Software
Review of: |
 Individual
Software, Inc. has a number of personal application software programs available.
These programs focus on helping the individual accomplish tasks and carry
out functions that are demanded by today's busy lifestyles. Keeping track
of our busy schedules is a priority for most of us. AnyTime Deluxe Edition,
Version 7.0 is an easy to use personal organizer that has many classical
and handy features. There are calendars to track your life on a daily,
weekly or monthly, 2-month, 3-month, 6-month or even yearly basis, as you
find a need. Using programs like these with the power of the computer and
Internet today far surpasses the old "string around the finger" to help
you keep track of and remember important information.
Calendars: These handy assistants let you use the day, week, month or year to get better organized. You enter recurring events such as weekly meetings or monthly events like Alamo PC meetings or even yearly events like my anniversary and my wife’s birthday. Once an event has been entered, into your calendar, you can specify how often the event occurs. The program provides alarms to alert you that an upcoming event or meeting is scheduled. The alarms work even if you are using other programs. Now that is a neat feature! Once I had the program installed, I registered it online and then began to explore the facets and caveats of this product. As I entered my Schedule, I intentionally put in a conflict and the program warned me of the problem. Find Free Time allows you to identify blocks of time that are available in your schedule. You can easily enter changes or additions by simply dragging and dropping them on your calendar. Finally, choose how you want to customize the information, full, detailed view or short summary and the look (color, style, etc.) of each window. Maintaining an effective and up-to-date address book is an important feature of any good personal organizer. This task is accomplished easily with AnyTime Deluxe Edition. First, if you have the information already entered in another personal organizer, you can import that information into AnyTime. You can also export AnyTime information to those other personal organizers. The address book has multiple features including AutoSchedule, which lets you schedule appointments automatically by simply dragging and dropping the contact information, FastDialing, which auto-dials phone numbers for you and Search tools to find what you need quickly. When in the program, should you decide to send an E-mail to someone, you can send it directly with AnyTime. Do you make little notes to yourself or write in reminders on your current calendar or schedule? If you do, you can use AnyTime to help you prioritize what you want to accomplish, set deadlines and indicate when the “to-do” is completed. Another nice feature is that items not completed automatically rollover to the next day without requiring you to re-enter the item. With my procrastinating nature, I hope I don’t wear out this feature, which I plan to use an awful lot. For those of you out there with a personally creative nature, you can have fun with this product. There are over 250 different layouts in the collection of calendars, to-do lists, daily planners, labels and address books included in AnyTime. I have to confess that I did not see them all. According to the helpful user’s manual that comes along with the CD, changing fonts, colors, borders and styles can customize these layouts. Designer Layouts (weekend planner, 5-day schedule, agenda, etc.) and Printed Layouts supporting many paper organizers (DayTimer, Franklin, Avery Labels and others) are available. Another nicety provided is the free Bonus calendars. You can download calendars and schedules of the current NBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball and Professional Golf tours, among others. Other choices to jazz up your organizer were Merriam Webster’s New Word of the Day, lists of International Holidays, Celebrity birthdays, Moon Phases, Sports Schedules and much more. Although I have yet to check any of these out, I certainly plan to do so in the near future. This program is network ready and can be used by a single user or on a network with a 2-user access for no additional charge. If you want to use it in a business setting, you can pay an additional charge and utilize the Business Upgrade License, which will then allow you to support up to 10 users. Although it is not required, an Internet connection and E-mail service are recommended. System requirements are for a Pentium (or higher) class CPU; Microsoft Windows 2000, 98, 95 or Windows NT; 10 MB of RAM available; 8 MB of hard drive space free; a double speed or faster CD-ROM drive; a 256 Color VGA or more display; a sound card; speakers or a headphone and a mouse device. It is available for purchase online at Individual Software’s home page on the Internet or in local retail stores. Online, the Individual Software price is $49.95 and the same price was available at CompUSA locally, the only store I was able to check in the time I had. There was also a $10.00 rebate on the box for this software program.
Larry Grosskopf, Ph.D. is a Clinical Psychologist at the San Antonio State Hospital and is President for the Alamo PC Organization, Inc. He and his wife Marta are raising two children, Zoë is now 7 and Jackson is 5. |