Now Where Was I????
by Gary Woods

If you find yourself needing more than just a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) that tracks your Contacts and Calendar there are several web based programs that do that and a lot more.

A company called 37signals has Backpack, a Web-based personal organizer that will even send e-mail and mobile phone reminders when tasks are due. Backpack isn't just a personal organizer you can share pages, and group items by using tags. The service lets you save up to 5 pages and send as many as 10 reminders for free, but adding files and images to the pages will cost from $5 to $19 per month. For that fee you receive from 25 to 1000 pages, 80 MB to 500 MB of storage, and 100 to 300 reminders.

If you need more than Backpack the same company has Basecamp. This is a full-blown web-based project manager that permits you to track team members' responsibilities, the time they spend on various tasks, and the group's messages related to the project. It costs $12 per month for up to three projects and $99 a month for an unlimited number of projects http://www.basecamphq.com

Another company called HipCal looks great with its snappy interface, address book, group calendaring, and content tagging. HipCal will even send a text message to your cell phone when an appointment is fast approaching.

Finally, Planzo has the ability to sync your calendars with those of friends who have also signed up for the free service.

If you have any suggestions or questions for me please drop me a note at garyandlaury@santabarbaraproperties.com or see my column on the Internet at http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com or call me at (805) 729-0910