Overview

I am a big Chicago Bulls fan. Blog-a-bull is a great blog for fans. My contribution to the Bulls web presence used to be BullsNewsNetwork.com - but that website never really took off and I let it expire. I've moved on to calendars. I started with Apple's iCal online calendars. Now the iCal spec is supported by many calendar services, including my favorite, Google.

Speaking of Google Calendar - has anyone seen an explanation for why they no longer make it easy to search for public calendars (like mine) inside Google Calendar?

Once I started I realized that what I really wanted was 3 separate calendars: one for the games, one for dates that applied to the entire NBA, and one for Bulls dates (birthdays, anniversaries).

Chicago Bulls Schedule

The 2011 Schedule is out, with national and local TV for regular and preseason.

This is a full screen web view of the calendar I maintain that lists the Chicago Bulls Schedule. A small inline view is available below. This is an http link to the ics file, while this is a webcal link to that same ics file. Finally, this is a link to the calendar in xml. And here is a link to the iCalShare entry and another to the Mark This Date entry.

Since screen real estate is limited on many calendar apps (both PDA and computer) I put the most important info first. A typical entry will be "Heat vs Bulls on TNT" or "Heat @ Bulls on ABC". Additionally, the location field holds the name of the city the game is played in. The description field typically is empty before regular season games. After regular season games I will put in who won, and the score. For playoff games this holds more info, like "Playoffs, Round 1, Game 6". I also add major events - like James Posey shoulder checking Kirk Hinrich, or noting the following game that James Posey was suspended. (Can you tell that I wrote those examples during the 2006 playoffs?)

NBA Dates Calendar

This is a full screen web view of the calendar I maintain that lists NBA Dates. This is an http link to the ics file, while this is a webcal link to that same ics file. Finally, this is a link to the calendar in xml. And here is a link to the iCalShare entry and another to the Mark This Date entry.

This calendar lists things like:

  • Draft Lottery
  • Draft
  • Finals
  • Key Free Agency Dates

    • Chicago Bulls Dates Calendar

    This is a full screen web view of the calendar I maintain that lists Chicago Bulls Dates. This is an http link to the ics file, while this is a webcal link to that same ics file. Finally, this is a link to the calendar in xml. And here is a link to the iCalShare entry and another to the Mark This Date entry.

    This calendar lists things like:

  • Current Player Birthdays
  • Notable Past Player Birthdays
  • Anniversaries of Notable Events
  • Tryouts for Luvabulls, Incredibulls, Matadors, BullsKidz

    • Screenshots

    You can get a good idea of how these calendars look in Google's full calendar client above. The screen shots here will show you how they look in other calendar apps.

    Apple's iCal - month view
    Apple's iCal - detail view
    Mozilla Sunbird - month view
    Mozilla Sunbird - detail view
    iPod - calendar list view
    iPod - month view
    iPod - detail view