Introduction to Guy Friday


What is Guy Friday?

Guy Friday is a Personal Information Manager. I’ve tried to design it around the way I work. Unfortunately, I’m no rocket scientist, and my work habits are less than ideal.

Here is how I work:

• I am messy and disorganized.

• I need to remember all sorts of random information, most of which is difficult to categorize.

• I need access to this information immediately.

• Sometimes I’m not even sure what I’m looking for, or where I put it. I just want to be able to jar my own memory.

• I want an assistant to dial the telephone for me. Since I can’t afford a human assistant, I’ll take the help of my machine.

• I often forget about appointments and other tasks that need to get done. I want to be reminded about all the stupid little things that comprise my daily life, things like buying birthday presents or making phone calls.

If any of this describes you, you may find Guy Friday useful. 


Design Philosophy

The important thing to remember about Guy Friday is that it’s designed for slobs.

If you’re not a slob, you still might like it, but I doubt it. Go back to where you came from.

If you are  a slob—as I suspect most sane human beings are—then read on.

I could never understand why most people use those Personal Information Manager programs that want you to organize information for the sake of the computer’s convenience. Most of these programs ask you to fill out a “card” for every name you want to keep track of. These cards have specific “fields”—for example, they may be labeled “Telephone Number” or “Fax” or “Company”—that you are expected to fill out robotically.

Field names are useful for large databases, or even for client and sales-lead tracking software. In both these cases, the user may want to organize mailing lists or write complicated scripts. But if you’re like me and only want a program to help you keep track of your personal life, this is overkill. I don’t need to create a mailing list of my friends in the 10024 area code. Not yet, anyway.

Like a scrap of paper

Guy Friday was designed to be used like a scrap of paper. Jot something down, stick it in your pocket, and then look for it when you need it.

No field names. No miniature bureaucratic forms to fill out for every person you meet at a bar or whose business card you pick up. Just type his name and phone number and address. That’s it. Whenever you want to look for that person’s information, just type his first name, or middle name, or nickname, or whatever. The person’s card will pop up. Then you can press a button to have Guy Friday dial that person’s phone number for you.

Guy Friday is more powerful than this. Because it’s a free-form personal database, you can store whatever information you like in it. To Do’s. Shopping Lists. Phone Numbers. Ideas for your soon-to-be-written novel. Whatever.

To learn how to use Guy Friday, I suggest you follow along with the Tutorial, which can be found also in Guy Friday help...