Alarming Events is billed as “Personal Scheduling…with all the bells and whistles.” In this review, we’ll test that claim.
Alarming Events falls in the same category of software as Smart Alarms, DeskSecretary, and CalenDAr. It is designed to help you remember tasks and events by popping up at the appropriate time with a message such as “SMUG meeting tonight” or “Aunt Clara’s birthday.” If we assume that all of the reminder products perform this basic function, then choosing one becomes a matter of features, fit, and feel.
Alarming Events certainly has the features. You’ll find lots of thoughtful features from the first time you use it. Choosing Alarming Event from the DA menu brings up the calendar window shown here. (Fig. 1.) Clicking on one of the arrows takes you to the previous or following month. This small window can be resized—making it bigger allows you to see more months. In fact, clicking on the Grow box in the upper right corner zooms Alarming Events’ window out to show a full year. Any changes you make to the size or position of the window will be remembered.
Scheduling
Dates which are shown in bold have a reminder attached to them, and clicking on a date takes you to that day’s window. (Fig. 2) From here, you can read your reminders or enter new ones. At the top is the name of the event. Just below that is a box for notes on that event. At the bottom is a list of all events for that day.
This is the main work area, where you define such things as the kind of notification you want, and how much, if any, advance notification you want. You can also set up recurring events here—you might want to be reminded of SMUG meetings on the second Wednesday of each month, or once a year for birthdays and anniversaries.
There’s also a Five Day Window, which can help you schedule events several days at a time. (Fig. 3.) Simply hold down the Shift key when you click on a calendar date and you’ll get info on that day and the four following days. (Note: most functions are also available from Alarming Events’ pull-down menu if you have trouble remembering keyboard shortcuts.
Notification
When the scheduled time for an event arrives, Alarming Events notifies you in one of several ways. The most often used will probably be the Pop-Up Alarm, which gives you the text of the reminder as well as an audible sound. (Fig. 4.) There are other types of notification, too; you might choose to have the audible beep plus a flashing clock at the top of the Apple menu.
Notice that, in addition to the standard OK button, there are several other ways to acknowledge the reminder. You can click on icons to check the event as “done,” postpone the notification until a later time, go directly to the Single Day window, archive the event, or trash the event.This gives you lots of options when a reminder comes up.
Details
Life is full of details, and so is Alarming Events. Here are a few:
Archives. Alarming Events lets you archive any event. An archive is a text file that can be used later in a word processor. This is a valuable feature that allows you to review appointments at a later date. CalenDAr, in contrast, deletes events as soon as they have happened. If there is more than one person using a Mac, each can have his own Archive File as well as his own Reminder File.
A Timed Event is one which gives no notification (visual or audible). This allows you to keep a record of how much time is spent at different tasks. It is not automatic, but this feature might appeal to those who need to keep track of such things as billable times, etc.
Events can be marked as “Still To Do.” These events do not notify you, but remain on your calendar as a gentle reminder. Each day, they show up with an indication of how long the task has been put off. (Fig. 5)
Alarming Events will function on an AppleShare network, thus allowing shared appointment files.
Wish List
What features would improve Alarming Events? The notification box can be set to close after a given amount of time. While this is a good feature, it would be improved if it continued to pop up from time to time. If you were on a coffee break when your notification appeared, you might not find out until the next time you happened to look at Alarming Events. A little more automation here would help. DeskSecretary pops up every few minutes when it is not acknowledged.
The ability to choose different sounds for different events could augment those really important events. While a polite beep might be fine for most events, a meeting with the boss might demand an air raid siren blast. CalenDAr allows for this option, and even allows for direct importing of additional sounds.
Recurring events do not show up as bold on the calendar windows. This should have been an option, as it would help those who like to do spot checks of the upcoming days. Some of the most important events are likely to be recurring.
Finally, Alarming Events seems to be a little slow when giving a reminder. Your Mac seems to get lost for a few moments when Alarming Events takes over. Perhaps if the audible alarm rang first, you would know what to expect.
In spite of these nits I have picked, Alarming Events remains the most powerful and useful of the calendar programs I have tried. I have carped on minor features. I like being able to click on a date and see what is scheduled for that day (and no others), but the Five Day view lets me plan ahead. Alarming Events is likely to be helping me keep myself organized for a long time.
CalendarMaker 3.0.1
Before leaving this review, mention should be made of CE Software’s CalendarMaker program, which works very well in combination with Alarming Events. CalendarMaker has been around for a long time, gradually over the years adding to a modest set of features.
Despite popular opinion, Mac users are not glued to their monitors 24 hours per day; we even turn them off from time to time. Since a reminder program can only beep at you when it’s turned on and you are there to hear it, you might want to consider making a printout of your appointments and events. While most schedulers will print out a simple list, Alarming Events can export all of your appointments in CalendarMaker format, thus allowing you to create professional-looking and handy calendars to slip in your briefcase or hang on your refrigerator.
CalendarMaker can function on its own to make calendars, but it really shines when you import your to-do list from Alarming Events. (Fig. 6.)
You can choose from several calendar formats: with or without pictures, and one month or two to a page. You can specify fonts, sizes, and alignment, as well as several other attributes. Calendars can be printed on paper (in color on an ImageWriter II) or to disk, and can be saved. Those which are printed to disk can be imported into other programs, as I’ve done here. (Fig. 7.)
In short, the simple addition of CalendarMaker to Alarming Events gives you automated calendars with both ease and power.
Requires Mac Plus (1Mb of RAM) or higher, System 6.0.2 or later, and a hard drive.
CalendarMaker
Retail price: $49.95
Street price: $31
Requires Mac 512 or higher.
CE Software, Inc.
P.O. Box 65880
West Des Moines, IA 50265
(515) 224-1995
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The article above is reprinted from Mac Monitor, the newsletter of The Savannah Macintosh Users Group. It may be reprinted in a single issue of newsletters published by non-profit user groups. Payment shall consist of a single issue of the newsletter in which the article appears, sent to the following address:
