A Lightweight Transparent Calendar For Your Windows Desktop

When you want to look at a calendar in a default Windows installation the only option you have is to click on the clock in the lower right corner of the screen. And while that’s an option, it is not a very comfortable one if you need to look at the calendar regularly. The calendar on top of that does not provide any additional functionality that one would expect, for instance an option to set reminders.

You could use the calendar of a messaging software like Outlook or Thunderbird, or install a third party calendar like Desktop Calendar.

The free portable software displays the current date and the days of the current month on the desktop. The display is fully transparent which means that it fits nicely with any desktop background. When you first start the application you will notice that it is positioned in the upper left corner of the screen. You can move the calendar by holding down the shift key, and dragging and dropping the window to another location on the screen. Only the controls at the bottom of the calendar can be used for that.

Right-click the window afterwards and select save position from the menu to lock in it place there. Options in the same menu opens the application preferences. Here you can change the calendar font type, size and colors, spacing, the date format and other relevant preferences. Depending on the desktop background, font and size, you may need to experiment with the available color font colors to find one that is readable.

Edit Reminders is the third and final option available in the context menu. This allows you to set custom reminders, one-time or recurring, for birthdays, appointments and other events. New event types, along with their color code, can be defined in the program options.

The biggest issue that you may have with the program is that you cannot synchronize the data with online calendars or calendars in other applications. The portable nature of the application allows you however to synchronize the data between multiple computer systems.

You can download Desktop Calendar from Glenn Delahoy’s website. The program is fully compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2012. | Permalink |
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Calendar Magic, All Calendar Information You Ever Need

The Windows operating system ships with a basic calendar that’s linked to the system’s date and time settings. A click on the system clock displays the current month with options to display other months instead. But that’s all the functionality that is offered by the system calendar. If you are looking for additional information, you need to make use of third party software to do so.

The calendar can come integrated in a desktop program like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird with the Lightning add-on installed, or as an online calendar like Google Calendar.

Those calendars are usually limited to the Gregorian Calendar, with limited possibilities to display data from other calendars.

That’s where Calendar Magic comes into play. The free software for Windows supports dozens of calendar systems that include religious or cultural calendars.

Full year and individual month Gregorian, Afghan, Armenian, Baha’i, Balinese Pawukon (full year only), Balinese Saka, Bangla, Chinese, Coptic, Egyptian, Ethiopic, French Revolutionary, Hebrew, Hindu Lunisolar (3 variants), Hindu Solar, Indian National, Islamic Arithmetical (8 variants), Javanese Pawukon/Pasaran, Julian, Revised Julian, Parsi Fasli, Parsi Kadmi, Parsi Shenshai, Persian (2 variants), Sikh Nanakshahi and Vietnamese calendars. A user option is provided to choose between displaying/printing calendars showing each week starting on a Monday (in line with the ISO 8601 international standard), on a Sunday for North American users, or on a Saturday for Middle East users.

The option to display those calendars is just one of the many features of the program. It is possible to do a side-by-side comparison of any two of the supported calendar systems, do date conversions or list religious festivals for various world religions.

The application on top of that displays information and offers to make calculations. This includes important events in the world on a specific date, the beginning of the new year in various calendars and information about a user’s birthday.

Maths and other utilities are available to run ovulation calculators and pregnancy calculators, or to write down reminders and notes.

There is a lot this program can do, with some of the tools not being directly or even indirectly related to calendars. This for instance includes the body mass index calculator or a currency converter. If you concentrate purely on the calendar options you’d still come to the conclusion that Calendar Magic offers a lot of functionality.

A full list of features and the program’s download links are available on the developer website. The software is compatible with recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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A Closer Look at the Lightning Calendar Add-On For Thunderbird

One of the main points of criticism in regards to the email client Thunderbird was the missing calendar. While it was possible to install an early version of Lightning in previous versions of the email program, it was not really on-pair with the calendar in Outlook or Google Calendar.

With the release of Thunderbird 8 came the release of Lightning 1.0. We already mentioned that in the Thunderbird release review we posted yesterday.

Lightning in terms of compatibility has made a step backwards. The calendar only supports Thunderbird 8 and later versions, which can be a serious problem for users who do not just jet want to upgrade to the new version of the desktop email client.

Mozilla has this to say about Lightning:

Lightning 1.0 is the fully integrated calendar Add-on for Thunderbird that lets users organize their schedules and life’s important events as a natural part of their email experience. Lightning gives users the ability to manage multiple calendars, create daily to do lists, invite friends and colleagues to events and meetings, and subscribe to publicly available calendars. With over a million active users, Lightning 1.0 is the calendar solution that users rely on to help them manage their daily lives at work and at home.

When you look at the release notes of Lightning 1.0 you will notice that there are not really that many notable changes to report. Most of the changes are bugfixes that resolve issues of previous Lightning versions. Lightning 1.0 has received some cosmetic changes, most notable new user interface styles for all calendar views.

When you install Lightning in Thunderbird you will notice – after a restart – that it adds a column on the right side of the program. Here you see the current date and calendar week as well as events for today, tomorrow and “soon”. Lightning adds the Events and Tasks menu to the top menubar.

An import option is available supporting iCalendar and Microsoft Outlook comma separated value files. It is furthermore still possible to synchronize Lightning with Google Calendar and other remote calendar locations (via New > Calendar > On the Network).

New Lightning users should take a look at the known issues highlighted on the Lightning 1.0 release notes page.

Are you using a calendar application? If so, which?

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© Martin Brinkmann for gHacks Technology News | Latest Tech News, Software And Tutorials, 2011. | Permalink |
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