Thanks for the advice everyone. I wish someone had been able to report better news of an app that worked better.

Why is the alarm handling so poor on o/s 2008? Is this a limitation of maemo or part of the unreleased code? Or is it just the calendar applications themselves? Surely other Linux based portable devices didn't have this issue (zaurus?), did they? I'm just trying to figure out where a fix is needed and how I can help.