Get Organized with 30Boxes
Are you considering making the switch from a paper diary or calendar to an electronic one? Or perhaps to finally start utilizing a system for the first time instead of keeping things inside your head?
Over the coming weeks we intend to look at a number of different online calendar / organizer applications. You could be forgiven for thinking that all calendar programs are the same. I mean, they are restricted by the conventions of the calendar; certain number of days per month, seven days to a week. It is true that the differences between these applications are subtle and this is the reason we intend to highlight them in our reviews.
Let us start with 30boxes. The thing that really sets 30boxes apart from the others is its use of a command line-like interface. With most applications you would have to first click on a box and enter the details for your appointment (and indeed that is also possible, if desired, for 30boxes). Here, however, you can smply type in something like:
John Lacey Birthday 21st January
A dialog box appears requesting clarification on the event: is it infact a birthday? Will this event be repeated? Also if you know the person’s year of birth you will be prompted to include this information and each year 30boxes will advise you of their age.
This style of data entry has the potential to save you a lot of time, especially for straight forward items. (It may also be quite comforting for DOS and UNIX enthusiasts.) However including more detailed information will require either a greater knowledge of the 30boxes syntax or a moment to add the information in the ‘detailed entry’ dialog.
30Boxes Command Line Cheat Sheet
If you want to repeat an event include the word ‘repeat’ followed by the frequency of the event ‘weekly, monthly, yearly.’
[event] [date] repeat [duration: weekly/monthly/yearly]
To invite another internet user to your event simply include a plus sign and their email address.
[event] [date] +[email@domain.com]
To tag an event as being important, include an asterix. This will put a yellow star next to the item on the day it appears, and bring it to the top of the list of events appearing on that day.
[event] *
Tags are useful to separate aspects of life. You might, for example, want to tag some things as being “work” and others as being “personal.” Simply include the expression ‘tag’ followed by the tag name.
[event] tag [tag name]
Color tags help you identify different items at a glance. You can choose from the following: navy/blue/maroon/purple/green/red/teal/magenta/olive/lime/orange/aqua/yellow
[event] tag [color name]
Include hyperlinks with your events, or addresses (which will be represented by Google Maps, where available) with square brackets.
[event] [[url]]
[event] [[address]]
You can set reminders with each event you include on your calendar. Reminders can be sent by either e-mail or SMS/text messages (with selected providers only). Please note your phone provider may charge for the use of this service.
30boxes has a basic “to-do list” function, although there is nothing particularly unusual about it. You can, however, access it via RSS although I personally can’t see any obvious benefit to this feature.
A more useful (and unique) feature is the ability to view twitter messages and update your twitter status from within 30boxes. Why have two open windows (or tabs) when one will suffice?
30boxes have a great printable versions of their calendars in either Day, Week, or Month formats.
While 30boxes claims to have the ability to import from existing calendars in either ICS or CSV, I was unable to successfully do this with either format. (30boxes confess this is a new feature and may not function correctly.) This is an obvious stumbling block if you were hoping to upgrade from an existing calendar program.
Tags: 30boxes
