|
|
|
|
|
Web Developer's Journal Archive SectionExpresso,Personal Information Managerby Denise McNickle |
||||||
|
What is Expresso, you ask? Expresso is a personal information manager (PIM) that rivals the best of the them and looks good at the same time. Will I ever really use it, you also ask? Those are the questions I asked myself when I saw Expresso at a computer/software mega-store while on vacation this summer. I was intrigued by the package proclaiming "Finally, a calendar that really works!". The fact that the store was having a sale didn't hurt either. So I bought Expresso Calendar and Address Book not really sure whether I would install it or even use it if I did install it. Several months later, I decided to check out Expresso after a friend raved about the "cool" looks it had.
Well, I certainly was impressed with the different "looks" that Expresso had. There are 22 different backgrounds to choose from for calendars (monthly, weekly and daily), address book and to-do lists. Background patterns range from "Executive Marble" and "Speckle Paper" to "Summer Shells" and "A Zen State." Several of the backgrounds offer animations after a set interval of idle time. Your can even select Randomizer which selects a new look at random each time you start Expresso. (Remember the Randomizer option in After Dark? Expresso is by Berkeley Systems - the same publisher that makes the After Dark screen savers.) The colors and graphics are great. There is enough of a variety to appeal to almost every user. There are only 3 choices of colors for the notes, however: yellow, magenta and blue. Stickies, in System 7.5, gives you 7 choices of colors. Maybe more colors will be available in a future update. Expresso is good at keeping the information you need at your fingertips. With it's patent pending Flashback option, your appointments, addresses, notepad, and to-do lists are just a click away. Upon installation, Expresso places the Flashback icon in the menu bar. In order to access your information, click on the Flashback icon and Expresso launches. No more hunting through folders to have access to the information you and your business need. Expresso's tool bar contains buttons you click on to open either: 4 different calendar views, an address book, a notepad, or a to-do list. It is information management at its easiest. Professionals and home-based business owners tracking appointments and contacts, as well as, the mom who has school and "extra" activities to keep track of will benefit from Expresso's ease of use and visibility. The calendar appears in either month, week, day, or mini-month views. To enter information or an appointment on your calendar, click on the date, an edit window opens and you can start typing in the information. It is that easy. Each event entered on the calendar has a "bullet" next to it. This gives you access to the Event Detail View that provides additional information for an individual calendar event. In this view, you can set an event to repeat automatically throughout you calendar or set an alarm to notify you about an event like an upcoming meeting you don't want to forget. One of the nice features about Expresso is its ability to import and export files. Expresso contains templates for importing files from other electronic programs such as Claris Organizer, DateBook Pro, Lotus Organizer, Calendar Creator, etc. It also contains templates for exporting files to these same programs. Expresso prints out the 4 calendar vews in several sizes to fit any paper organizer such as the DayRunner series. There is the same option for the Address Book and To-Do Lists. Another nice feature is FlashBack - the ability to capture any open Expresso window on your desktop background. With the preferences set to "FlashBack on quit", any open Expresso window, whether it be a calendar, to-do list or note becomes part of your desktop pattern (or Wallpaper for Windows) when you quit the Expresso application. This is extremely useful when you want to refer to any of your Expresso information while you work in other programs. The calendar can in fact become your entire desktop pattern with other icons and windows on top of the calendar, like a desk blotter. You can also make the calendar a much smaller size that sets on top of you regular desktop background. I found it very useful to have my to-do list part of my desktop. It is always there to remind (or haunt) me what I need to get done. You will need to launch Expresso every day to update the "highlighted" day of the month. Otherwise you will be behind as I tend to do after weekends when I don't use Expresso as much. The one part of Expresso that I do not personally care for is the NotePad. I am used to Stickies from System 7.5. A sticky note stays on my desktop until I discard it. Click on an open sticky to immediately access that note for editing. Stickies only requires 120K of RAM, so it can easily run as a background application. On the other hand, Berkeley says Expresso needs a minumum of 4MB of RAM. It may be hard for some users with limited RAM to leave Expresso running as a background application especially while using other RAM hungry applications. Each time you would want access to a note, you would have to launch Expresso, which takes time. This is a personal preference thing. I prefer Stickies to Expresso's notepad but other users may not. And those users without System 7.5 will get the benefit of a post-it type notepad. A new item which will score big with all you Trekkies: Berkeley has released a StarDate version of Expresso. StarDate adds 10 new backgrounds based on the Star Trek: The Next Generation series. These are wonderful backgrounds of Deep Space, the Engineering Console, USS Enterprise Console and even a Klingon theme. StarDate is a full-featured Expresso calendar and address book. No Trekkie should be without it. |
| Advertising Rates & Policies | Contact | Subscribe to Our Mailing List |
Webmaster
|
Web Developer's Journal |
