How do you review a program that has 86 pages worth of instruction manual? How do you look at program so powerful that you know you can never possibly have a use for all the commands? Easy … you don’t. Frankly, I’m not even going to try showing you or telling you everything you can do with PI Calendar. 

PI Calendar if anything is a stunningly beautiful application. From the very first pda I purchased I wanted something more colorful than the built in application. When I moved to a PPC 2003 device, I shortly after found Pocket Informant. I’ve been using it ever since.

Pocket Informant is by far one of the most powerful applications for managing PIM data on the market. But what if you don’t really need all that power, or find yourself a little overwhelmed by everything Pocket Informant can do? What if you just want a good looking calendar that adds a bit more functionality than the built-in application? Well, then PI Calendar just might be what you’re looking for.

Read on for more….

PI Calendar is built off of the same engine that Pocket Informant is built on, so you know its a high quality, time tested application … not one that was just thrown together overnight. Essentially this program is just the calendar portion of PI, so you don’t get the contacts, notes, tasks and full search functionality that you got with Pocket Informant Professional. That however doesn’t mean that this version is watered down – not in the least.

PI Calendar includes five different views: Agenda, Day, Week, Month and Timeline. Along with these views you can categorize appointments, link to tasks, and filter each view depending upon the information you wish to see.

As you can see I’m far from a calendar junkie. Much more of an email junkie. I’m working on that though as I’ve picked up a copy of Getting Things Done (GTD) and I plan on finding a way to get myself a little more organized. At which point I’ll likely do a follow up with PI Calendar and include some things I’ve found useful. For now, though I’m going to leave you with a short list of what PI Calendar can do –

• Category Icons can be assigned to appointments to help you visually organize and quickly identify upcoming events
• Select multiple days from the month view and zoom in on those days … basically your own custom view. Great for figuring out what weekend is the best to have a bar-b-que!
• Filter views by Category
• Category colors can be assigned changing the appointment text or background
• Drag and drop support – changed an appointment? Drag it to the new day… simple!
• Multiple timezone support – got an appointment at 9am next week  in Boston, but you live on the west coast? It’s easy to add the appointment in the correct time zone without all the math!
• And there’s more …

That’s it for now. Keep your eyes open for a follow up (and much more useful) review of PI Calendar where I plan on having a whole lot more to say. I haven’t even scratch the surface it would appear.

Keep in mind though that PI Calendar doesn’t have to be tough… as I said I’m no calendar junkie and I have yet to figure out all the details. I use PI Calendar for simple stuff, in very point and click type fashion. I’ve no use (right now) for indepth task tracking, linking, but no matter if you’re a hard core GTD Lifehacker type or a simple just like it’s hanging on my wall type, give PI Calendar a try – I think you’ll like it!

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