Checker Plus for Google Calendar

Editors' ReviewDownload.com staffJuly 20, 2013If you use Google Calendar to keep your existence humming along smoothly, you'll like Checker Plus, an add-on for Google Calendar. Checker Plus brings a lot of useful features, such as Quick Add desktop notifications with Snooze and Dismiss options, audible reminders, and even a cooking timer that will tell you when it's time to take the pizza out of the oven. Checker Plus is free, but it could conceivably pay for itself in no time simply by preventing API (accidental pizza incineration) due to cyberdistraction, a leading cause of domestic discord.Checker Plus downloads and installs like other Chrome add-ons, which is to say quickly and painlessly. The add-on's extensive options include desktop notification settings, background mode, tooltips, time format, highlighting, and a check box to always use SSL; and that's just for starters.In fact, we can't recall seeing many Chrome extensions with as many options as Checker Plus, let alone options that are actually useful, but you can easily contact developer Jason Savard and request any you can think of. Savard also maintains an extensive wiki-based Help file, including videos and logs.We tested the desktop notification, which includes both sound alerts and a voice notification that reads the title of your event out loud. Clicking Snooze recycles pop-up messages at intervals ranging from 5 minutes to 4 hours or up to a week. Checker Plus really comes into its own in Google Calendar, though one of its chief advantages is that you don't have to open Calendar's Web page to use it: Checker Plus can display information like the time until your next meeting right on its icon on the Chrome toolbar. You can also view and make changes to your Calendar entries in a pop-up that has a Quick Add feature for setting reminders for events that are just about to happen or those that are days away. Checker Plus also supports multiple instances of Google Calendar and Google Apps Calendar.Checker Plus brings advanced capabilities to a feature that was already useful in many ways.