Shoulda known folks would ask. 
There is the free way and the $30 way; I recommend the $30 way because the free way is a bit of a pain.
The free way is Airset. Create an account and follow the confusing and byzantine menu items to subscribe to your Google calendar’s iCal link, which you can find by poking around in the Google calendar settings (it has HTML, XML, and ICAL buttons; use the ICAL one). Airset sucks the events out of Google calendar. Then you download the sync software and sync Airset with your Palm desktop software, but you have to go through a abominably complicated serious of steps with setting up Airset groups for each Palm category, and it takes a few tries to get these to work right with the Google iCal subscription. It can be done, though, if you spend an entire day messing with it. I know this from experience. Sigh. (I have this personality problem where once I think a thing SHOULD WORK I become like a pit bull and can’t leave it alone until it does, whether I’m going to USE the thing or not!) The sync software from Palm to Airset does work pretty well once you get it all patched together, but I nixed this because Airset updates Google’s subs only when it feels like it (once a day or so) and I’m just not that interested in so much hassle for a time-saving enterprise. But that’s just me.
The $30 way is CompanionLink for Google, with which after some minor tweaking adds about 30 seconds to a regular Palm sync and sha-bang, you’re good to go. Here is an example of how to get a separate Google calendar to match a Palm category (this would be the “minor tweaking”; if you are less geeky it will just work right away and you will say oooo! aaahhh!). I had my main Google calendar and added a second one for school stuff so I could view only due dates, exams, and such if I wanted to. I called it, shockingly, “School stuff.” Then I opened the Palm Desktop program and added the category “School stuff” and did the same on the Palm BEFORE using the CompanionLink software (which lets you pick which Google calendars to sync and such without being a huge pain in the butt). This way my “School stuff” Google calendar events appear on the Palm as being in a “School stuff” category. If you don’t create the categories on the Palm side first, less desirable events happen. They might want to document that. Fortunately, you readers have NNR to warn you. 
I really like Google calendar. It’s a lot faster to add things to it than to my Palm calendar with all their Quick Add options and integration with Gmail. I can even text-message it “lunch with karen tomorrow at 12pm” and the event appears, or you can text it to get your schedule for the day if (a) you’re without your PDA AND (b) your phone’s internet connection isn’t working. Hey! It could happen.
And in case the next question is about Google calendar on cell phones: if you’re lucky enough to have a cell phone that GooSync supports, by all means use it. It syncs with your phone’s built-in calendar. If not, Google just released a mobile calendar Web app at http://mobile.google.com/calendar/ that’s slick enough for moi.
You’re a peach!
Thanks for the info,
Markie
Oh, hey, thanks for this, because I liked my Palm, which recently died, but I’d like it much better if it hadn’t freaked out and imported Outlook’s stuff multiple times, and done bizarre things to recurring dates, such as birthdays. ARGH. I dislike Outlook intensely but only used it because of certain functionalities.
I use Google calendar while on the road, but I like it enough to use it all the time–if I could get it to synch.
I seriously am thinking about going back to PAPER. A friend of mine has a Palm/phone combo that is truly fabulous, but it won’t work for me because…my house is in a Cone Of Silence and no cell phone reception can be had. (You have to go into the driveway.)
Sometimes I think paper would be easier (I carry a Moleskine around to scribble things in if I’m in a hurry (fumbling with the PDA does take awhile) and then consolidate later anyway. But I am unwilling to part with the repeating events and not having to repeatedly transfer by hand from calendar to calendar every year…and getting the contact info out of the PDA and into my phone and e-mail software is just so fab! Besides I couldn’t survive nursing school without a PDA anyway. I’m just thrilled I’ve got Gcal on my side now too. Heh. I’ve just found it can be controlled through a Twitter bot and/or SMS…stop me before I have any more geek-asms!
yeah well those are the only two ways i’ve found, i used airset before but dont like it tha much and the 30 bucks way is not a way im gonna take, i prefer to spend the money on ohlala (local starbucks) or a new nintendo DS game.
besides exporting from google and importing into palm i think the best option is to sync the palm with outlook instead of palm desktop and associate it with google calenda, so outlook acts as some sort of bridge between the palm and google calendar.
i havent tried it yet but i think thats the best option yet.
Question? If one is going to go to all the trouble to use Airset, why not just use them instead of Google? I have never tried Airset so what are the pros and cons?
It’s been so long since I did this, I can’t remember very well. I think I didn’t really like Airset’s busy interface and was addicted to Gcal’s SMS integration, perhaps. Anyway I have totally given up on Gcal and use iCal with Missing Sync to sync with my Centro. For those still searching for sync tools, there is Busy Sync, which works better than many other tools (but I still experienced dropped or annoyingly changed events). GooSync also mostly works these days. I just couldn’t find anything that would sync ALL THE TIME and not leave me missing appointments at some point.
I have the same genetic disorder you do. I got it in my head that gcal absolutely should integrate nicely with my Palm as well as some other online calendars.
I eventually gave up on the “other” calendars as it doesn’t seem possible to pass gcal feeds that require HTTP authentication
But I did investigate syncing gcal with my new Centro. I tried a bunch of things that claimed to work, including Airset, gcaldaemon and companionlink.
Nothing came even close to working except for companionlink. However, I would suggest not getting to ambitious with it. When I tried syncing contacts as well as calendar items, everything went fubar. companionlink crashed, records got duplicated, it was not pretty.
But if you are careful and don’t go beyond the unknown limitations, companionlink can work.
I’m sure there will be better, cheaper things in the near future as folks eat up this new gcal API. Calendaring on the web is still surprisingly lacking. I think it will be the next thing to catch up with the rest of the high tech offerings we all are used to.