Looking for a desktop Outlook replacement.

[Kati Compton]

If you responded "Something else" in the poll, what program do you use on your PC (or Mac)? I have to say I'm more interested in the PC answers, as I don't have a Mac, but if there's both PC and Mac versions that would still be helpful for me (and if not, could still be helpful for someone else).

Basically, I'm looking for a replacement PIM for the desktop that still works syncing to PocketPC. So most likely I'd want it to be outlook compatible, but there may be other options.

There are just a couple of things that annoy me about Outlook. I don't find that I can customize the views the way I'd like (or I just can't find the setting). For example, I'd like to be able to look at it like a regular calendar, with S M T W Th F S, each day given a full-size box. In Outlook (that came with Office XP) I seem to only be able to get M T W Th F S/S, with Sat and Sun splitting a regular-sized box. It'd also be nice if I could make a continuous calendar, so I don't see a gap between months. It would make it easier to see appointments/tasks/whatever that span across months.

Anyone know of anything that might work? I'm not spending $400 for some business-targeted program, btw, even if it does my work for me and mows my lawn.

[Sooner Al]

...in Outlook while in the Day/Week/Month view...

Go to View | Current View | Customize Current View...click the Other button and clear the checkbox next to Compress weekend days.

[Kati Compton]

...in Outlook while in the Day/Week/Month view...

Go to View | Current View | Customize Current View...click the Other button and clear the checkbox next to Compress weekend days.

You're my hero. :)

I'm still curious as to what else is out there that will still let me sync easily with my PPC. I like options.

[Janak Parekh]

You can get Outlook Express to sync, but in the first place, what other PIM exists out there that you actually want to sync with? Blame Outlook for being a bit complicated UIwise, but as a PIM it's actually decent featurewise. (No, it's not perfect, so guys, don't go flaming me here...) The view customization stuff, which Al pointed out, is quite powerful. I customize my Outlook Tasks, for example, to be by Category, then sorted by Completion, Priority, Date, and Subject.

But first: what PIM exists that you'd even want to sync to? The only other good consumer-level PIM that I know of that was worth something was Lotus Organizer, and that's slowly died. Oh, and there was Lotus Agenda a million years ago that was quite amazing, and it may be resurrected (http://www.osafoundation.org/) by Mitch Kapor. There are business products, like ACT or GoldMine, but they're probably not what you're looking for, pricewise or otherwise. There's Palm Desktop, but it's weak compared to Outlook.

I'm not spending $400 for some business-targeted program, btw, even if it does my work for me and mows my lawn.
Oh, come on, if it were to write your thesis for you I bet you'd pay $400. I know I would. ;)

--janak

[Kati Compton]

I'm not spending $400 for some business-targeted program, btw, even if it does my work for me and mows my lawn.
Oh, come on, if it were to write your thesis for you I bet you'd pay $400. I know I would. ;)


But that would be dishonest... ;)

[Janak Parekh]

But that would be dishonest... ;)
Not if it read your mind. :D

--janak

[Anthony Caruana]

I use Lotus Notes at work (where most of my desktop PIM action happens). You can use a Notes client without a Domino server to get POP mail, newsgroups etc. However, I wouldn't neccesarily recommend it as the Outlook UI is a little nicer.

[karen]

I used to prefer Lotus Organizer (not Notes) for calendaring because it allowed more linking between contacts and appointments and especially because it actually made use of colour in a meaningful way.

Now OLXP allow a tiny use of colour, but only in a limited way.

I find OL's black and white, limite icon use boring ...

Then you add the fact that it can't automatically publish calendars to the web and it's nearly useless.

But Lotus stopped updating Organizer so I don't use it any more.