Online calendars help you keep your life in order no matter where you are. They hold all of your info securely on a web server. Log in with a password and your schedule accessible from anywhere.

Any web calendar worth your attention allows some way to share your schedule with a distributed audience. Groups of people working together can subscribe to a calendar using either RSS or the iCal data standard. Using these data formats, calendars you create online can also be duplicated on the desktop in familiar applications like Microsoft Outlook, Apple iCal and Mozilla Sunbird.

Most of these web services use Ajax-powered interfaces, so they behave like desktop applications. You can drag events around from day to day and edit event details inside of a JavaScript pop-up window. These calendars usually also let you speak "shorthand" when adding events. Type in "Call Jim to discuss biz plan at 4pm tomorrow," and you get an easy-to-edit event in the right place (and at the right time) on your calendar.

We've reviewed many of the offerings out there in the web calendar world. Here are our favorites.