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Web Developer's Journal Archive SectionThis article is out of date, but may still be useful to some readers.Lotus OrganizerPersonal Information Managerby Harold Jernigan |
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While personal information managers have become ubiquitous in the PC market, Lotus Organizer stands out in the crowd. It has powerful features and is very easy to use.
Lotus Organizer is an on-screen calendar, to-do list, address book, notepad, yearly planner, and anniversary reminder all rolled into one. Organizer uses the metaphor of a loose-leaf notebook with tabs for each section. You may design and setup as many notebooks as you wish; each notebook can be customized as needed. You can add, delete, rename or rearrange sections, change colors, choose preferences, and much more. To load and run Organizer you need an 80386 or 80486-based computer running Windows 3.0 or higher, with DOS 3.11 or higher and 4 Megabytes of hard disk space. Organizer can be used on a single PC or if you are on a LAN or WAN you can utilize group scheduling via cc:Mail that is also included. The Calendar section is for time management, scheduling, and appointments. There are four choices of how to view your calendar: one day per page, one work-week per two pages, one full week per two pages, or one full week per page. The present day is shown in red. Entering an appointment has been made very easy. Point to the day and click: all of the time slots for that day are displayed. Scroll to the start time and click: a Time Tracker and appointment window opens, for typing the text information about your appointment. Use the Time Tracker to adjust the duration of the appointment. At this point several other options are available. You can setup cost codes, set an alarm, run another application, create repeating appointments, etc. When you are satisfied, click the check-mark icon to confirm and the appointment appears in the Calendar. When my wife first saw the To-Do List section she became quite excited. From our beginning she has wished for, pleaded with, and encouraged me, to keep such a list. Organizer may make a convert of me. Lotus has made keeping a to-do list much less troublesome and much more interesting. When adding projects and tasks to the list, you describe the task, specify start and due dates, and assign it a priority. Each task is coded to appear in a different color based on its status: red for overdue, green for current, blue for future and a red line through the task for completed. You can have your To-Do task displayed in the Calendar section if you want to see everything you have to do on a particular day. An item not completed is moved forward each day. In the Address section, Organizer goes beyond the standard name, address, zip, phone, and fax number. There is space for other data, such as type of contact (employee, customer, prospect, club member, etc.), other names and alternate phone numbers and a large field for notes. This provides a lot of versatility when using the search, find, and sort commands. In my opinion the Notepad section is badly misnamed. While you can keep notes, lists or anything you might want to write down on a pad, there it is so much more that you can do. It is more like a book than a pad. There is no limit to the number of pages, and as you add pages it automatically builds a table of contents. Along with text you can display drawings, diagrams, charts, maps, and pictures. You could easily setup a procedures manual, safety tips, instruction manual—you name it. Organizer has two other sections that should not be overlooked: the Yearly Planner and the Anniversary sections. Enter wedding anniversaries, birthdays, holidays or any annual repeating events into the anniversary section. They will appear in your Calendar section and are automatically rolled over each year without retyping. The Yearly Planner looks like a large wall calendar where you can see the full year all at one time. Each day is divided into A.M. and P.M.. By using different colors and labels you can indicate vacations, meetings, COMDEX dates, trips, and activities for the year. The schedule is also displayed in your calendar. Lotus Organizer permits you to customize each section to meet your needs, to link information, copy to and from the clipboard, and print output. If you are looking for a new information manager or have not yet installed one on your system, I recommend that you take a look at Lotus Organizer. It may make a convert of you, too. |
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