I’m looking for software that pretty much does what the calender and Scheduler do on MS Outlook. I have Outlook already but I’d like to see what else is around.
It can be pretty basic. I’ll just be tracking tasks that I assign myself for work as well as making sure I Frontline™ and worm the dog at regular intervals. I’ll also be tracking birthdays etc.
Any ideas or recommendations?
Try this
http://home.houston.rr.com/samware/index.html
I used a much erlier version a while back, it worked.
cheers
For a web-based solution I like Yahoo’s calendar – it has good, basic functionality and you can’t beat the price. 
For a desktop application, I’ve been using Rainlendar for quite a while now: it’s highly customizeable, you can set alarms/reminders, it will display a desktop “to do” list and/or list of upcoming events (if you want), etc.
Google Calendar, natch!
Hipcal.com is a good online one, if you don’t mind it being online.
Oh yeah: also, Mozilla has a pretty good standalone calendar called Sunbird.
(Why yes, I have tried several calendaring apps … why do you ask? ;))
Thanks for the suggestions. None have been quite right yet but Rainlendar is pretty close. Sunbird is fine, though a bit ugly and doesn’t support skins. I’d prefer it to be off-line.
Here’s a few from Portable Freeware’s Personal Information Managers page:
[ul]
[li]Essential PIM[/li][li]Total Organizer[/li][li]Exstora[/li][li]UK’s Kalender[/li][li]Chaos Manager[/li][/ul]
These all have the benefit that they can be run from a flash drive, so you can take it with you when you leave the house.
ditto.
It’s web-based, so you don’t have to be at your “home” pc. It’s shareable, so if you want more than one person can update the same calendar. The security can be private/read-only/read-write… your choice.
I like www.yourorganiser.com but I always have to remember it’s Australian and type an s instead of the correct z.
I know you said you wanted offline, but I have to throw this in for any future visitor who comes looking for calendar suggestions. I personally love www.30boxes.com - they’re great!
– IG
Add another vote for Google calendar. With Google desktop as well, I have my calendar, to-do list, and a notepad all sitting there available on my desktop. However, the calendar function in Google Desktop only works when you’re online – I’d love it if it could keep a local copy of the calendar for when my connection is unreliable.
I tried Sunbird a little while back… it seems very promising, but it was way too buggy for me to rely on it to keep track of my life. Which is understandable, considering it’s still in alpha, but I haven’t seen many signs of progress for a while.
Although the Google calendar is nice, it doesn’t have task lists, only events. The to-do list on the Desktop doesn’t seem to be quite what I’m looking for. At the moment its a toss up between Rainlendar and Sunbird.
Hipcal was good but they’ve been bought out by another company and are no longer supporting Hipcal as they work on a new calendar.
I’ve now decided on Rainlendar. Thanks for your help.
Yay! What do I win? 
I don’t know but I’m using it too, I was suckered in by the look of it. It’s a pretty good program. I wish it would run programs too, I could replace my ancient Norton Commander Scheduler.
Well, you would’ve won something really special, but I took Rainlendar to work with me today and it kept freezing on the work computer then became unusable. It has also started doing the same thing on my own computer. I’ve re installed it with no luck. It could be to do with it being run off my USB flash drive but as that was one of its main selling points I can’t really change it.
I’m back to square one. I’ve refined my requirements a little.
It needs to be portable, so either able to be run off a USB stick or a web calendar.
It needs to have both tasks and events (Google doesn’t.)
I need to be able to set the tasks to recur (Hipcal and many others don’t.)
I’m going to go back and reassess the suggestions above.
That’s too bad, 2 different computers. I also installed it on my work and home computer, and it’s been fine on both.
I’ve installed the latest beta version and so far its good.
I spent all night yesterday searching the web for something, I downloaded and installed all of the ones that had been suggested here, I signed up for all of the online calendars I could find. I ended up with a myriad of little clock icons in my task tray all telling me what day it was. Rainlendar was the only one that does what I want. So, I’ll persist with it.
Misnomer, your prize is 100,000 USD, please send 10,000 USD to cover handling fees 