Background Calendar

Everyone needs a calendar. Not everyone needs a scheduling program. Background Calendar is a low-impact, easy-to-use solution for most needs. It has a lot of options, but once you like the way it looks, you don't have to fiddle with it any more. A lot of your computer experience is based on real artifacts. A word processor's measurement bar looks like a typewriter's margin slider. A database program may have a display like a Rolodex. To discard a document, we put it in the trash. This technique frees us from having to learn different ways of doing things when we're using a computer; it's good sound cognitive psychology. It's hard to beat a paper calendar for ease of use. All you have to do is hang it up where you'll see it when you need it, and remember to flip the page every month. You can write on it and check it easily to see what events you have coming up in the next two days, this day next week-- whatever. By comparison, scheduling programs require learning, have little to do with the way we use these existing artifacts, and must be specially launched-- they aren't always available. It is with this in mind that I wrote Background Calendar. The Desktop Picture is available at all times. Sure, it may be blocked by windows, but there are easy ways to get rid of them momentarily. So, Background Calendar is like a paper calendar: it's always available. If you have more than one screen, it's particularly handy to set it up on one of them which is left relatively uncluttered. Writing on it? Easy. We have another real-world artifact called the "Post-It Note." On the Macintosh, they exist as "Stickies." So: Why not use them as little "reminders" on a "calendar?" When run, Background Calendar will generate a calendar for the current month, with whatever options you have selected-- such as outlining the current date, applying colors, leaving margins, drawing on top of an existing desktop picture, and so forth-- and then sets the desktop picture of your preferred monitor to the result. You'll always have a current calendar at your fingertips!