Desktop calendars are a valuable tool, especially for those among us who have a difficult time keeping organized. Until I was able to find a few good free desktop calendars, I had a giant stack of index cards spread out all over my desk with no way to keep them straight. Using a free desktop calendar is a wonderful way to keep you actual desk clear and your computer desktop clean-looking and easy to manage. It took me a while to find the right free computer desktop calendar that was perfect for my needs and below you’ll find my review of the best ones as well as the one I finally settled on.
The first free computer desktop calendar I used is made by American Greetings, the card company. Their calendars are, of course, completely free and are very small downloads. One of the first things I liked about this free desktop calendar was that there were a number of themes to choose from, each of which featured a pretty image. My problem with that was, it took up too much of my desktop space and was distracting. Besides, I like to change the wallpaper every so often and this didn’t allow for it. Although this free desktop calendar allowed me to receive alerts and other reminders for deadlines and appointments, it was a little “frilly” for me. I decided that what I really needed was something that had more features and less fluff. Still, for the average user who is looking for a free desktop calendar to remind him or her of important dates such as birthdays or anniversaries, this is a nice option. It is not feature-rich but looks good and hey, it is after all a free desktop calendar and the “price” makes it at least worth trying out.
After finding that American Greetings made a free desktop calendar that was functional although a little frilly and distracting, I moved on to try to find something a little more business-like and with more features. There were many free desktop calendars that might have suited this need but I settled on a free desktop calendar called simply “Desktop Calendar” made by a small outfit at tinnes.org.uk. This was originally freeware that was supported by the donations of people who downloaded this pretty and easy to use free desktop calendar but now they sell a full version that offers new images and formats. This free desktop calendar is very simple-looking and really easy to use. You simply put in the data for a particular day and you receive alerts when something is scheduled. For me, however, since I have numerous deadlines and things to remember throughout the day, this was a little annoying and like the free desktop calendar from American Greetings, this is good for people who have only one or two things to remember for a day. It is a little more professional and less “frilly” than the card company’s free desktop calendar, but again, not entirely as open-ended and I was hoping for. Still, the free version of this desktop calendar is excellent although like the free desktop calendar from American Greetings, it also takes up the entire desktop, not with an actual calendar, but with the display image. Most of the images look like general stock photos, some of which are nice, but I was simply looking for something to go off to one side so I could keep the look of my desktop background that I already had.
One of the best free desktop calendars that is the least intrusive and easiest to manage, especially for several appointments and things to do is made by our good friends at dear old Google. The Google Desktop calendar quite simply rocks. It is efficient and doesn’t try to take up my entire screen with forced pictures of bunnies or fairies or something like I’d find at American Greetings. The only thing about this is that you have to install the whole Google thing on your desktop which shouldn’t be a problem and is well worth the free desktop calendar it provides. It is a tiny download but provides full functionality. I love it and hope you will too.
