Facebook Birthday Reminders

I am Gadget Man. Able to reap tall benefits in a single click.

My birthday is next week. Fortunately, I am blessed with a family that gifts early. Already I’ve received two awesome gadgets.

First, on Easter morning, I opened a flip video camera. Turn it on, press record. Done. I used it, quite inconspicuously at the recent Wilco concert. I have already used it throughout the city and have taped a couple of interviews with it. The flip mino is incredibly convenient and miraculously portable. Video and audio quality are quite good for brief clips, and uploading to YouTube couldn’t be easier

Last week, I got an Amazon Kindle 2. Now I can finally afford home delivery of the New York Times. And I can e-mail documents and PDFs to my device, and Amazon will convert them automatically.

With all this functionality at my fingertips, it’s not hard to forget to connect with people. One of my favorite things about Facebook is its birthday reminders. When I log on, I see a list of friends who have birthdays today or coming up. I can leave a quick note on their wall and look like a hero.

Except, now that Facebook has redesigned my home page, I have to scroll all the way down, past photos and other distractions, to see the birthday list. And, let’s be honest, I usually get distracted by something I see (ooh, shiny!) and forget I came there to send birthday wishes in the first place.

Enter Facebook birthday reminder e-mails. I found this by accident one day, browsing the myriad options for receiving notifications from Facebook. I wanted to turn off a few things. For example, once I commented on someone’s picture or note (or even gave it an “I like” thumbs up) I got bombarded with everyone else’s response. Sometimes that can be fun. Often it’s just noise.

Now, I get a reminder from Facebook at the beginning of the week, and I can either add the dates to my calendar or jot down a note to ensure I visit the site on those days to say Happy Birthday.

From Facebook, click on the “Settings” link near your name.
Click the “Notifications” tab.
Under the first option group, click “Show More.”
Enable “Has a birthday coming up.”
Click “Save Changes.”
If you change your mind, you can always come back and turn them off.

So, now you have direct notification of your friends’ birthdays through Facebook. Remember, you don’t have to be a superhero. Sometimes, it’s enough to look like one.

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