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Entourage X has the best calendar I've seen.
  technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

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Calendar and scheduling programs for OS X: iCal, Entourage and Now Up to Date


April 9, 2003


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2003, The Post-Standard

   Good personal information managers are hard to find, especially for Mac OS X. Like it or not, OS X is the "baby" among modern operating systems, and many programmers simply haven't had much time to come up with Mac OS X calendar and scheduling software.
   But you have at least three good ones to choose from, including one that's totally free. I should warn you, however, that the free personal information manager, Apple's iCal, might turn out to be unusable if you're like me and have trouble reading calendar data because of the pastel colors used. These color schemes make the entries barely readable.
   iCal (www.apple.com) is a wonderful program, very easy to use and perfectly integrated into the way modern Macs work. One-time events are a simple matter and recurring events such as birthdays and anniversaries could hardly be easier to enter. Notification is easy, too, and iCal can send an e-mail notice to your home or office e-mail address, too.
   Another plus: You can add someone else's iCal calendar to yours with a few clicks. Check http://icalshare.com for more than 1,000 shareable calendars of sports schedules, TV listings, holidays and more.
   Until iCal gets fixed, you might want to consider either Entourage X or Now Up to Date.
   Entourage X is Microsoft's powerful e-mail/calendar program for OS X. You can get it as part of Office X (when I last checked, it was $300 at student discount, which applies for a student of any age in the family) or as a separate program for about $90. (Site: www.microsoft.com/mac.)
   Entourage X has the best calendar I've seen, whether for Mac OS X, Windows or Linux. It's fairly easy to link calendar items to messages and other PIM items -- you click a toolbar button and choose what kind of link you want to make, then follow the prompts.
   Notifications work well, too. In both iCal and Entourage X, you are notified of events and appointments even when the main program isn't running. Entourage has no direct way to send notifications by e-mail.
   The third personal information manager I tried, Now Up to Date & Contact from PowerOn Software (www.poweronsoftware.com), is a heavy-duty calendar and scheduling system that adds a superb contact manager. It's available for Macs and Windows PCs. (The Mac version runs on both the discontinued Mac OS and the new Mac OS X.) The program costs $120 for the downloadable version and up to $150 for a boxed version.
   The software is ultimately disappointing. I found no way to integrate Now Up to Date with either Mac OS X Mail or Entourage, the two e-mail applications I use on my Mac. This is not a major flaw if you don't need an integrated PIM, but it keeps the otherwise excellent Now Up to Date program out of the running for anyone whose life runs on e-mail.