Looking for some reminder or planner tool

[sparhawk]

Anbody knows a good reminder tool? I tried several but all of them are either not free, or have some drawbacks.

What I need is this:

It should be free.

Simple interface, so that you can easily add new notes.

Shouldn't clutter up the screen (Trayicon is a must)

It should support one-time and repeateable events.

Events must be triggered on a date or time basis.

Multiline editing to keep notes for each event.

Table view so that you can easily see with one glance what events are still coming up.

 

I'm sure there are some good ones out there, but there are thousands of them distributed on all kind of sites, so it's quiet hard to find them.

Also if you know some good sites with collections of free tools, just post them, so I can check them for myself.

 

Currently I tried Lucky reminder, but it has two drawbacks. It costs a fee, and also doesn't allow me multiline notes, which is annoying because it means for multiple events on the same day, I have to add multiple events (which trigger multiple windows) instead of just having one window where I see all the events that I want.

[oDDity]

I just feel sorry for you that your life is so busy you need a planner and can't just remember everything.

I try to keep my life as easy an uncluttered as possible.

[sparhawk]

I only need it for business tasks. After all, I'm working durign the day, and I have often tasks, which I need to check after some time, so I need a reminder because I can't seem to bother my brain with remembering all these petty details.

[OrbWeaver]

Evolution on Linux provides all of this AFAIK, and also integrates with the clock panel applet so you can easily see which days have appointments etc. I don't know about any standalone planning applications though, especially if you need one for Windows.

[sparhawk]

Yeah, I need it for Windows, as we are running this here in the office.

[Nyarlathotep]

Evolution on Linux provides all of this AFAIK, and also integrates with the clock panel applet so you can easily see which days have appointments etc. I don't know about any standalone planning applications though, especially if you need one for Windows.

Is Evolution any good? I've always used Thunderbird.

[Unstoppable]

Um it's natural for the brain to forget things otherwise the human body would die from overload of emotions. I just write stuff I need done on notepad and put it on the desktop with a date or time.

[OrbWeaver]

Is Evolution any good? I've always used Thunderbird.

 

I think Thunderbird is possibly better as an email client (I particularly liked the EnigMail GPG plugin) but Evolution offers more all-round functionality such as collaboration and meetings (more like Outlook).

 

There's probably not much in it for most people; I use Evolution because it's the Ubuntu default.

[Ombrenuit]

I just put post-its around my monitor.

[Fidcal]

Try TaskPrompt

 

It's free

It supports any time period, eg, one off, or every 11 hours, or every four weeks, once a year, whatever.

It goes in the sys tray

 

Minor glitches:

Reminders pop up in small windows in a column on the right side of the desktop. Size can be adjusted in the config but they can't be moved about. So realistically up to 4 or 5 or 6 fit in the column, beyond that they do not show until you clear old ones. In practice this was only once an irrititation for me when I didn't switch the PC on for a few days.

 

All entries have to be given a category whether you want them or not.

 

Snooze control could be more user friendly but it is versatile.

 

So, only very trivial irritations imo.

[sparhawk]

I tried that taskprompt, but the promblem is, how do I define repeateable events? When I click inside the popup it asks me to snooze the event for some period, but this seems to be more for putting it off for a few minutes or so. I tried to configure the snooze time in the event, but then it simply sets the alarm time to the new time, irrespectable of when the event should trigger.

So what I mean is: I have to make a project statusreport every end of the month. So I configure the event to fire on 30th of Nov (it doesn't provide options for "Fire on last day of month"). When I set the snooze time to 1 month (thinking that this would set the interval) it already sets the alarm time on the 9th of Dezember, which is not what I want.

Normayll I would expect that it behaves like this:

I configure a repeatable event, mabye with a pre-warntime and an intervall. Now when the event fires it should offer me to remind me in a few minutes again (configurable) but the event should still be scheduled to fire on the next intervall again, because the reminder in a few minutes is only to put it off until I have more time, and it doesn't mean to cancel the intervall.

But it seems that TaskPrompt is doing excactly this. From the interface it looks good, but the options are quite lacking IMO.

[Ishtvan]

You're not going to like this answer, but MS meeting maker serves this purpose adequately.

[Fidcal]

Yes, Taskprompt is not very intuitive. I cursed it a few times when I got it but it takes a bit of getting used to. I stuck to it because I couldn't find any better but now I get along pretty good with it.

 

That 5 minute default snooze is poor. I think I once changed that default but it wouldn't stick. This is the way to choose a snooze. It's a nuisance though you can get used to it and its flexible....

 

. Click the reminder text itself in the reminder which calls up the details in Taskprompt

. Click Top Right button 'Snooze'

. Select the period, minutes, hours, etc. You can even snooze 99 years!

 

I just tested that and it worked. But it also reminded me there is a bug. The most distant reminder at the bottom of the list cannot be edited !!! So for a long time I have had a dummy reminder set for 2036 or something.

 

To set calendar monthly choose 'Monthly' instead of 'Month - frequency 1' and try setting it to 31st. (I know, can't do that till December) But I've never tried that I must admit. I wonder if it would go back to 28 in February then stay there? Mmmm.. I can't really test that without moving the PC calendar on and then I would get flooded with two months' reminders all at once. I see it does have 'Last ---day in the month' but that doesn't help you. Hey! I can do my Summer Time that way - hadn't realized that.

 

The only other thing I can think of is a nuisance - to set 12 one-yearly ones each for the last day of each calendar month.

 

You may have found the one period it can't do! I've just emailed the Taskprompt producers (skynergy.com) to ask them if and how it can be done else suggested they add the feature in a future upgrade.

[sparhawk]

I let it run for now, and see how it works. Actually I implemented my own reminder tool some time ago, but I don't like it very much at the moment and I can't be bothered to fix all the small issues I have with it.

 

That Lucky reminder is almost perfect, so there are only two issues I have with it.

[Serpentine]

Hey there,

 

Iv been looking for "the right" PIM myself, so far the top of the pile for me in Windows are EssentialPIM and Exstora , both have free versions and are quite capable, I think that EssentialPIM has degraded in the later releases from what people tell me, but its still quite a powerful one. Im not sure of the tray icon in EssentialPIM, but they are small and quite self contained - so I'd test them and see if they fit your needs. I think EssentialPIM may be a bit more verbose than what you are looking for tho, but it does have some pretty cool things too. And Exstora is perfect for my needs, but the custom UI Controls make it look a bit naffy on my very classic windows box :/

 

In the end I always have my trusty FreeBSD box next to me running KDE, and KOrganiser is a damn nice little PIM that keeps my life on track these days - I hope they will bring it to Windows with the later ports of the KDE Apps.

 

Anyway - those are the two best I could find for Windows.

 

 

Serp

[jdude]

A tool I've used for a really long time which is very easy to use is Serious Samurize.

 

You can set it up so that it displays text on your desktop over your wallpaper and it reads it from a text file, so it's easy to modify, just keep your text file up-to-date.

[sparhawk]

The EssentialPIM doesn't look like what I want. No free version available. I try the other one though. Exstora sounds quite good and there is a free version available, so I give it a try now.

 

Jdude, the problem is that I almost never see the desktop, so a reminder which writes on the wallpaer doesn't help me much. Mostly I have my windows covering the full desktop, to make use of the resolution.

[Domarius]

I just feel sorry for you that your life is so busy you need a planner and can't just remember everything.

I try to keep my life as easy an uncluttered as possible.

I'm trying to get the most out of my life, so I've got a lot of things going on

 

Personally I have a great mobile phone that my Dad got me last Christmas. Thanks to him, remembering things are a lot simpler. It has a calendar in it where I can set reminders to go off at any time. I use it for everything so I don't have to keep my mind cluttered with things I have to remember. Eg. If I have to take something home from the office, I put a reminder about it for 6pm that day, so I'll see it just as I'm about to leave.

 

Easily the best thing about this is that I don't have to happen to be near a computer. I can be out anywhere and still get my reminders.

[Sotha]

It has a calendar in it where I can set reminders to go off at any time.

 

I too use cell phone reminders a lot. Previously I used essentialPIM, but cell phone is much easier, as it is always with me and available.

 

I guess even the simplest cell phone models have reasonable calendars these days.

Highly recommended.

 

EDIT: Oh, and with serious samurize you could probably write your own reminder system, it might even be a small box fixed on the side of the screen, showing notes and alarming if necessary.

[Serpentine]

Yeah, the problem with Serious Samurize is that is Seriously Shite.

 

<vent>It's complete crapware, worse than running "pretty widget" systems and other random crap that widnows just gets bogged down with - the sort of stuff that leads to windows issues and then people complaining that windows is such a terrible OS, nevermind the same sort of systems completely love resources on all OS's... but yeah - I would advise agaaaaainst using it if you enjoy the general snappyness of windows and or any performance at all.

 

I have done too much support time to like an app that has no plausable good reason for being installed on 99% of peoples PC's :/ </vent>

[Crispy]

Don't get me started on useless background apps. :-/

 

Quicktime tray icon, Winzip Quick Pick... has anyone actually used either of those? Ever? In my experience most people don't notice them, so they just sit there sucking resources for no good reason.

 

Oh, and Java Web Start. It's actually OK for distributing Java software in certain situations, but there's no reason why it needs to run in the background all the bloody time.

[sparhawk]

Yeah, I'm always annoyed that Quicktime uses a tray icon. What for??? The only thing this does is checking for updates, which I don't like anyway.

 

The most useless app though is flash! When I want to disable it, I have to run the web browser???? That's erally a joke. They store my options on their own server to make sure that I have to connect to them!

[Domarius]

The quicktime thing is probably just a marketing thing. That's Macintosh for you.

[Ishtvan]

Don't get me started on useless background apps. :-/

 

Quicktime tray icon, Winzip Quick Pick... has anyone actually used either of those? Ever? In my experience most people don't notice them, so they just sit there sucking resources for no good reason.

Yes, the Quicktime tray icon has probably caused me to right click and left click to close it first thing after starting up at least several thousand times. I've taken it off several times too, but it always weasels its way back in somehow.

[Vadrosaul]

Yes, the Quicktime tray icon has probably caused me to right click and left click to close it first thing after starting up at least several thousand times. I've taken it off several times too, but it always weasels its way back in somehow.

If we're talking Windows, I simply removed qttask process by running MSCONFIG and going to the Startup tab. It never appears in the process list anymore.