One day I got tired of forgetting birthdays and important dates and the few web based applications I tried out for that just didn’t do it for me. So I went and built my own.
Yes, I know there are loads out there, both web based and standalone apps. But I still decided to write it myself because

  • building software is what I do. You wouldn’t be surprised if a carpenter chose to make his own coffee table instead of buying one from IKEA, would you? Granted, they might not build all of their furniture themselves (just like I’m using someone else’s operating system :-)), but anything you can scrape the time for to do yourself is a pleasure
  • this one has some features I didn’t find anywhere else

 

So what’s so good about it?

Here’s what I’ve put in that makes a whole load of difference to me:

  • Nameday support. (A nameday is the day of the celebration of the Saint whose name you have, i.e. on St. George’s day it’s the nameday of everyone called George. In Greece, it’s almost as big as your birthday, so you get one more excuse in the year to celebrate!)
  • Multiple reminders. For some dates, I just want a reminder on the day so I remember to send an sms to someone. For others, I may want an earlier reminder to buy a gift. Or both. So this has as many reminders as I want, fully configurable per case, while I can still have a hassle-free default.
  • Reminders on Friday for the weekend. I don’t always turn my home computer on in the weekend. I run this on my work PC, and get the weekend’s reminders on Friday.

 

If you want to give it a try

Here it is: DateReminder v1.2. Leave a comment to tell me what you like or hate about it.