2008-05-19

How come all digital calendars suck?

This can also be written: why haven't I written one of my own?

The digital calendars try to mimic their paper cousins the same way as Phillipinean food takes after ditto from USA. They have kept all the bad stuff and thrown away the good parts.

Number 1 bad thing with all the digital calendars I have run into is their obsession with hours. There is no way to enter "after job" or "in the afternoon" or "time will be decided later".
Number 2 bad thing with all the digital calendars I have run into is that there is no way to enter thing by week. I normally have vacation between week X and week Y (or dates X' and Y' if you prefer) and this is marked with a line in the margin. In my paper calendar that is. I cannot enter full day meetings because then my whole vacation is one big blob of "meeting" where I cannot find other stuff like sailing competition, midsommar or the dog's birtday.
Number 3 is the overview. For the ones living their life like Gantt the solution might be perfect. But for all us others...

Some 100 years ago I had an Apple Newton and for this one I bought a calendar that did what everyone using the paper calendar metaphor should do; throw it in the recycling bin. The solution was to just list things in chronological order with a line for week changes and bold for new day (or something like that) In reality I know that the meeting at the divers' club is at thursday evening and hence things above it is earlier and below it later on. This way of presenting my calendar turned out to be just the thing.

Last: if someone knows of a calendar program - please tell me.

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