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Desktop calendar applications are great if you're always at your desk or if you're diligent about syncing with your PDA or phone.

But if you like to travel light, it may be time for you to switch to a calendar that you can access from any Internet terminal. Google's free Google Calendar is one of the most robust online calendars available. And I have the goods on how to get the most from Gcal's advanced features.

Getting started with Google Calendar is easy. If you already have a Google account (for Gmail, say), you don't even need to sign up. Just click Calendar at the top of the Gmail screen, or surf to google.com/calendar and log in. If you don't have an account yet, click Sign up for Gmail on the home page, enter your name, create a log-in name, and choose a password and security question.

Agenda view: Once you're logged into Google Calendar, you can quickly switch between day, week, month, and other views by clicking the tabs along the top of the calendar. The Agenda view conveniently displays your appointments in chronological order, starting with the present date, without the screen clutter of a day, week, or month view.

Custom view: The tab marked 'Next 4 Days' may seem arbitrary, but it's a gem of a feature. You can customize the tab to display your preferred time period, from two days to four weeks. Click Settings in the upper right corner of the screen (or press s), and then scroll down to 'Custom view' on the General tab. Choose an option from the drop-down list and click Save.

Quick selection: A cool way to display a relevant stretch of days is to click and swipe over the minicalendar on the left, selecting just the days you want; the main display reflects your selection.

Hotkey navigation: It's easy to use the keyboard to navigate through your calendar. Just press d, w, m, x, or a to jump to day, week, month, custom, or agenda views, respectively. Press n (for "next") or p (for "previous") to go forward or backward, respectively. (Or press the j and k keys to accomplish the same things.) Press t to jump to today's date.

Quick additions: Google Calendar provides a couple of easy ways to add items: One way is to click Quick Add in the upper left area of the calendar page (or press q) and start typing. Like a real person, Google Calendar assumes that words such as "Monday" and "Wednesday" refer to days of the current week; and in keeping with this understanding it adds the item to the appropriate day.

Click and go: A second approach is to click a day or time (depending on your view) in the main calendar and to start typing in the box that opens. Google Calendar recognizes most expressions of time (7:00 PM, 7p, and so on), and it schedules the associated calendar events accordingly.

Drag and drop: Need to reschedule? You can easily change dates and times by dragging and dropping an appointment. If a whole month is visible, dragging changes only the day. But if a day or week schedule is displayed, you can drop on any time to change the time, too.

View and edit: Double-click any event to see all of its associated details. You can change some details on this page; but for major modifications, you must click the event and choose edit event details.

Easy erase: Need to cancel an event? Click an item once and click Delete to zap it. Then click Delete (or press the spacebar) to confirm the deletion.

By default, only you can see events on your calendar. But you can make entire calendars--or just individual events--public if you like.

To change the default setting, click Settings in the upper right (or press s). Click the Calendars tab. Click the link under Sharing to open the appropriate calendar. Then use the checkboxes to instruct Google Calendar whether to share everything with the whole world or just a subset thereof. To share with specific people only, leave those checkboxes empty and use the controls underneath to add the names of the privileged few. Then click Save.

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