scheduling

Keeping a diary was once something that all educated people were expected to do, but these days diaries are most often seen as small, ornate books with locking covers that are solely the possession of tween girls (and, occasionally, their little brothers). That's a shame, because there are a lot of reasons to keep a diary, both personal and for posterity. Owning a PC makes keeping a diary too easy, especially with excellent free diary programs like iDailyDiary from Splinterware.

The program's main page bears a strong resemblance to a word processor or a full-featured e-mail client such … Read more

Scheduler for Excel is an adequate program designed for school scheduling. Though the developers claim that Scheduler for Excel can be used for any type of schedule, it really isn't set up for anything other than classroom teachers and administrators.

The program opens with a lengthy instructional file that was difficult to use. We wish the instructions were in a more user-friendly format for quick reference, such as an FAQ file or step-by-step guide with screenshots. The program's toolbar features a series of colorful smiley faces, each one corresponding to a particular school subject. This toolbar would be … Read more

Mozilla may have released the first beta of Firefox 3.6 nearly two months late, but the organization believes the final version still will arrive on schedule before the end of the year.

The Mozilla wiki page on version 3.6, code-named Namoroka, listed early September for the scheduled release of the first beta, but it actually arrived October 30. Despite that, Mike Shaver, vice president of engineering, said Mozilla wants to release the browser before the holidays and is sticking by the overall schedule for the open-source Web browser.

"We're still looking at a release candidate in … Read more

Easy Tracker Standard provides the tools for tracking time and managing projects. Unfortunately, the program doesn't flow smoothly, even with all its attempts at being helpful.

This program opened with a seemingly simple five-step Wizard, which instantly excited us. We were able to jump between the five tasks represented in the Wizard, but we still needed a trip to the Help file and glossary for further instruction. The misnamed Easy Tracker perplexed us. It looks easy, but it constantly confused us. One bright spot were the tools for building databases of Clients and Users, which were simple and reminded … Read more

Schedule Split Shifts for 25 Employees is a set of Excel spreadsheets that allow users to create schedules for up to 25 employees in up to two locations. Although the program isn't bad for what it is, users should be aware that it is really just an Excel file, not a separate application.

The program's functions are separated into different spreadsheets within an Excel workbook. Users enter employee information, including their position (manager, cook, or waiter), and any age-based restrictions on how many hours they can work, and availability. Users then create schedules, inputting how many workers they … Read more

School Calendar is an attractive program that allows users to track multiple school schedules. Although we liked its design, we had trouble getting a sense of who the program is made for and how it could be most effectively used.

At its heart, School Calendar is similar to many other scheduling applications we've seen, with a variety of different calendar views, the ability to schedule reminders, and so on. The program's interface is quite sleek and is reminiscent of Office 2007 products; our first impression was positive. Once we started exploring School Calendar, however, we got a little … Read more

It's finally here!

After months of preparation and anticipation, the new television season begins. The networks will launch some 40 new shows, plus bring back returning favorites. There's a lot of media choice out there, and a lot of product calling for the attention of the nation's television viewers. The barrage of messages from on-air promos, print ads, cable, radio, billboards, and interactive technologies all set the stage to create awareness and attention. Now it's up to the audience to tell us what they like, and what they don't. So stay tuned and enjoy the … Read more

We review a lot of programs, and it's not often that we come across one that we like well enough that we want to keep it for our own use. Time & Chaos is one such program. This planner and contact manager offers plenty of features without becoming cluttered and unwieldy.

The program's interface is sleek and very intuitive, and we absolutely love how everything is displayed in separate panes in one screen. At a glance we can see our calendar, contacts, appointments, and tasks. Need to schedule a meeting with George, or put calling Betty on your … Read more

APT Sports Scheduler provides users with the capability to manage and schedule games for various sports fields. While users may need to take time learning the program, it will be very beneficial for juggling multiple teams and locations.

We quickly became frustrated by the program's interface, as it provided no direction. The Help file's brief descriptions of each command and some experimenting allowed us to operate things smoothly. We were soon populating a database for sporting fields. The options include everything from baseball and football fields to tennis courts. By using a menu similar to calendaring software, we … Read more