Palm Pre: The Missing Manual

Chapter 5. The Pre as Organizer

You’ve got places to go, people to see, and things to do, and you need a way to stay on top of it all.

Palm has made gadgets to help you manage and organize daily tasks since its iconic Palm Pilot PDA (personal digital assistant) that came out in 1996. PDAs are now passé, but the organizational functions they provide—a calendar, to-do list, and memo program—are as essential as ever, and the Pre handles these tasks with panache.

This chapter focuses on the small things the Pre does that make a big difference in your too-busy life—its organizer features. You’ll learn to schedule appointments for one-time and recurring events, create a to-do list with prioritized tasks, and write notes to jog your memory.

The Calendar

As a busy person, you probably use more than one calendar: A Microsoft Exchange calendar at work, a Google Calendar that reminds you about your kids’ activities, and perhaps a third calendar for friends’ events on Facebook. The Pre lets you look at all these events in one place, or view the calendars individually.

When you first launch the Calendar program, the Pre displays your consolidated calendars in a single view—the aptly named All Calendars view—and color-codes the events so you know which calendar they came from. You can choose an individual-calendar view by tapping “All” in the date banner, which displays a drop-down list of all your calendars. Tap the name of the calendar you want to see individually.

Whichever calendar you consult, ...