iSwitchd

Macs are great to help you being organized. The combination of Mail + Address Book + iCal works great. But you can be even more efficient thanks to a couple little programs. I recently came across one of them called Today, and after 3 days I was sold. Here’s why.

iCal is a great software to stay organized. I use it to store all my appointments, it reminds me of birthdays from my contacts in Address Book, I subscribe to online calendars for sports events I want to watch… So I know when I’m available, and when I’m not (I guess that’s the purpose of a personal calendar). Its weekly and monthly views are great to plan the future, but it’s not very convenient when it comes to take a look at the current day. And that’s exactly the purpose of Today.

Today sums up your daily tasks and events in a simple and small window. It is synchronized with iCal so it shows exactly what you have in your calendar, and you can create tasks and events that are instantly added to iCal as well. You can select in the Preferences which of your calendars you want Today to stay in sync with.

The window is pretty simple. It shows the date on top, surrounded by arrows that help navigating through the calendar. Events are listed below, followed by tasks. 4 buttons sit on the bottom: Add an event, Add a task, Preferences and Show or hide the tasks view.

Today is very simple, and an excellent addition to iCal. I’ve set it up to start every time I turn my computer on so I always know what’s going on. It has a 9 days trial, I know it’s short, but you don’t need more to be convinced. And if you consider buying it, I can have a you a rebate so feel free to contact me.