Picok: An Open Source Personal Information Manager

If you're looking for a way to keep all your personal and project information organized and in one place, have a look at Picok. Short for "personal information cockpit," this nifty open source application helps you manage all those little dribs and drabs of information that keep your day humming right along. It works a bit like iGoogle in that you can assign tabbed pages to specific types of content and organize data by modules that you can drag and drop into whatever order you choose.

Picok is developed in Switzerland so most of the existing modules, or portlets as they're known in this app, are aimed at European users. Current portlets include a Swiss weather radar, Pons German-English dictionary, and European rail schedule. However, the project wiki has clear instructions for creating custom portlets on your own.

Other Picok features include portlet auto refresh, integration with Lotus Notes, an administrative panel to manage maintenance tasks, and graded loading so one slow tab or portlet won't cause the entire application to lag. Picok also handles persinal information mashups so it's great for teams and company intranets.

Picok may not be the most full-featured personal information manager available today, but it still has a lot to offer. Since it's free and open source, Picok is a good option for small businesses on a budget and its similarity to iGoogle gives it a familiarity many people will find appealing.