Googly Ides

I'm not great at keeping track of my own schedule, much less anyone else's. This is a problem in a two-career household with three teenagers.

My employer requires me to use Lotus Notes for e-mail, and it also has a built-in calendar that I've been using for a year, but the interface is really ugly and kind of cumbersome to use. I've never liked it. (In fact, I don't know anyone who does.)

So last week I started experimenting with Google Calendar, and it's a big improvement. You can enter appointments using natural language like "Meeting with the Dean, 1-2 p.m." and it will figure out how to fill up the right time slots. If you enter an address, it will map it for you.

Best of all, you can share your calendar with other users, though you still have the option of keeping as much information hidden from them as you like. This is proving invaluable for us. When I pull up my own calendar, Laurette's is merged with it, so when she adds an appointment or a school event, I can see it on my calendar page, and vice-versa.

Don't really want to give more of my life over to Google, but the thing works very well.