Of course one of the nice things about BigClock is it's free! (At least for right now.) Most of the clock applications out there cost between $5 and $15 per application. If you're like me, the $5 and $15 per Palm app starts getting steep after the 3rd, 4th, and 5th purchase. (I'm not even taking into account those really PROUD developers who charge $20 or more for their "super-nifty-neat-o applications") So, let me take this opportunity to say a warm "Thank You" to Jens Rupp for taking the time to develop such a nice piece of software for all of us po' folks. Charity is in short supply nowadays. Ok, enough of the mushy stuff already. Let's get to it.

BigClock features:

• Big (hence the name), easy to read display
• Customizable display that allows you to split the screen into 2 horizontal displays
• Easy to navigate "tabs"
• 4 programmable alarms with Talelight support
• Ability to modify alarm "sounds"
• 4 world timezone clocks
• Has 2 timers that you can set to count either up or down

One of the nicest features about BigClock is it's customizability (whew...big word). As you can see from the screenshots below, there are "tabs" at the bottom of each screen labled, Time, Alarm, World and Timer. I should correct myself here. Those are the tabs at the bottom of the tab 1 screens. (Notice the numbers 1 and 2 at the top of the screen.)

You'll notice on THESE screenshots that I switched to tab 2 at the top of the screen. There are now 4 more tabs at the bottom, labled Time, A 3+4, W 3+4 and Timer2. You'll also notice that I changed layouts, which I was able to do using the drop down menu under OPTIONS/LAYOUT.

Below are some screenshots of what the OPTIONS/LAYOUT setup screens look like for tabs 1 and 2 respectively.

If you'll look at the screenshot on the far right above, you'll see a drop down list. In this list you can choose to display ANY of the screens in BigClock on that half-screen. In other words, you have 4 tabs under tab 1 and 4 more tabs under tab 2 to customize. There are 16 half-screens of information in BigClock and you can move them around however you wish, placing them either in the top half or bottom half of any of the eight possible "tab" locations. Pretty versitile, I must say! (I hope I haven't lost you now. If I have, don't worry, you'll figure it out once you download it and check it out.)

Of the remaining features I'd like to address, I think the coolest feature would have to be the customizable alarms. (I think the word "customizable" is a key word in this review, wouldn't you?) To make or alter a sound, tap the menu button to bring up the menu bar and choose SOUNDS. Under SOUNDS you'll see 4 sounds listed. Choose the sound that you would like to manipulate and go to it. As you can see from the screenshots below, there are many things you can change, including frequency, time, amplitude and pause. You can also set the number of times that the sequence repeats. This is good for those of us who are a little harder to wake up! (Of the two shots below, can you guess which one is my wakeup setting and which one is my reminder?)

The system sounds work for both the alarms and the timers in BigClock. The ONLY feature that I wish BigClock had is the ability to use it's cool, customized sounds as the alarms in my datebook program. Other than that, this is one sweet program! I'll leave you with two final screenshots of the alarm and timer screens, (in case you wondered what they looked like).

Again, I'd like to say thank you to Jens Rupp for such a nice piece of software. Do yourselves a favor and download BigClock 2.2 today. And, if you feel so inclined, send Jens a thank you note with $10 bucks in it!

p.s. I almost forgot to metion that BigClock 2.2 now adds support for the Talelight hardware add-on. I ordered one a week ago to try it out, but didn't receive it in time for this review. If you're wondering what a talelight is, you can check it out at Tech Center Labs.