Calendar
Calendar is Windows 8’s scheduling app,
enabling you to create events for meetings, appointments,
get-togethers, and all-day tasks such as conferences and vacations. By
default, Calendar displays events from three calendars (see Figure 1):
• Your personal calendar associated with your Microsoft account. These events appear with a blue background.
• A Birthdays calendar that displays
birthdays from contacts associated with your Microsoft account as well
as contacts from any other online accounts connected to your Microsoft
account (such as Facebook). Birthdays appear with a light purple
background.
• A Holidays calendar that shows
prominent holidays from your location (for example, a U.S. Holidays
calendar if you’re located in the United States). Holidays appear with
a dark purple background.
Figure 1. By default, the Calendar app shows you personal events, birthdays, and holidays.
Note
To change the colors of the calendars, press
Windows Logo+I (or display the Charms menu and click Settings) and then
click Options to open the Options pane. For each calendar, click the
current color and then use the color picker to choose the color you
want. Note, too, that you can also use the Options pane to hide a
particular calendar by clicking its Show switch to Hide.
You can also add other accounts to Calendar.
Press Windows Logo+I (or display the Charms menu and click Settings)
and then click Accounts to open the Accounts pane. Click Add an
Account, click Exchange or Google, and then fill in the details.
To change the calendar view, right-click the
screen and then click one of the three views: Day, Week, or Month.
Whichever view you choose, note that you navigate by clicking the Next
and Previous arrows, pointed out in Figure 1.
(If you don’t see these arrows, move your mouse over the Calendar
screen.) If you’re using a touchscreen, you can also navigate the
Calendar view by swiping right and left.
To add an event, either click the day of the
event in Month view or click the time the event occurs (on the day it
occurs) in Week or Day view.
Bing
This app takes you directly to a Bing search
screen, where you can perform web searches without having to load the
Internet Explorer app. The Bing app displays search results as tiles
that show the web page name and address and a brief description of the
page.
Camera
If your PC or tablet has a built-in or connected camera, you can use the Camera app to take a photo or record a video:
• Photo—To take a
photo, click the Camera app on the Start screen, and then click on the
screen where you see the picture to take the photo.
• Video—Click the
Camera app on the Start screen; then, to record a video, first click
the Video Mode icon to activate it (that is, give the icon a white
background). Click the screen to start the recording, and then click
the screen again to stop.
In both cases, you can click to activate the
Timer icon, which gives you a 3-second countdown before Camera takes
the photo or begins recording the video.
Photos and videos you shoot with the Camera app are stored in your user account’s Pictures library, in the Camera Roll folder.
Finally, you can also click Camera Options to
configure various settings, which vary depending on your camera. For
example, you can choose a photo resolution and audio input device for
video recording, and you can turn on video stabilization (if your
camera supports it).
Desktop
Desktop is perhaps the simplest of the apps
in that it does just one thing: displays the Windows 8 desktop. (You
can also get there by pressing Windows Logo+D.) The Desktop app has no
app bar, and if you open the Charms menu and click Settings, the pane
that appears gives you links for Control Panel, Personalization, and PC
Info (which displays the System window).
