A datebook application for power users

The Datebook application that comes with Palm PDA's is a simple application that contains most of the functionality that most people need. As with the Palm OS, Palm intentionally kept the application simple, uncluttered, and easy to use. I believe this was the right way to go for most people.

Power users may have longed for more. You know the type of people I'm talking about. You might even be one yourself. These are the people that want their apps to have every feature under the sun. They want to be able to customize every aspect of its operation. They want it to integrate nicely with other applications. They want tons of shortcuts to they can do common operations quickly.

DateBk4, by Pimlico Software, is the perfect datebook application for such a user. It's one of the most full-featured and well-designed applications I've come across.

So if you're wondering, "What's wrong with the Palm built-in DateBook anyway?", you MIGHT not find a need in your life for DateBk4. You might even find it to be more of a hassle. Read on and see if the features appeal to you and whether they are worth paying $24.95 to register the software.

Whoa, wait a minute! This application isn't free?

Nope, sorry. This application is shareware. In fact, it's one of the most impressive pieces of shareware I've ever seen. You can download the application (and the user manual as well) for free and try it out FULLY FEATURED (no features are crippled!) before you buy. You can use the application FREE for a generous evaulation period of 60 days and then decide whether you want to register. If you do decide to register, it's $24.95. You can register electronically with a credit card at the PalmGear web site. If you register, a registration code will be emailed to you that unlocks the application beyond the evaluation period. By the way, your $24.95 goes to a charity that supports wildlife conservation (more specifically, the author's "Gorilla Haven" in the North Georgia mountains).

OK, what does DateBk4 do that the built-in Datebook doesn't do?

A good question. The answer is LOTS. This application is jam-packed with features. I'll probably barely scratch the surface of what this powerful application can do. I really suggest that you download the application (and the user manual as well) and try it if it sounds remotely interesting to you. You can use the application FREE for a generous evaulation period of 60 days and then decide whether you want to register.

Ability to "link" appointments and ToDo items to Addressbook items and Memos

This is my favorite feature of DateBk4. Imagine adding a link from "Meeting with T. Hansen" to an Addressbook entry for Mr. Hansen. When you're running a little late, you just tap on the link icon next to the appointment and you're instantly taken to his Addressbook entry. Now you've got his phone number right there. When the meeting is done, a few taps of the stylus and you can make DateBk4 log the date and time of the meeting and some notes about it to a note attached to Addressbook entry.

Integrated display of Appointments, ToDos, Addressbook entries, and Memos

Yes, newer versions of the Palm OS have a Datebook application that allows you to view appointments and ToDo's together. But DateBk4 takes the concept much further. You have your choice of two different ways to see your appointments and ToDo's together. The "Integrated" display allows you to see them together with ToDo's either on the top or bottom. The "Split Screen" display allows you to view the ToDo's in a small, resizable window at the top of the display. The "Split Screen" also has the ability to display addresses and memos (by default, DateBk4 remaps the address and memo hardware buttons to show addresses or memos in the split screen window without leaving DateBk4. You can override this on a case by case basis by double pressing the hardware button or you can disable this behavior entirely by setting a preference in DateBk4).

"Advances"

With the built-in Palm datebook, have you ever forgotten about someone's birthday until the day of and then didn't have time to order the gift? It's easy to do, because the Palm Datebook doesn't allow you to see the event easily a few days in advance of the event. Sure, you can look at the next week's events every now and then and check for such things, but what if you forget? You could also set an alarm for the birthday a few days in advance. I don't know about you, but this approach doesn't work for me. Alarms are irritating and I like to reserve them for time-sensitive appointments and such. Frequently, an alarm will go off in my pocket without me realizing it and then gets cancelled when it is jostled around (there are some hacks that address this). Alarms also go off while I'm working or other inconvenient times and tend to get snoozed repeatedly until it's too late. For me, the best solution is DateBk4's "advance" feature. Put simply, it allows you to specify how many days in advance you'd like to be reminded of the item. From that period on, the event simply appears in your schedule with a number in brackets preceeding it that tells you how many days are left. No annoying alarm, but every time you check your schedule you are reminded that the event is coming up soon.

"Floating events"

"Floating events" are basically appointments, but they're sort of like ToDo's in the sense that if you do not check them off, they carry over to the next day. So they're sort of like ToDo's, but then they don't have a priority but you can assign a time slot to them. Floating events (or "floats" for short) are useful for making sure that something gets done. If you know that you definitely need to meet a friend of yours for lunch, you can schedule it as a floating event at a particular time. If the event is cancelled and you don't check it off, it will carry over to the next day so that you are reminded that you still need to do that. I find these useful for mundane tasks that I need to do but tend to put off, like getting my car's oil changed. One could use a ToDo for this task, but then you don't have the option of being optimistic and scheduling a tentative time for the task.

Categories for appointments

The Palm built-in apps allow categories for the Addresses, ToDos, and Memos, but you cannot categorize appointments. DateBk4 allows you to categorize appointments as you wish. For example, perhaps you want a category for "Work" and "Personal" or perhaps a category for each member of your family. Categories can be very useful for filtering what you see, as you will see below in the next feature. You should note, however, that appointment categories may or may not work with your desktop PIM of choice and/or Hotsync conduits. Since I use my Palm as my primary scheduler, this has never been a problem for me.

Icons

The built-in Datebook and DateBk4 both feature a monthly view that lets you see an entire month at a glance. This view is of limited use in the built-in Datebook, because there is no room for details about your schedule. Luckily, DateBk4 lets you assign small icons to appointments and ToDo's that lets you get a better idea of what your schedule looks like in the monthly view. It comes with 52 icons including a fork and knife (to illustrate lunch and dinner appointments), scissors (for a haircut), a movie projector, a tennis racket, a birthday cake, etc... You can even download more or design your own (see the "Links" section at the end of the review for more info). While the monthly view is still not one of my favorite views, icons definitely make it more useful.

Filtering, saved views

So let's say you've categorized your appointments and ToDo's as either "Work" or "Personal", as I've described above. When you get home, you don't want to worry about all of the stuff you need to do at work. Simple. DateBk4 allows you to specify which categories of appointments and ToDo's you're interested in. Maybe you want to see both "Work" and "Personal" appointments but only "Personal" ToDo items that are priority 2 or more important? No problem. DateBk4 has enough flexibility to allow you to do that. Once you find the settings you like, you can save them to a "saved view" and name it for future use. There are endless possibilities here. Try entering all your favorite TV shows as repeating weekly appointments in a category called "TV"? Then create a saved view called "TV shows" that shows no ToDo's and only appointments that are in the "TV" category. You can even filter by icons. For example, try creating a saved view called "Birthdays" that shows only appointments that have the birthday cake icon.

Templates

Let's say you have an appointment that comes up often like a haircut with your favorite barber. Every time you enter it you put it in the "Personal" category, assign the "scissors" icon, link the appointment to the addressbook entry for your barber and also a memo that contains the date of your last haircut. That's a lot to do every time. Luckily, DateBk4 allows you to create "templates". Create the item once as you want it and then save it as a template. Next time, click the template icon and choose the template to insert it into your schedule. Very easy and convenient.

Miscelleneous features

DateBk4 also supports events that span midnight, color Palm devices, timezones, and alarms for ToDo items. These are all features that are not present in the built-in Datebook.

A lot of features = harder to learn

Because DateBk4 packs so many features into a device with a tiny screen and no keyboard, it is more difficult to learn than your typical Palm application (including the built-in Datebook). Given the amount of features and the constraints of a PDA, I don't feel there's anyway to escape this. DateBk4 has a nice, well thought-out design and does about as good a job as I could expect. Still, there are a lot of features to explore and most of them are very straightforward but some are not. Expect to spend a lot of time exploring the application. Luckily, it is fairly intuitive and you can probably discover most of the functionality you need by just playing with the application. For other tasks or for the sake of completeness, you can download the 85 page user manual and read about the stuff that interests you (or if you want to know everything there is to know, you can read the manual cover to cover). The great thing is that you have a 60 day evaluation period to fully explore and figure things out. This is more than enough time to learn the essentials of DateBk4. I've been using DateBk4 for months and still probably don't fully utilize many of its features, but I'm very happy with the features that I'm familiar with.

Other resources

If you decide to use DateBk4, you will find that there are many other fanatical users out there willing to share tips and tricks with you. You can even download supplemental icon sets and utilities like icon editors that complement DateBk4. I've listed two of my favorite resources for DateBk4 below in the "Links" section: the DateBk Cookbook and the DateBk4 "egroup" at Yahoo Groups. The author of DateBk4 himself, Charles E. Stuart Dewar (known as CESD for short), is very active and responsive in the Yahoo Group. He routinely answers questions, takes ideas for improvements, and posts information about downloadable beta versions of the product.

Alternatives

If you find DateBk4 to be not satisfactory, there are other programs that you can try. If you like a lot of the features of DateBk4 but can do without some of them and need something that takes up less memory, you might be happier with the smaller, cheaper DateBk3 -- DateBk4's predecessor from the same company. Another program worth looking into is Action Names.

Conclusion

DateBk4 is packed with features that make it a valuable application for Palm power users. To give you an idea of how much this program impressed me, consider that it is one of only two Palm programs that I have purchased for my Palm Vx (the other one being Pocket Quicken by Landware, reviewed by me at http://marcman.epinions.com/content_19741183620). Check it out!

Links

http://www.pimlicosoftware.com
http://how.to/datebk-cookbook
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pimlicodatebk

Recommended: Yes