Plaxo
Just recently I started using Plaxo, an online calendar and contacts manager. When Plaxo first started, it was a contacts manager that bought out the online calendar I was using at the time, HipCal. I never really got into Plaxo, especially once I got my Treo, but revisiting it, I’ve got to say it’s quite powerful and has a great interface.
It handles everything Outlook can handle in a web-based format. A really nice feature of Plaxo is that it automatically updates your address book with any changes other friends on Plaxo make. It also give you access to the RSS feeds they choose to share with Plaxo Pulse. The calendar is very slick, displaying the next two days in agenda form and then the next 3 weeks in calendar form. It also displays the local weather and any ‘countdowns’ you add, such as days until your birthday. My favorite part, however, is the powerful syncing options Plaxo offers.
Online calendars have always been a project of mine. GCal has been my web-based one of choice for a while because it’s easy to access when I use GMail. But since getting Yahoo! Go on my Blackberry, I’ve tried going back to Yahoo! Calendar because it autosyncs with Outlook. But this means at any given time, GCal, Outlook/Yahoo and my Blackberry could have different calendars. With Plaxo’s Sync Dashboard, I can set up my Plaxo calendar to sync with GCal and all of Plaxo (calendar, contacts, tasks, notes) to sync with Outlook. Then I sync my Blackberry with my computer. Yahoo is automatically updated, though Plaxo offers Calendar and contacts sync for that too, as well as MSN, Outlook Express, Mac OSX, AOL/AIM and LinkedIn. It also offers a mobile web interface so I can access it via my blackberry. The only thing that would make this better is over the air (wireless) sync with my Blackberry, which I believe they are working on.
All in all, Plaxo is a very nice web app that I am glad I discovered before the start of the school year. With it’s awesome accessibility and sync options, it will definitely keep me more organized.
