time, whether you're using a browser or a mobile phone. Similarly, if you schedule an event with a future pop-up reminder in Google Calendar, you will automatically see that reminder in your Microsoft Outlook calendar on your computer. Your Microsoft Outlook calendar and Google Calendar are automatically kept up to date, leaving you free to use whichever one you want."

But wait, that's not all (said in my best Billy Mays impression). Google also is providing some privacy tools so that your contacts can only see the information that is shared directly with them. Google also wrote, "You can set the default privacy level in Google Calendar to 'private' so events synced from Microsoft Outlook calendar are marked private, and only you (or others who you've granted permission to view event details) will see them on Google Calendar. You can also choose to sync in just one direction if you prefer to keep your private data only in Microsoft Outlook calendar, or only in Google Calendar."

As always, the new tool is free for Google Apps users.