Get your life sorted

Martin Hansen

A major new version of Organiser - the electronic 'filo-fax' for RISC OS - has been released. It costs £20. When I read that it was compatible with my iPhone, I immediately handed over the cash.
 
I'm a teacher, and usually start the academic year by buying a small diary. Not so this year. For a long time, my phone has been my watch, alarm-clock and note-pad. Now it's my diary as well.
 
The 'Software Diary' concept has been around for years but the big drawback in installing such on a desktop or laptop is that when you need to view the information, you're not in the same place as that machine. Given that your mobile phone is already your constant companion, being able to view your diary on it makes a lot of sense. The paper diary, now in the bin, becomes one item less to carry around.
 

 
Organizer is a very well thought out piece of software. It is an electronic model of a paper personal organiser, as will be apparent from the screenshot shown above. Clicking the lower corner of a page causes it to turn. To add or alter an entry simply click on the relevant place. I spent an afternoon inserting the birthdays of friends and relatives into the anniversary section, and various notes, appointment times and holiday dates into the diary section. Once a birthday is in the anniversary section it automatically appears each year in the dairy section along with, if you wish it, the person's age. My diary set up, I exported the data to my pen drive, as an ics file. 
 

 
On Helen's Apple Mac laptop, I imported the file into the iCal application. It was quite exciting to see my dates and times displayed in a very differently styled application. It actually made me realise how very much better Organizer was at displaying the same information. However, the Mac laptop was just a stepping stone. With the iPhone connected, I used iTunes to update the iPhone's iCal data. It was all so very easy.
 

 
Of course, you don't need a mobile phone to make use of Organizer. I've focussed on this aspect of the software because it's the reason I bought it. I think it's great when RISC OS integrates well with the modern world. It's something worth writing about.
 

*INFO Organizer

 
Use the advert, right, to access the Organizer website. There you'll find a FREE version (v1.31) of the 'basic' Organizer program along with further screenshots and information.
 
The latest version is v2.04, cost £20.
 
Organizer will require Virtual Acorn to run on non-RISC OS machines.