QuickCal - Create Calendar Events in Plain English
One thing I don't like about iCal is every time you add an event it's like filling a form. You have to fill out the event title, location, and time and it seems like work to me so I end up adding less stuff to my calendar because I don't want to mess with it. Quickcal lets you add events to iCal in plain english letting you type out an event like you would describe it to someone and it creates the event for you. The default shortcut to activate the Quickcal menu is Command + Shift + C but can be changed if you would like.
Quickcal was already a dashboard widget but not everyone likes them and I happen to be one of them. This is why the developer of the widget has released this menu bar version for the dashboard haters like me.
Quickcal has a couple tricks up it's sleeve other than just event creation. You can also create a tasks by typing something like "todo – get stuff done" or "pay taxes before 4/15." You can also switch calendars by simply starting to typing the name of the calendar and Quickcal will pull it right up, letting you add an event to that calendar. Quickcal also adds alarms for all events as well as one based on how far out the event is. So by default all events will alert you 5 minutes before the event happens, events a week away will remind you a day before, and events a month away will remind you a week ahead of time. Makes you realize how weird the default alert setting in iCal are because Quickcal's setup makes a lot more sense.
Quickcal is a free download so go and check it out.