See Facebook birthdays in iCal: it's easy! (very good tip)

See Facebook birthdays in iCal: it’s easy!

Posted by Thomas Gagnon-van Leeuwen | Saturday, May 24, 2008 5:42 PM PT

 

BirthdaysICal.pngI was in a highly organizational mood today, which prompted me — among other things — to enter various events in iCal. As I did, I noticed my Birthdays calendar, automatically generated by Address Book (if you didn’t know, you can enable it in iCal’s Preferences). Specifically, I noticed how incomplete it was and remembered how much of a pain it is to enter dates of birth in Address Book.

The answer? Facebook.

For those of you with Facebook accounts, it’s easy to add your buddies’ birthdays to iCal, Google Calendar or any application that supports the .ics format. A five-second Google search revealed fbCal. This simple Facebook application will painlessly create two calendar links, one for birthdays and the other for events, which you can either subscribe to or download directly. To subscribe, simply copy the desired link and choose “Subscribe…” from iCal’s Calendar menu. Get started via the app’s website.

For more fluff, Birthday Calendar has an extensive list of features, including calendar exporting; it’s not for me though, as it puts a big box on Facebook profiles and I like to keep mine clean and tidy. That’s why I haven’t tested it, but 150,000 people have and seem to be satisfied.

Can I finally say farewell to my Apple-provided Birthdays calendar? Right now, I’ll keep it around for the birthdays of non-Facebookified friends and family.

For those not using iCal, see:

for tips.