Birthday Reminder

Did it ever happen to you to forget the birthday of one or even more of your friends? It certainly did to me, and having to apologize and make up for my mistake time after time was pretty embarrassing. Whatever your job may be at the moment, if it involves spending a little time in front of a computer, make sure you'll never forget a birthday, an anniversary or a special event. Birthdaybook will not only remind you when the next birthday is coming up, but it will also keep on reminding you about it until the day after it.

The Looks

Birthdaybook looks as simple as it is. The program's main interface window allows you to view, add and modify a birthday, an anniversary or a special event. Birhtdaybook displays all the information you need on someone’s birthday: name of that person, day of birth, month, year, age, and even the sign. It is simple, clean and very intuitive.

The Works

Birthdaybook lets you add a new event straight from the main window, which means that you don't have to go through a menu (File, Edit, Event etc) to add a new event. On the bottom left corner of the application, there are two fields: one for the name, and the other for the birth date. Just type in the information and hit the "plus" button next to them. Erasing a birth date from the database is just as easy. Simply select the friend and hit the "minus" button. Clearly, it doesn’t get any easier than this.

On the bottom right corner, you can find several other functions of the application. You can import contact names from the Address Book and, in case your friend is already present in Birthdaybook, you can just assign his or her email address. This way, you can send him/her a funny-colored birthday card by email with just one click. iChat is also an importer. Birthdaybook can associate and import contacts with iChat, just like in the case of Address Book.

The preference panel allows you to set up and configure the functionality of the program to better suit your needs and desires. Within the Formats tab, you can set the date to a format that you're comfortable with: Month Day, Year, or Day Month, Year, or the classical dd/mm/yyyy. Also, you have the option to see your friends displayed in order by name, or by birthday.

The tabs Date Range and Scheduling allow you to set when and how many times you want Birthdaybook to start reminding you that there is a special event coming up. For instance, say you want it to happen every time you open the computer, for every single day, up to 5 or 10 days before the actual event. There is absolutely no way for you to forget the special events in your friends and your life now. The Appearance tab allows some basic customizations on the way the application should display the database. Customize the color and the transparency, check or uncheck to view the Sign, the age, and set up the reminder window.

Birthdaybook allows you to print the birthday list in a beautiful calendar style, but it also comes with yet another great feature. Every time it starts up, it will show you the birthday of Famous People, which is like a fun bonus for the application. This way, you will now also find out the birthdays of the likes of Elvis Presley, Martin Luther King, Jeanne d'Arc, Richard Nixon and many others. And that’s not all: you can even add Famous People to the database, or delete them altogether if you don't like them.

The Good

Birthdaybook is a very practical and useful application for anyone. Even if you don't have problems remembering all the birthdays of all your friends, it is still a very good utility that you can use just in case.

The Bad

I couldn't find any bad features, or annoying preferences that I didn’t like. The only thing that could come as a downside, although it’s probably not even worth mentioning, may be the simple interface. Some people may like their applications a bit more complex and colorful but, then again, that doesn’t a standard make.

The Truth

Birthdaybook has a simple and easy to use interface, it is very useful and practical, and most importantly, it’s free. Bottom line is that this app is worth at least trying to see how much use you can get out of it.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: