News Archive
Select which year of news you would like to read:
Wednesday 11th December, 2002
Added 3D Calendar wallpaper pack, submitted by John Blackmer. You can preview it on the Packs page.
Thursday 28th November, 2002
Added a Seasons wallpaper pack, submitted by Web Crazy Web Design. You can preview it on the Packs page.
Wednesday 20th November, 2002
Added a Windows XP - 3D wallpaper pack, submitted by MT. You can preview it on the Packs page.
Sunday 29th September, 2002
I'm going away for a few days, I'll be back on the 4th of October if you want to leave a message.
Sunday 15th September, 2002
Added another Wallpaper Pack. This one was kindly submitted by 'Eyes' and is of Central American Landscapes.
Monday 9th September, 2002
Alexander Sarris has kindly sent me a Desktop Calendar Wallpaper Pack based on Star Trek - Ships which is now available on the site. Remember if you've made a Wallpaper Pack and want to share it with other DC users then please let me know.
Sunday 25th August, 2002
Ok, I've updated the uninstaller for Desktop Calendar. It should now remove all traces of the program. This means that if you do want to keep your Events or Settings then make sure you back them up first using the Export options! I'm hoping in the future to give the option of what what to remove and what to keep, but at the moment I thought I'd just get it out ASAP.
If you've already got Desktop Calendar with the old uninstaller. Then for directions on removing all traces of the program manually see q. 23 of the FAQ.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused by this. :(
Saturday 24th August, 2002
It appears from a couple of the comments on 'Download.com' some people are having issues when trying to uninstall Desktop Calendar. I really wished they'd e-mailed me and told me, then I would have been able to fix the problem sooner! Anyway, I've been working on a fix for the last couple of days now and it's pretty much done. I just need to keep running tests to make sure it's working as it should. This should hopefully be on the site either later today or tomorrow.
Thursday 8th August, 2002
After having a rather disappointing number of donations (one!) I have been starting to think about charging for later versions of Desktop Calendar. I need someway to cover my costs and the voluntary donation method clearly working. I still believe in the Freeware idea which is why I will continue to keep the current version free as well as all the other programs.
You would only have to pay if you wanted the extras that would come with a new version. Anyway nothing is confirmed yet, I'm still thinking about it. To see what you all think about this I have added a Poll to the download page. It would be really great if you could take the time to vote. Unfortunately it does appear as a popup, sorry, I hate them too. :(
Wednesday 7th August, 2002
More Operating Systems have been confirmed to work with Desktop Calendar, Windows NT and Windows XP. I think that's every OS now except for Windows 95. If I remember correctly 95 didn't have the option to 'Stretch' the Wallpaper so that might cause a problem when using the Wallpaper Packs which do.
If someone is successfully using Desktop Calendar (with the wallpaper packs enabled) on Windows 95 it would be great to hear from you. :)
Thanks to all the people who did take the time to do the testing and e-mail me.
Monday 5th August, 2002
Added a new question to the Desktop Calendar FAQ page...
21. I downloaded the new version (I already have installed an older version installed) but when I install it, it encounters a problem and I get an error?
For the answer please visit the FAQ page.
Good news for 20% of my visitors. I've just had confirmation that Desktop Calendar DOES work on Windows ME. If anybody else is using the program on an operating system other then 98, 2000 or ME then please let me know.
Friday 2nd August, 2002
Added two more Desktop Calendar Wallpaper Packs using images from desktopwallpapers.net. The first is Animals and the second is Porsche Cars.
Tuesday 23rd July, 2002
I realised the screenshots of Desktop Calendar where still of the original release. I have now updated the page with pictures from the latest version, 0.3b.
I've also just added a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page for Desktop Calendar.
Added another Wallpaper Pack by ><(((º> . GameWallpapers - FPS (First Person Shooters). The pictures are from the kind folks over at gamewallpapers.com.
Sunday 21st July, 2002
Yes, it's FINALLY here, the new version of Desktop Calendar!!! Listed below is what's new in version 0.3b....
- Day headers are now put in the standard order for your country. For example in England most people regard the week to start on a Monday whereas in America it's a Sunday.
- Day headers are now written in the standard language of your country. E.g.. In Germany, Tuesday use to be abbreviated to "Tue" however it is now abbreviated to "Di" for "Dienstag". It's hard to test this feature so let me know if it has any problems.
- Added an 'Auto Compact' option. If the option is selected and the calendar is not used after 1 minute then it automatically switches to Compact Mode. Then when the mouse hovers back over it again it expands again. This option is turned off by default.
- Preview Pack, cycles through each image in a pack and sets it as the wallpaper. The position and box style are also previewed if they're selected.
- The Settings window now remembers what the last tab you where looking at and starts on it when opened again.
- Changed the Default Title Bar colour from Black to Blue.
- Added Tool-tips. Standard - this means that you can hover your mouse over a day and read the whole contents of the box. The calendar has to be selected for this to work which just means you have to click somewhere on it first. This is style is selected by default. Balloon - if these are selected then when you hold down the left mouse button on a day the full contents of the box pops up in a balloon shaped bubble. These can hold more text then a Standard Tool tip so are better for long events.
- You can now Import Calendar.dat files, Settings Files and from CSV files.
- You can now Export Calendar.dat files, Settings Files, to CSV files and to Text files.
- Included Hotkeys (The program has to be selected for these to work. This just means you have to click somewhere on the calendar first)
- F1 - Show Today's Events
- F2 - Previous Month
- F3 - Current Month
- F4 - Next Month
- F5 - Refresh
- F8 - Settings
- F9 - Switch Box Style
- F12 - Compact\Expand
- BUG FIX: If in 'Compact Mode' when the day rolled over, then everything expanded except for the Day Headers.
- BUG FIX: If you entered an event for today, then change month\year then the event use to pop up.
- BUG FIX: If you had the Calendar either using Set Position or Theme Position then it should have updated it's position when the resolution is changed or the Start bar was moved. Instead what was happening was it was reverting to the Manual position for some reason. It didn't always do this, I think it only cropped up in the last release.
- BUG FIX: Manual position for some reason. It didn't always do this, I think it only cropped up in the last release.
- BUG FIX: If you included any quotation marks in your events (") then next time the program started the data file would not load properly. There is now a validation check in place to stop this happening.
- BUG FIX: On the settings window sometimes the set position preview started wrong.
- BUG FIX: The calendar use to disappear when the link on the About page was clicked!
I've tried to include as many of peoples suggestions as I could. Sorry if yours hasn't been included, but it may very well be in the next version. :)
To go with the new Import\Export functions I've written a couple of pages just explaining some of the options and what they're for etc. This can be accessed from the Desktop Calendar section on the downloads page or here.
I hope you find the additions in this version of some use, as always my e-mail address is open for questions and suggestions. :)
Wednesday 17th July, 2002
Added two more Desktop Calendar Wallpaper Packs, Fight Club and Game Wallpapers. The latter uses images from nice people over at gamewallpapers.com.
Friday 12th July, 2002
There are 3 more Desktop Calendar Wallpaper Packs thanks to a very kind DC user...
Cloth Patterns, Floral Patterns and Marble Patterns and they can all be downloaded here.
Saturday 6th July, 2002
I've finally got round to uploading some more Wallpaper Packs for Desktop Calendar.
All the pictures in 'BMW Cars' Pack are from the kind folks over at www.desktopwallpapers.net and then put together by me. You should be seeing more Packs from them in the future.
Friday 5th July, 2002
Today was a very nice day, I received my first donation! It was from a very kind and supportive Desktop Calendar user. Unfortunately not enough to cover my running costs but still very welcome all the same. Keep the donations coming, every dollar\pound is very much appreciated.
Desktop Calendar also got awarded a 4 Star rating by the editors at SofoTex when I submitted it to there database.
Thursday 30th May, 2002
IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Have you downloaded Desktop Calendar v0.21b?????
If so then you need to download a small PATCH as there is a pretty big bug! DIRECTIONS: Make sure Desktop Calendar ISN'T running, then use the Patch. Earlier today it was brought to my attention that the latest release of Desktop Calendar has a flaw. You will probably not even notice it if you live in the UK as it only effects people using a date format other then "dd:mm:yy" (That's DAY then MONTH then YEAR) e.g.. Americans, who default is "mm:dd:yy". It seems that when the program is run on a date format other then "dd:mm:yy" it can cause every months to appear to have 31 days! This in it's self is not a complete disaster, but if you then save a entry on one of these days e.g.. 31st of June (which doesn't exist), when you then try and open Settings it will CRASH!!!! I'm VERY VERY sorry for any inconvenience this has caused and hope this hasn't put you off Desktop Calendar or any other of my programs.
In my defense as I'm in the UK I have been mostly testing the program with the "dd:mm:yy" format, in which the months do have the right number of boxes. When testing the "mm:dd:yy" format it seemed ok because May has 31 days in it!
I can't apologise enough for this silly mistake and I'm sure it will haunt me for sometime to come. :)
Anybody who hasn't yet downloaded Desktop Calendar don't be put off as there is now version 0.22b which doesn't suffer from the same problem.
Wednesday 29th May, 2002
Today sees a new release (v0.21b) of Desktop Calendar....
- Events can now be repeated every year e.g.. Birthdays, Anniversaries.
- The calendar can now be compacted when not in use by Double Clicking on the title bar.
- Dates now have suffixes e.g.. "11 Jan" is now "11th Jan"
- Moved some of the Style & Position options around to try and make it easier to configure.
- The title bar is now configurable and allows you to display the date and time in different formats.
- When you drag the calendar now it gives you the option to change into Manual Positioning (if your not already in it) so the position will be used next time the calendar is loaded.
- If you choose, you can now not allow the calendar to be dragged around when manual positioning is not selected.
- The themes box style and position for the current month can now be previewed graphically.
- There are now 2 more places that the calendar can go when setting the position. Center Screen Left and Center Screen Right.
- To preview the years images in a Wallpaper Pack there is now a slider instead of a drop down box. Also the picture for the current month is now displayed instead of just January's.
- You can now override the display modes in Themes. This means that if the Theme has all it's images set to stretch you can set it to use Center instead.
- Now works with date formats other than "dd:mm:yy" e.g.. American "mm:dd:yy"
- Navigating to future\past dates is now easier with pop-up lists when you right click on either the title bar or left and right arrows.
Any questions or suggestions about this new version then use the Contact button at the top, that's what it's there for. :)
To go with this new release are 2 more Theme Packs, Mission: Impossible and a Space one with planets and stuff.
And if your feeling creative and want to make your own Theme Pack then you may also like to know that there is a new version of DC Creator. There are 2 main changes first is that it now support the 2 new screen positions that DC now uses and secondly the preview images look nicer.
Phew! Now I can go to bed. :)
Wednesday 1st May, 2002
Happy first of the month to you all....and what a great start to the month it is. You know that "2 do list" I was going on about? No? Well don't worry, no one else reads the news section either. :) Well anyway, I can cross one thing off as I have now finished the first public release of "Desktop Calendar".
- Applaud now please -
"What the hell is that" I hear you cry, well....
As the name suggests, this is a calendar that sits on your desktop. It's different from most calendar programs as it doesn't clutter up your taskbar or system tray. You can enter important dates like dentist appointments, birthdays or deadlines. Then when you turn your computer on, or that day rolls over you will be alerted of any events. Desktop Calendar also handles your computer's wallpaper, displaying a different picture each month. Or if you prefer you can turn this feature off and use your own wallpaper. The program comes with a default Wallpaper Pack but more can be download, or you can make your own.
I can't really explain it all that well, the best thing to do is look at the screenshots or even better try it out for yourself!!!!