Software that Schedules Your Appointments For You?

Lappie asks: "Say you've got a couple of things to do. Usually, you write them down in your diary, PDA or via some online calendaring solution. In every case YOU decide when to carry out a task based on it's priorities etc. That's not how I like to work. Having used a Psion Revo for a few years now, I got quite used to a program called Mentor which schedules my tasks for me. It may sound scary to some, but it actually works quite well. With my Psion dying on me, I'm trying to find an alternative to Mentor either as Windows, Linux , web-based or PDA based software. However, I haven't been able to find anything after several days of googling around, and I'm getting so desperate that I even considered closed source payware. To date, I can't find a comparable product in the market. Is Mentor and its capabilities a unique piece of software, or have I not looked carefully enough?"

"Based on three criteria, the program determines what tasks you have to do on a given day. The criteria are how committed you are to carrying out the task (committed / must do, fairly committed / upcoming 2-3 days, bonus), when the task should be completed (ASAP, soon / this week, sometime / this month) and how long you plan for the task to take (15m, hour, half a day or a day). Mentor knows how/where to plan tasks because for each, so called, role you play (e.g., Sysadmin, Webmaster, Home etc.) you can assign (repeating) time slots over a day. So Mentor places a task in a time slot when the duration fits the slot and when the 'urgency/priority' variables fit the distance between today and the date when a task has to be completed. Of course, Mentor automatically respects the appointments that you have, and after a quick reschedule every morning, you're all set to go for the day."

Is not this scheduling problem NP-complete???

[PaulBu]

Hmm, putting my tin-foil hat on, maybe the Mentor guys DID solve it, but it invited too much heat from one or two of TLAs... ;-)

Paul B.

P.S. Good luck in your search though!

I know the product you are looking for.

[m_chan]

It's called Wife1.0. You won't ever have to worry about not having tasks scheduled for you again. Whatever free time you had will be filled automatically with any number of tedious jobs. Unfortunately, v1.0 it turned out to be ridden with nagware.

I've since gone back to bachelor 1.0 and don't really think about upgrading.

Re:I know the product you are looking for.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, that's the same old shit, repackaged, slower, and more bloated. What he needs to do is find himself a copy of Hot Fuck Buddy 1.0, the No Strings Attached edition. Unfortunately it was a very limited pressing, and clean copies are difficult to come by.

Mentor with Voice

[BladeMelbourne]

Guy: Organiser, please schedule 10 minutes this afternoon so I can go to the bathroom and take a crap.

Organiser: Acknowledged. This appointment is scheduled for.... 5:50PM.

Guy: I was hoping for some time before 12 noon.

Organiser: Sorry, you all booked up. [snikers... and all backed up too]

Guy: But I already have a peeper!

Organiser: I do not understand. [Yes, you have nice brown eye protruding from your read-end. For the rest of the day I hope I'm kept in the front pockets of your pants.]

Guy: Right. So what am I scheduled to be doing now?

Organiser: You have a meeting at the unemployment office. [Patethic carbon based life form]

Re:I know the product you are looking for.

[zo219]

Honey, Wife 1.0 was going to expire on you anyway. Some guys know what it is to appreciate a fine piece of, um, software. And oooh, does that app ever perform. For them.