Killer Address Book tips Page 2 of 2

Working Mac

I can with iCal

Here are two bonus iCal tips that can help you take care of business.

Get a Phone Reminder
If you’re like me, you sometimes need extra reminders about appointments, birthdays, meetings, and so on. iCal can send an e-mail message to your cell phone reminding you of that important meeting (provided, of course, that you have a cell phone that accepts e-mail).

In Address Book (not in iCal), put your phone’s e-mail address in the card you’ve designated as My Card. Then go to iCal and double-click on a date to create a new event (something like “Fight with a PC user—playground 10:00 a.m.”). In iCal’s Info panel, click on the Alarm pop-up menu and choose E-mail. Choose your cell phone’s e-mail address from the list and specify how long before the appointment you want the reminder sent. You’re good to go.

Add Live Web Links to Your Calendar
If you’re leaving yourself a note to check a Web site, you can embed a live link to that site right in your iCal header. (Sure, you could always embed a URL in a note, but the header appears in the calendar itself.) For example, let’s say your message would have been “ New Ricky Martin CD comes out today. Visit CDnow.com to order.” Add angle brackets around CDnow and include the full Web address, like this:

<http://www.cdnow.com>

. Now you can click on that header from within iCal’s main calendar to go directly to that Web page (if your Mac is connected to the Internet).

[ Scott Kelby is the editor in chief of Layers and Photoshop User magazines, as well as the president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. ]