birthday

Remembering birthdays or other personal holidays can be difficult without use of a calendar or date book. If you're already using Gmail and Google Calendar these dates can kept on hand at all times. To take the pressure off yourself to remember important dates, just follow these steps:

1. Log into Gmail and choose Contacts from the menu in the upper left corner. It will look something like this:

2. Add birthdays to your individual contacts that the calendar will be able to use. Save the contact info and then open Google Calendar.

3. Save the contact and then … Read more

We're back from our four-day weekend despite yesterday's gloomy celebration of Blue Monday, the "holiday" psychologists deem the most miserable day of the year.

Blue Monday is the result of a questionable formula written by psychologist Cliff Arnall in 2005, who calculated that the third Monday of January based on seven variables including weather, debt, monthly salary, time since Christmas, time since failed quitting attempt, low motivational levels, and the need to take action.

The formula seems dubious, especially since Arnall was employed by a PR company at its recognition, but it also happened to fall on my 27th birthday, so it might hold water after all.

Speaking of B.S., tune into today's episode for a skeptical discussion about astrology based on a random astrologer correctly guessing my birthday yesterday in a coffee shop. Wilson and I don't take astrology very seriously, but the coincidence is enough to make us wonder about its legitimacy. Plus Jeff's daily Aries horoscope is spot-on today!

Also, don't worry about your zodiac sign changing, as some media outlets are calling a red herring, and Ophiuchus is old news!

In other news, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced his second medical leave of absence in the last two years. Jobs will remain CEO of the company, but Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook will take responsibility of the day-to-day operations.

The company's stocks are already taking a hit with a 4 percent slide just an hour and a half into today's Nasdaq exchange, but we're deferring to our Apple expert Wilson Tang to predict the future of Apple once again.

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week we focus on using a VM image or Boot Camp partition in Parallels, adding alarms to the "Birthdays" calendar in iCal, and getting movies to view on an Apple TV. We continually answer e-mail questions and while we present a few here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Standalone Virtual Machine or Boot Camp in Parallels?

MacFixIt reader "Jack" asks:

When installing Parallels 6 and Windows … Read more

We occasionally come across programs that work as they're supposed to but that just aren't, in our view, designed to be very useful. Date Reminder is one such program. As promised, the program will remind you of scheduled events, but we're not sure why anyone would choose this program when there are so many more feature-filled and versatile options available.

The program's interface is plain, with a handful of buttons and a grid where scheduled items are listed. It's easy to create a new item, and users can enter the name of the event, the … Read more

Monday was a bittersweet day for Microsoft. Its cyberbrainchild Internet Explorer turned 15, and it's not all birthday cakes and candles as the Web browser continues to battle competition from Chrome and Firefox. With the release of IE9 just around the corner, it will be interesting to see what juicy new upgrades the new version will offer.

In more browser news, things have been going swimmingly for Google Chrome, whose beta got a major upgrade last week. Now resembling the developer's build even more, the beta version features changes to the interface and improved synchronization, among other things. … Read more

Did you know that my birthday is less than a week from now on March 17? That's also St. Patrick's Day, which everyone celebrates by going out and getting wasted. I'll admit it, that's exactly my plan for my birthday/St. Pat's.

The smart people at Geek Squad, knowing it's my birthday (because I've collaborated with a PR person there in the past), sent me this wonderful cell phone recovery kit in the off chance I drunkenly drop my phone into my beer, a toilet, or, more likely, Puget Sound. It wouldn't be the first time.

What's in the kit, you ask? Everything you need to attempt to resurrect a dunked cell phone. And what better way to show it off than with a series of unboxing pics? Because for some reason people who read tech blogs love unboxing pics.

First off we've got a generously sized Tupperware container that can also be used for storage of last night's leftover lasagna. Inside we see a handy card that features the seven key steps for saving a waterlogged handset: … Read more

Thirty-five years ago, Hello Kitty dropped an atomic cute bomb on the world and the universe was forever changed.

Developed in 1974, the iconic kawaii cat debuted with Japanese character licensing firm Sanrio in 1975 on a small change purse that sold for 240 yen (around 80 cents at the time). Sanrio has since built a vast global empire on Kitty's popularity, and related licensing deals now account for a huge chunk (some say about half) of Sanrio's $5 billion in annual sales.

Over the past three and a half decades, Kitty's mouth-missing face has graced thousands … Read more

Who cares about Apple's little iPod refresh yesterday--it's Rana Sobhany's birthday!! We were already excited to have Rana on the show today, but we had no idea that she'd be bringing treats. Turns out that Ms. Sobhany has been indulging her foodie side recently and baked us CUPCAKES to celebrate! Since we always strive to be perfect gentlemen on the show, we don't pry too much into how many birthdays she's celebrated so far, so I think it's safe to assume that Rana has spent a cool 19 years on this Earth.

We all get a little nervous when Rana quiets us down for some real talk, and lo and behold, she calls me out big time on my Valentine's Day fumble. Be sure to watch the video show to see how I make it up to her on the air.

On the second half of the show, Rana shows us a really cool iPhone app called Sonifi. Created by electro artist BT, the sensory application lets users physically manipulate the artist's work, essentially performing a live remix! Rana demos the app for us and soon the studio transforms into a big birthday rave.

Also, a big thanks goes out to Joshua Chu for Photoshopping us into a scene from "Futurama!" We can't believe you don't do this for a living, Josh. I think our favorite little Easter egg is the Apple logo on Wilson's case. Great work, dude!

Leave us a voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET or e-mail the404(at)cnet(dot)com and let us know what you think of the show! Also, be sure to wish Rana a very happy birthday!

SS Birthday reminder is a simple program that allows users to keep track of their friends' birthdays and other information. Its basic interface and straightforward functions make it a good choice for users looking for a quick and easy birthday utility.

The program's interface is plain, displaying a list of the people the user has entered in a grid. It is easy to add new people, and users can also include contact information and notes, making this program a very basic contact manager as well as a birthday reminder. The program's features are limited but functional. Users can … Read more