15-Minute Reviews :: Reminder Commander v2.00

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s review is on Reminder Commander version 2.00 by Abaiko Software -

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Reminder Commander will help you create a system of reminders for important events such as birthdays, anniversaries, appointments, important phone calls and much more. Reminder Commander has been designed on the basis of user opinions and suggestions. This is the reason for the program’s intuitive interface, which is extremely easy and comfortable to use.

You will no longer feel pressured about remembering everything as the computer will do it for you. Free your mind for more important tasks, and make your life more efficient!”

Quick Pros

• Interface looks good
• A good number of options for reminding
• Reminders pop up in an easy-to-see System Tray slide-out

Quick Cons

• Found interface a tad awkward to get around
• Lacking reminder settings such as 3rd Monday of month
• Help file is essentially non-existant
• The ‘Unclosed Reminders’ could be expanded on

Expansion

As you start the application for the first time, it quietly lands itself in the System Tray. Upon right-clicking on its System Tray icon, you will find the usual about-help-website links, Exit, Hide/Restore, Add new reminder and Options. My first note here is I don’t understand why this (and many other System Tray-orientated applications) don’t reverse the order of the pop-up menu so that it is a minimum mouse movement required, especially for repetitive tasks. Once you’ve clicked on Hide/Restore (Or single-click on the System Tray icon), you are greeted by a nicely-styled window. It is very straightforward. Along the top you find a row of task-managing buttons (Add new, Edit, Delete, Ok and Remind later) as well as Options, Send Feedback and Help. Directly below this is a set of four tabs: Unclosed reminders (Open reminders?), one-off reminders, periodic reminders and reminder history. Each of these tabs have their own purposes. Unclosed reminders show you reminders that have triggered but have not been dismissed yet, giving you the option to Ok them or Remind later. The next two tabs, one-off reminders and periodic reminders, display reminders not yet triggered in the two categories. Finally reminder history displays all the reminders of past which have been dismissed. While it is an extremely simple application in concept, I found it was a little awkward to do tasks that should be simple; Mostly due to the fact of the tabs. I figured that the one-off and periodic reminders tabs could have landed on the same tab, or at least split-screen it. If you end up with a lot of periodic reminders, it would get difficult at best to manage them (Large families, mixed in with a bit of business and personal reminders, and you’ll find it awkward to find what you need). As well, I feel that unclosed (open?) reminders and reminder history could have landed on the same tab as well, with all open reminders at the top in one color, and all completed tabs at the bottom.

The process of making reminders is pretty straightforward and easy to create with all the common reminder settings, except a few. I did notice there is no way to set up something like ‘Third Monday of every month’ or ‘First Saturday of March’ – A good number of businesses end up with events following that pattern set, and would have been nice to see here. Also missing is control over sound. There is no sound when a reminder comes due, no voice announce, no option to play a WAV or MP3.

One aspect I do like is the System Tray slide-out reminders. They display the reminder time, the message and a ‘Remind Later’ and ‘Ok’ button. Not grandly intrusive but visible enough to spot. They also stack, so if you end up with 2 or 3 triggering before you can clear them, you’ll have a stack of them.

While the Help button is on the main window and the System Tray pop-up, its contents are really nothing home to write home. There is only a brief overview of the application, information on licensing and registration as well as contact information. There appears to be no content on how to use the application at all.

I do think that the developer may be onto something with the Unclosed (open?) reminders idea. Too often I found in my day-to-day I may accidentally dismiss or totally miss a reminder in my current system. With this, it displays it right up front for you so that you can’t miss it and have to actually dismiss it with ‘Ok’. As well, with the history, you can also check back to make sure you didn’t dismiss anything critical either or when you may have handled something. With that said, while the idea is great, it does need some maturing. A to-do list with priorities instead of deadlines might be nice to add to the list (instead of building an entire reminder) could make its home with the unclosed reminders. As well, a ‘pester’ time as well, which you set at the time of the reminder creation, in addition to the Remind Later button, may be great for those reminders which are a bit more critical than putting on the back burner.

Final Verdict

While the application looks sharp and for the most part does what it does, it still could use some more maturing and a look-over for productivity – You should only spend a few seconds on setting up a reminder or reviewing your reminders, and I do feel the process is a little long. I find that if it takes too long, using a tool such as this one will start to be bypassed due to many factors (‘Too busy’, ‘I can remember it’, trying to answer the phone, and so forth) While free, I believe that it is still worth a look to see if it suits your needs. As for paying $24.95, without an active to-do list or other productivity-managing features, it is hard to recommend this application. I don’t want to have 3 or 4 applications, when one fluid integration with speed, ease of use and visibility will suffice. There are many alternatives out there, including web-based services as well as desktop applications which are free or low-cost.

Posted by BladedThoth on Tuesday, October 30, 2007