For a time, AOl or America Online, was our Internet Service Provider. We liked the feature of AOL very much; what we did not like as well were the monthly fees. Switching to PeoplePC as our ISP saves us $10- $20 per month. We have unfortunately lost some of the AOL perks. One we have not lost and this one is a biggee for me, is the free AOL webmail and gmail with personal, customizable calendar and organizer.
I’ve used several free online calendars and organizers. Some, like Cozi require big downloads, toolbars and software. Cozi is fun to play with and personalize with pictures and all, but Cozi also slows down my computer, takes forever to load and is generally not worth the bother.
AOL calendar does not require a download. There are no fees, software, toolbars or bothersome adware to plague the poor computer user who relies on a fast, user-friendly internet to earn her bread and butter. AOl calendar can be totally customized to your preferences. And I don’t mean cutsey, useless personalizations. I don’t care about the color of my background or what pictures decorate my calendar. I want a dynamic, functional organizer. I want an online PDA, Blackberry and Franklin Planner all packaged easy and neat. That’s what AOL calendar is.
Here is the kind of customizing I need. With six people in the family, I need to be able to see at a glance who the event on my calendar refers to; I need to coordinate many activities, calendars, social events, school events, work events. Here’s how I do that with AOL calendar. Each calendar is a different color. My work schedule is blue. My bill paying calendar is orange. Religious holidays: yellow. Jake’s schedule is green. Emma’s calendar is pink, our school district calendar is gray, our family calendar is purple. Dad’s work schedule is brown…you get the picture. At a glance, I can look at the calendar and see that I have one blue, one pink, two green and an orange event. The colors help me to organize not only our events and schedule, but also my mind, which is a huge undertaking!
I can also add calendar URLs from other online calendars. Our community events calendar, our church calendar, local library calendar; you name it- if it’s online I can coordinate this calendar with mine. I can also set my calendar to private or public. As a public calendar, I can link mine to friends who use AOL calendar. My book club, golfing group, girls’ night out, PTA, parents group, anyone. I can set certain calendars to private and others to public.
I can enable email alerts to remind me about certain events. I can tell my calendar when to remind me. AOL calendar may keep me sane and on task all at the same time. Now that would be a miracle.
