If, like me, you use iCal to track your schedule and to-do's, you're probably annoyed by a few 'features' of the program. In my case, one of my biggest gripes is that when you create a new event, iCal won't automatically enable an alarm for the event. The vast majority of the time, when I add an event to the calendar, I'd like to be reminded of that event -- after all, that's part of the reason I'm using an electronic calendar in the first place! But new events in iCal do not automatically get an alarm, and there's no preference setting to change this seemingly useless behavior.
Enter Robert Blum's iCalFix, which I found yesterday while surfing for some completely unrelated topic. iCalFix will automatically put a 24-hours-before alarm on any new iCal events you add to the calendar. That's all it does, as of right now -- in version 0.2, Robert promises you'll be able to change the default 'time before' for the alarm setting.
I've been using this for a couple of days now, and it hasn't caused any issues as of yet. However, as with anything that modifies an application, it's a good idea to make sure you've got a current backup -- in this case, of your iCal data files -- just in case something does go wrong.
Note that you'll need Mike Solomon's SIMBL Input Manager (Mike's also the author of PithHelmet for Safari). Some people may have an issue with using SIMBL, as it allows modification of a program's code. I've been using SIMBL for quite a while now (it's necessary for many other cool hacks, such as AcidSearch), and have yet to have any issues I could trace back to it, so I feel relatively comfortable having it installed.
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20051230060736104