Get SMS alerts before your Friend’s Birthday

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I was forgetting my friends/relatives Birthday! And thought what could be the smarter way to remember these important dates. Either storing them in Mobile’s calendar or remembering them in mind. Thinking to store in mind - can't store too many dates. Storing in mobile - Technology is changing, mobile set also change after days!

But fortunately, there is a FREE of cost service from Google which will send you SMS alert before your friend’s Birthday. I have been using this for more than a year or two and till now, have not forget to wish their Birthdays. Some even asked, how do you know my Birthday and not forget to wish? The service here I am talking is about integrating Facebook and Orkut Birthday calendar with Google calendar which will  finally send you SMS alerts.

For this we will have to configure Google Calendar account and then add Facebook and(or) Orkut B'day Calendars to it. Here we start...

Open Google Calendar from here: http://www.google.com/calendar/ login and fill your name, location, select Time Zone, press continue.

Adding mobile & SMS alerts to Google calendar:

> Click on Settings located at top right corner and select Mobile Setup. Select Country, fill-in phone number without any zero or international code and click on Send Verification Code. After few seconds you will receive SMS with verification code on your mobile, type in that code and click Finish setup. > Now its the time to setup Notifications, i.e. how you want to get alerts? by SMS or by email. Here I am talking about SMS so select SMS  then type the desired time before which you want to get the alert, I have selected 10 minutes before each event. And the best thing is that you can add as many SMS reminders as you can by selecting “ Add a reminder “. Select the check-box of SMS alert. Click on Save.

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Adding Facebook friend’s Birthday:

Well for adding this Fb calendar to Google Calendar, login to your facebook account and add this “ Birthday Exporter “ app to your account from here http://apps.facebook.com/ical_exporter/ in order to import your friend’s birth date. Press Allow to add this app.

Click on Download your iCal file, and save this iCal file at known location on computer. After this open Google Calendar again and click on Create as show in figure below: A new page will open, fill in the details of calendar:And click on Create Calendar button.

Now click on drop-down menu of new created calendar and select Calendar Setting: In new page select Notifications and add a reminder as SMS alerts, (While adding reminder select SMS and 10 minutes as time) mark Check-box of SMS alerts, finally hit Save:> Now, click on settings:> In new page select Import Calendar option.

> Then in new pop-up,  first choose the previously downloaded iCal file from facebook, select Facebook Birthdays Calendar and hit Import.Hurray! You have successfully imported all Facebook Friend’s Birthday Calendar, from now onwards you will receive SMS alerts before your Friend’s Birthday.

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Adding Orkut friend’s Birthdays alert:

To add Orkut friend's Birthday Calendar, login to your Orkut account. Birthday calendar can be imported from here: http://www.google.com/calendar/render?cid=1%23orkut@group.v.calendar.google.com to import calendar now, you can simply click on above link.  Fill up your name, location and select Time Zone, click on continue if required. Now you will be asked do you want to add this calendar, select “ Yes, add this calendar “. You will see Orkut Birthday Calendar here:> Now click on Month Tab to view calendar in 30 days mode. You will see birthdays of your friends in golden colour like this:

> Click on the friends Birthday date, a bubble will appear like: > Press Copy to my calendar.

> A new page will appear like this:

> According to your wish select the repetition of alerts, I have selected Yearly from drop down menu of Repeats, as birthdays always come after a year!> Finally click on Save button to save the settings, Hurry you are done!

In case of Orkut Friend’s Birthday you will need to add each birthdates to my calendar in order to receive their SMS alerts.

So, how is this solution to remember Birthdays? Hey, I missed one thing that if you will change your mobile number then only repeat first step i.e. adding mobile to Google Calendar and you are done.
If you have any trouble in this set-up then just leave comment below.

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