One of the things I like about the Pocket PC platform is the flexibility of its Today screen, and the ability to use plug-ins to customize that screen. I particularly like the plug-ins that let you see all of your activities at a glance, with Spb Diary being my favorites of this type.
In this brief article, I will show you a few screenshots of Spb Diary in use on my Dell x51v, and will review a few key features of the plug-in.
The snapshot on the right shows my Today screen with the plug-in installed and activated.
It shows an Agenda View for a user-selectable number of days, with my setting being 7 days. You can expand and collapse the days to show more or less information. In addition to tasks and appointments, the application shows a count of how many unread emails you have.
You can also edit any entry you see, and you can add new ones.
This is the view I found most handy when I was traveling, as I always had a slew of meetings to attend and an ever-changing task list. Spb Diary was handy for keeping it all in front of me. All I had to do was turn my Pocket PC on, and the information stared me in the face.
Another thing I like about the Agenda View is that it lets you see the detail of any notes that are attached to a task or appointment. For example, if I tap the Note Icon associated with the Task “Receive BB Rebate,” the following info pops up:
Spb Diary is also very handy for reviewing all of your tasks, as you can sort the tasks in a variety of ways. For example, the following snapshot is from viewing my Tasks sorted by Category:
Spb Diary also has views for your Contacts and Notes. In essence, it is a PIM application that runs as a plug-in for your Today screen. It lacks some of the features offered by the more full-featured PIMs, such as Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion, but I consider it to be a perfectly adequate PIM.
One concern that people sometimes have with using Today Screen Plug-ins is that they can consume system resources, such as memory and CPU cycles. Spb Diary is relatively friendly in this regard. It is not the lightest-weight plug-in available, but I have never had any problems with it hogging system resources.
You can get Spb Diary at their online store. A trial version is available so you can give it a spin to see if it suits your tastes. An excellent alternative to Spb Diary is SBSH Mobile Software’s PocketBreeze. It is honestly hard for me to choose a favorite between these two, but I slightly prefer Spb Diary because it is a little easier to set up. Both are exceptional products, though. I have beta tested with both developers and they are excellent in the support of their products and in listening to their testers. They both have fine reputations for quality products and quality support.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
It would be nice if either SPB’s Diary or SBSH’s Pocket Breeze would allow you to display List Pro activities on the Today screen. If I have an extensive list in List Pro of the steps I need to take to complete a project I don’t want to have to duplicate that data in Outlook Tasks in order to get them on the Today screen.
Maybe it’s List Pro that needs to include a Today screen plug-in.
That would be nice, Mike.
I suppose the ListPro developers would need to make an SDK available for ListPro so that other developers could plug into it, much like the PhatNotes developers did (enabling Alex Kac and crew to integrate PhatNotes into Pocket Informant).
Update: Instead of SDK, I should have said a set of APIs.
At the moment I use Calender +, freeware today plugin, and easily integrates with other today managers. I like the clean look, its also easy to customize.
http://www.freewareppc.com/clock/calendar.shtml
Michael,
I had forgotten about Calendar + because it has been a while since I used it, but I now remember that it used virtually no memory and was a good plug-in. Thanks for mentioning it. I always like to hear about good freeware.
I have used calendar + for about 1.5. Great program, small footprint.
I have had good luck with Pocket Breeze, although I know SPB has quality products (I have a few). SBSH has a new list program, MyList, which I have been beta testing for a while now. It integrates nicely into Pocket Breeze.
I enjoy playing around with my today screen. It seems like I never have enough ram on my x50v
@twm, I know what you mean about playing with the Today screen. I love to tinker with different plug-ins, and also like a variety of skins (particularly Juni’s). Good to hear about MyList and integration with PB. Amit does a fine job with his products. And, from what I remember, PB is really more powerful than Spb Diary (has more options), but the latter seems easier to set up to me.
Now that I have thought about Juni again, guess I’ll vector off to his site to see if he has any new Today skins.
Humm - I think I will too. Its been a while.