New Bento templates aimed at students

It may seem like odd timing; with the US about to head into the unofficial pre-summer period with the imminent Memorial Day long weekend, the last thing on most students' minds is getting organized for next year. Nevertheless, today Filemaker is setting the Bento 3 Student Survival Kit loose upon the world. The linked set of free Bento templates includes layouts for organizing lecture notes, courses, group projects, special events and job searches (that last one seems timely, now that I think about it). The Survival Kit is part of the Bento Template Exchange, which offers scores of specialized layouts like the Family Organizer pack and the Mail Management tool.

Bento's clean integration with the Mac OS X personal information apps means that students won't have to enter contact information twice, and they can track deadlines and test schedules in iCal with ease. The templates also allow for synchronization with the iPhone and iPad versions of Bento.

Downloading the Student Survival Kit does no good, of course, without a copy of the Bento 3 database app; Filemaker is offering a 30-day trial copy to test out the kit, and the software retails for US$49 after that, or $99 for a family pack. It requires Mac OS X 10.6 or 10.5.7 and runs on both PPC and Intel machines.