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.