Windows Live Calendar Updated, Now Syncs Birthdays

According to a recent post on the Windows Live Hotmail blog, Windows Calendar has updated the “Birthday Calendar” feature. In the past, if you wanted to add birthday information for one of your Windows Live contacts, you had to do so in your contact list. With the update, however, you can now add birthdays right from within Windows Calendar itself. These entries will then automatically sync with your contact list.

To call attention to the birthday, you can use a “Calendar Charm,” which is a little colorful icon that appears next to the even on your calendar. The birthday cake charm is an obvious choice here. And so you don’t forget, you can configure an email reminder when you’re adding a birthday, too. Actually, you can configure two reminders, if you want, so you really don’t forget.

Also new is a “refresh now” button which will force a sync between the birthdays stored in Windows Live Contacts and those stored in Windows Live Calendar. Previously, people complained that they didn’t know when the syncing (which occurred at specific intervals) was taking place. Now you can know for sure that it’s being done.

You can check out the new features now at Windows Live Calendar:  http://calendar.live.com.