But recently, I could barely keep up with everything that happened around me just relying on my biological RAM alone. While I’ve tried several free to do applications to overcome my anxiety, I couldn’t find free apps that can match the power of Apple’s iCal calendar.

So I chose iCal Calendars to help me manage my life better. One problem though, adding multiple tasks and events to iCal requires a rather lengthy process, including keeping it open at all time. Luckily, there’s FlexCal. This small application which reside in the System Preferences is designed to overcome that very problem.

The installation and settings

The installation process is quick and easy. Double click the prefPane file and choose which users you want to install this app to. Unless you use your Mac with several other users and don’t want the other users to use FlexCal, choose “Install for all users of this computer“.

Then the System Preferences will be opened. Since FlexCal is still in 32-bit, System Preferences needed to be restarted before you can tamper with FlexCal settings.

There are several things that you should adjust to make FlexCal comfortable to use. First the “Setup” tab. Click the “Start FlexCal” button (obviously) and tick the “Start FlexCal at login” box to make sure that this app will be available at all time.

Then you need to set your own shortcut to be able to access FlexCal quickly. Click on the shortcut field and press your chosen combination.

Don’t forget to choose which window should be opened every time you hit that shortcut key. If you add Tasks a lot, choose “Task Window“. The same thing goes the other way around. But whichever you choose, it’s not that important (and you’ll see why later on).

Next is the “Advanced” tab. This is the place to further configure FlexCal. You could choose to add an alarm to all new Events and how early should the alarm goes off. You could also choose which calendar should be the default place for all tasks and events, and whether you prefer to use Textual or Graphical style to display the calendar.

Using FlexCal

Using this app is a only matter of hitting the shortcut key. If you choose “Task Window” as the default, this window will appear every time the key combination is pressed.

But you could easily change the window to “Events Window” by hitting the combination one more time (and continuously alternate between the two).

Hit enter after typing the task/event and it will be saved to iCal. To cancel it, use the Esc key.

You could move between the field using the Tab key (forward) and the Shift + Tab key (backward), but you couldn’t edit the “Calendar” and “Priority” drop-down menu without using the mouse. The rodent is also needed to change the style of calendar from Textual to Graphical (and vice versa).

I wish the developer would add the ability to use the keyboard to its full extent so the process of adding Tasks and Events to iCal could be done without the need to lift a finger from the keyboard.

Other than that minor annoyance, FlexCal is something that every iCal user should have.

Do you use iCal calendars to manage your life? Do you know better free alternatives to add Tasks and Events to iCal quickly and easily? Share using the comments below.

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Three Free Desktop Calendar Applications For The Mac (8)
• iCalendar Lite- A Free Transparent Desktop Calendar (Windows) (12)
• How To Show iCal Tasks & Events On The Desktop [Mac only] (3)
• esyPlanner – Manage Your Day With This Easy Scheduler & Daily Task Manager (7)
• When Is Good – Easily Schedule Your Meetings With Co-Workers (6)

Up until now I have sent out meeting invitations via email for a date and time that I wanted to meet on. Then the responders would send me back comments on whether it was good for them or not.  If it wasn’t, and they were crucial to the meeting, we would re-schedule. But how about a meeting scheduler you can use before the meeting?

Wouldn’t it be nice to send out a link to your attendees where they could click on several possibilities for the meeting? You can then use the results to gather when it would be best to have the meeting. Have you used the new cover sheets on the TPS reports? No you haven’t? Well then we will need to have a meeting about that this weekend.

Let’s use the meeting scheduler When is Good to schedule it.  You do not need to sign up or pay for an account to use the functionality we will talk about in this article.

The features the free basic account has are shown below. This is really all we need to get the job done. But if you want to brand it or get a few simple options in there then by all means pay for a account. But as I said before, we are using this on the free account without signing up.

I clicked on pricing and then created an event under the Basic heading. Then you are off to create your event. You will see a calendar and a button to create an event. First you will need to name your event and hit that button.

I named my event Test Event 1 and hit the create event button to continue on to selecting dates and times that are good for me.

Then you will see a message that instructs you to choose times and dates for your events. These will be the tentative times shown to the respondents of your email.

I notched off Saturday October 31st (Halloween!) at 2pm and Sunday November 1st at 1pm, 2pm and 3pm. These will be the only choices the users can choose between to keep things simple.

Once you have completed everything, you will get a super secret code. This code will enable your non-registered users to see the results of your survey. You can see mine below and actually use it to retrieve my results.

Now you are ready to compose an email, shoot out so instant messages or even send out a snail mail mailer. You will be given the link to send out, the link to go to where you will be able to review the responses from your survey. If you actually want to see how the user will see it, follow this link and feel free to make a selection or two and submit it.

You can also choose if you want the meeting scheduler to email you the responses as they come in:

You can go and view the results of my survey here.

This is the page that the user will see to make their choices:

To check the results of your survey, hit the enter results code link on the home page. This is the screen where you can enter your results code:

And now the moment you have all been waiting for….the results!

This is the screen you should hope to see. You will get this when one item matches across all the respondents. If not you will see something (more likely) like this:

Good luck on your meeting! Do you use a better free meeting scheduler? We would love to hear about it in the comments!

When Is Good

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My problem is the very reason I constantly look for new calendar applications – my mind is so filled with things to remember that I forget to check the calendar applications that I’ve installed. So it’s on to the next app, in hopes that it does a better job of reminding me to remember things. Alas, I believe I’ve finally found the solution, a very cool and free, transparent desktop calendar called iCalendar Lite.

Why do I love it? There are several reasons. First, it’s highly customizable. Second, it’s transparent (depending on how you configure it) so you can have it always in front of you no matter what you’re currently working on. Third, I really, really like how cool it looks.

Setting Up iCalendar Lite – A Free Transparent Desktop Calendar

iCalendar Lite doesn’t originally install as a very transparent application that’s always “on top” of all of your other open apps. In some ways this is good, because many people don’t appreciate an application that insists on staying in the foreground. However, for our purposes, this is exactly what we want the calendar to do. This is how the calendar first shows up at the upper right corner of your screen after you install it.

As you can see, with the default skin and transparency settings, it isn’t transparent at all. Also, by default the application is set up to remain in the background when you click on any other application. To set it up so that it’s more transparent and on top of your current applications, you’ll need to change the settings. In your system tray, you’ll find the calendar app appears as a calendar icon. Right click on that icon and then click on “Settings“.

Once you do that, the following window appears where you should make sure that the calendar is set up to run when you boot your PC, and also select whether or not you want the Event and To-Do windows to show up underneath the calendar itself.

Next, click on the “Appearance” to get to the screen where you can configure both the transparency and make the app remain on top of all other applications. Personally, I like the glass skin with 40% transparency, which makes the calendar look like a ghost. However, 100% transparency with the “Glass” skin also reveals the application underneath it and looks pretty cool too (see the bottom of this article).

With the new settings, the calendar application shows up like a faint mist on top of the application that you’re currently working with. For me, this is a perfect calendar setup, because it’s always there…but not really. It lingers on the edge of the screen as a constant reminder that you’re on a schedule, and you have deadlines. The next article due date is coming up fast and if you don’t complete it, you better believe that the editor is going to be all up in your face… OK, moving on.

As you can see, the calendar, event and to-do windows are unobtrusive and only slightly display on top of your application window, but not so much that they block the view or distract from what you’re working on.

Making Use Of iCalendar

When you want to add an item to the to-do list or the event alarm list, just right click the window and do so.

The to-do and event scheduling is pretty standard and has most of the features you expect in a decent calendar application, including delay time to an alarm, an alarm popup window, and notification sounds (configured in the general settings described above).

New Software – Needs A Few Bug Fixes

To show how much you can change the transparency, I’ve modified it to 100% with the “glass” skin in the display below.  However, aside from all of the “cool” factor of this app, it is clearly still new and in need of a few fixes.

Throughout the application you’ll find occasional spelling errors – fairly minor. However, a significant bug in my mind is the fact that when you configure the calendar to remain “on top,” only the to-do and event windows actually remain on top of your applications. The calendar itself has a tendency to slip behind until you click on either the event or to-do windows, or enter the settings screen. Another bug I found was that if you enter the settings window, and then right click the icon and enter the settings window a second time, you can produce an assortment of application errors.

For my purposes, these bugs are minor and not a nuisance. For the most part the application is in the forefront as a constant reminder, and you can even sync the calendar with your Google calendar account – a cool feature if you’re like me and you’ve tried dozens of calendar apps, at least you don’t have to re-enter all of those birthdays again!

Have you been in search of a free transparent desktop calendar? Does iCalendar suit your needs? Give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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• esyPlanner – Manage Your Day With This Easy Scheduler & Daily Task Manager (7)
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We all have our favorites. A browse through this website will throw up many a calendar and to-do app. Schedulers and daily task managers occupy one quadrant of GTD apps. Thinking of which, we also have the option of keeping our time planning offline or taking it online.

I won’t take sides here; I am sure there are takers for both. What I will do is introduce you to a freeware which by the colorful looks of it could find its own legion of fans.

esyPlanner is a Windows only (Windows 2K / XP / Vista) utility which is a calendar based planner for keeping track of your events/tasks. More than that it also allows you to post notes, register your day-to-day experiences in a diary and also  manage your passwords.

The esyPlanner (ver.2.0.09) installer is 2.2 MB in size and can be downloaded from its website.

The first thing you will note is the distinctive desktop-like modeling of the webpage, down to a power button. The site and the software support two languages – Italian and English.

So let’s do a walkthrough of the daily task manager software by looking at the different areas of the program.

The software itself has a colorful, responsive interface. The interface has three panels – the main panel on the left, the centered tab area and the narrow toolbar on the right. The toolbar can be undocked and moved. The buttons are large and fairly intuitive. The balloon tips on a mouseover the buttons makes it easy to know what it is about.

A planner works around events or tasks and follows a calendar. Other features merely support the other information needs of day to day planning. So it is with esyPlanner.

Events in esyPlanner can be set up around categories. Each category has a name and a color which labels it. All categories which are set up get listed under the categories section on the left panel.

Multiple calendars can be setup in esyPlanner, each with a description that identifies it. Calendars can be modified and deleted but one calendar is the required minimum. All calendars are listed on the left panel.

Notes are text files for bits of information. They can be grouped in folders within the Notes panel. They can be arranged via drag and drops from one folder to the other. They can also be ordered by date or title.

All notes in esyPlanner have a calendar linked to it. Other information like category, status, due dates, recurrence, attachments and URL links can be also inputed to further enrich a note. An included screenshots tool can be also used to capture images. An event, a popup alert and even an email can be created from any note from a single click using the toolbar.

The Password area serves as a container for storing different user passwords. A master password is required to open the locked database.

The Settings panel has all the customization options for startup, views and color changes. Using the settings panel, the calendar views can be customized according to the starting hour for the day and the first day of the week.

Planner – A container for all events

Planner is where all the action will take place. All events get reflected in the centrally displayed Planner tab.

The Planner has two views – A weekly view with color coded events (according to the category colors) of the current week and the next. The colored rectangles for the events can be dragged and dropped to new locations. Each shift gets updated in both the monthly and weekly views.

A month view which shows the events spanning over the entire month. A mouseover the color boxes details the events in a balloon tip. The events are grouped in rows with each row corresponding to a category.

A small Diary tab can be used to keep a record of events for the day.

The tracking and monitoring systems

What good would a planner be if it doesn’t serve timely reminders about scheduled events? esyPlanner prods through the pop-ups which appear on cue. Pop-ups can be created from events and notes, hidden or deleted. Choosing Daily Popup from the menu opens a popup window with all the warnings and events of the day. This can put on auto each time the applications starts.

Popup warnings can also be set for individual notes from the Notes panel. The warning can be from a certain date, on that date, on each recurrence or can be switched off.

All warnings set can be glanced through on the Warnings tab of the central panel.

Some first impressions

In my opinion, a planner and scheduler application needs to be simple enough to jump in and use but it should also have enough flexible features that make planning (and changing) tasks a one click process. Essentially, the daily task manager application should be designed around our schedules rather than the other way round. On that score esyPlanner does not disappoint.

• Events can be set up for each unit of time and they can be made to recur as we want it to.
• Events can be dragged and dropped from one date to the other.
• Impromptu notes can be converted to events on the fly.
• Multiple calendars lets us separate work and personal events.
• Alerts are simple through popups.
• The attachment inclusion and screen grabbing utility are a definite plus. Though, the password storage is a bit out of place.

All of this is a nice package of customizable colors and fonts. The software is also not perplexing with the easy to understand balloon tipped buttons and a compact help file.

But a task management application is only as good as the way we exploit it for our productivity. So is it good enough for you? Only you can let us know.

Link: esyPlanner

Image Credit: cmcbrown

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• iCalendar Lite- A Free Transparent Desktop Calendar (Windows) (12)
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One of the students replied, “Yes, but there’s a calendar next to you.”

That bored student might mention the calendar in a cynical tone, but we can’t deny that modern people could never live without it. Almost all of their daily life activities are scheduled according to the calendar.

Mac’s Native Calendar

Along with the dawn of the computer, the calendar also moved to the digital domain. For Mac territory, Mac OS X comes with its own calendar applications as a combination between iCal and the menubar clock.

The clock is activated by default, but you can adjust its properties by going to the System Preferences, choose Date & Time, and then clicking the Clock tab.

But if you want to try a free third-party desktop calendar application, here are three alternatives that you can try.

Dateline

This application will put a linear transparent calendar in your desktop. By default, it will reside above everything else. If you click on a date, it will be opened in iCal.

For some people, the appearance of this desktop calendar might become annoying. But don’t be afraid because you can adjust the appearance by going to the Preferences menu and choose the Appearance tab.

Besides color and font, width and mark shape, you can also adjust the Window level of the calendar.

Rainlendar Lite

This is a well-known customizable, free desktop calendar. At least on the Windows platform. I didn’t know that there was a Mac version until I did the research for this article. Some of the features are various skins to change the look and feel, to-do list and alarms, the ability to open multiple calendars for multiple purposes, and the ability to import and export calendars to and from different computers under different operating systems.

You can add events easily by clicking on any date. A window will show up, just add the necessary details.

There are two versions: the Lite version (free) and the Pro version (not free, obviously). If you want to know the differences, please refer to this page.

MagiCal

This free desktop calendar is an enhancement (or replacement – so they said) to Mac OS X’s native menubar clock. There are three versions to the application: PowerPC, Intel, and Universal Binary.

This app will reside in the menubar. You can open the main window by clicking on the menubar icon.

And you can adjust many things – including showing the date and the clock – by going to the Preferences (click on the “i” sign on the main window of this app).

Double clicking on any date on the MagiCal main window will open that date in iCal.

Do you use a Mac calendar application? Do you have other free alternatives?  Please share using the comments below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• iCalendar Lite- A Free Transparent Desktop Calendar (Windows) (12)
• How To Improve Your iCal Calendars With FlexCal [Mac Only] (4)
• esyPlanner – Manage Your Day With This Easy Scheduler & Daily Task Manager (7)
• When Is Good – Easily Schedule Your Meetings With Co-Workers (6)
• How To Show iCal Tasks & Events On The Desktop [Mac only] (3)

This week, I’ll be teaching you how to connect your phone to your Mac and sync data between them. You’ll be surprised how easy it is. The main reason most people sync devices is to prevent data loss and to easily recover data from a backup in any event that your device malfunctions.

The main applications that we’ll be looking at are iSync, Address Book and iCal, perhaps iPhoto as well.

But before we begin, you’ll need to check if your mobile device is compatible with iSync. Apple supports most mobile phones from the major manufacturers but there are some exclusions. Generally, most Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia phones are compatible; on the other hand, Samsung being the black sheep, is a bit of a nuisance – they’ve got only 3 compatible phones. If you’ve got a relatively new phone (around 3 years old) it shouldn’t be a problem but it’s better to check and be sure. Additionally, syncing is performed either over a bluetooth connection (which most newer phones should have as standard) or through a sync cable so have those at the ready.

*In case your phone isn’t supported, I recommend Nova Media plugins for iSync. It’s not free but so far, it’s the only solution if you want to get it to work.

Right, let’s get cracking. The first step to syncing your phone with your Mac is to set up a bluetooth connection (or if you have a sync cable, just plug that in and connect your phone). Enable bluetooth on both your Mac and your phone and pair them.

There will be several interim steps i.e. entering a passcode on the phone and selecting services to use with the phone; have a read to understand what this whole process is about, then just click on ‘Continue’. Once they’re paired, launch iSync.

In iSync’s menu bar, select ‘Edit’ and ‘Add Devices’. It will then search for your phone so remember to keep the bluetooth running. Select your phone from the results to add it to iSync’s list of devices.

On the first sync, you will be asked if you want to merge the data from your phone and your Mac. You must select this option since you have no contacts in your Mac’s Address Book.

Once the synchronization process is over, you’ll be rewarded with your contacts in Address Book and your itinerary in iCal. Easy, isn’t it? Now, to tackle some of the random questions that most newbies may have:

Q: What if I make a change in my Mac’s Address Book and another change in my phone’s contact list? How will this reflect after synchronization?
A: iSync will always only sync the latest changes to each item. If more than a 5% change is detected, iSync will show a confirmation window where you may view the changes which will be made. This alert can be set to show at 5%, 25%, 50% or when any amount of data is modified.

Q: What if I accidentally delete a contact in my phone’s contact list? Will iSync re-sync them from my Mac?
A: Yup. iSync will always merge data to have a copy of each contact in both your phone and your Mac.

Q: Will iSync retrieve the photos I have in my phone?
A: Short answer — no. However, you can transfer them over manually. Here’s how.

• Click on the bluetooth icon in your menu bar and select browse device
• Choose your phone from the list
• A Bluetooth File Exchange window will then pop up allowing you to view the contents of your phone
• Select the files you want to copy over and press ‘Get’. (Usually, the phone’s file structure is pretty simple. From experience, I’ve only encountered folders labelled according to their content i.e. ‘Music’, ‘Pictures’, ‘Videos’, etc.)

So now, what do you do with your newly-acquired data? Well, for starters, you could edit them. Most people won’t bother re-arranging or properly labeling their contacts because their phones’ screens are so tiny and everyone knows how difficult it is to properly type on a numberpad. Now that your contacts are in Address Book, you can clearly see what’s what. Incomplete fields are more obvious. You can also add emails, addresses and birthdays to your contacts and even paste in a contact photo (if you haven’t already). Everything you do in Address Book will reflect on your phone upon synchronization (depending on the model, refer to the bottom of this page).

Your itinerary will also be copied to iCal. If you have always added new events on your phone, you will be relieved to see how easy it is to manage your life with iCal by comparison. Of course, when you’re on the run, you will always need your phone to add meetings/events on a day-to-day basis but once you reach home and after you’ve synced your phone with your Mac, everything will be laid in front of you on your [much] larger screen. Re-ordering and managing your schedule would then be much easier.

In iCal, you’ll have the option to view your events by the day, week or month. If you need to set a reminder for an event, just double-click it and press the ‘Edit’ button. The alarms will go off both on your Mac and on your phone so you’ll never have to worry about being late for a meeting.

If you haven’t noticed, there is a little pin on the bottom right-hand side of iCal — that’s the to-do list. Adding items onto the list will also sync over to your phone. Although, I have no idea how this feature would work on older phones which may not have to-do lists.

It doesn’t just stop on your Mac. Your contacts can be synced over to your iPod via iTunes so you’ll have an extra copy in case your phone goes kaput. Also, you could export your Address Book and calendar and save them online so that you could easily retrieve them from anywhere.

To sum up, iSync will retrieve contacts and schedules from your phone and add them into Address Book and iCal respectively, providing you with a backup of your data on your Mac. Simultaneously, that will also allow you to easily edit that information on your Mac and see your schedule span out on your screen.

(By) Jackson Chung is a full-time medical student attempting to perform a juggling act with relationships, studies and his future.

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I’d love to hear from you. Send me your MP3 files containing comments about the show, reviews of your favourite websites or just general chitchat. I’ll choose a few to play on the show each week. Send them to podcast [at] makeuseof [dot] com.

If you look underneath the links from the show on this page, you will see a little media player where you can listen to the podcast right here on the site. Or if you prefer, you can right-click on the “audio MP3″ logo and save the MP3 file to your computer for listening on your MP3 player or iPod.

The podcast is available through iTunes so don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast if you have an iPod, or in another podcatcher if you have a different MP3 player.

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Here are a few websites which can make tracking flight information easy, if not downright fun and interesting!

1. FBOWeb.com

This website mother of all airline tracking websites.

Not only does it show the usual information: departure time, estimated arrival time, progress bar, and automatically updating map; but it also integrates in nicely with Google Earth!

This map updates in real time, and has the airline flight’s location and altitude coordinates.

As an added bonus, this website includes links that would satisfy any airplane nerd’s fantasies. Air Traffic Control (ATC) live audio feeds are a click away.

2. FlightStats.com

A close second is Flightstats.com. This site includes a ton of information about flight tracking and other travel information like airport delays and travel tips.

Another cool thing that flightstats.com has are widgets, facebook applications, and RSS feeds for airport delays.

3. FlightView.com

This service includes brightly colored maps as well as automatically updated information on scheduled and estimated arrival times.

4. FlightAware.com

Although this site is more bare-bones than some of the rest, it includes all of the required information in an easy to read format. It also has links to airport information which could come in handy for amateur pilots or other airport junkies.

5. FlyteComm.com

Besides taking the booby prize for their domain name, this site also includes the basic information you need. It might be good if you are using a mobile browser to track a flight or if you are at the airport and need the down and dirty information on the flight you are waiting on.

BONUS: Google

Typing the airline and flight number as a google search gives you one of those information boxes at the top of the search results page.

Hopefully the above sites will satisfy your itch for airline flight status information!

(By) Dave is an IT Manager by day and technology consultant by night. He is interested in all things internet, but especially interested in system administration, network security, history, and backpacking. He lives near Philadelphia with his family. See his blog at www.systembash.com.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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