Birthday and Event Reminder Copyright (C) Moose O'Malley, -------------------------- September 2007. +===========================================================+ | T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S | +===========================================================+ | * Introduction | * Credits / Thanks | * Why I Wrote this Program | * Installing and Using this Program | * Using this Program | * Uninstalling this Program | * The Future | * Special Thanks To | * Reviews / Awards / CDs | * Freeware Information | * Warranty | * Amendment History | * Contacting the Program's Author +===========================================================+ Introduction : -------------- Birthday and Event Reminder is for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, etc. This program is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. See "Freeware Information" below. Birthday and Event Reminder allows you to easily keep track of birthdays, anniversaries, school reunions, and other important annual events. A range of functionality is provided with the program to help you add, update, change, or delete events, and then report on the events occuring within a specified number of days. You can copy and paste this report into emails or print it. This program should be very useful for helping you keep forwarned of all important dates, so that you give yourself plenty of time to organise and prepare for birthdays, anniversaries, and so on. Now, there is NO EXCUSE for forgetting or leaving things until the last minute !!! ;) Import functionality is also provided so that you can load data from other date / event reminder programs directly into Birthday and Event Reminder without having to re-type anything. Importing data from the following programs is currently supported : - Birthday Reminder v1.5a N.B. I am very willing to add import support for any other birthday / event / reminder programs you might be using. Just send me your data files (or a sample of a data file), and I will add in the required support. Developed using 32-bit Delphi. Birthday and Event Reminder is for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, or later. This program will **NOT** run under Windows 3.x (even with Win32 installed) !! Credits / Thanks : ------------------ - Special thanks to Egil L for requesting that I develop this program. Egil has received a FREE registration because he suggested a program that I believe is useful / desirable and I have gone ahead and developed it. If this program sells really well, then I'll also be sending Egil a cheque (or "check" as American's say) depending on how sales go. Why I Wrote this Program : -------------------------- Egil had been using "Birthday Reminder v1.5a" for many years. Birthday Reminder v1.5a is an old Windows 3.x program from the mid-1990's from Chameleon Software (an Australian developer). Egil had attempted to contact the developer and register the program, but the emails bounced, and he could not find any recent software of web pages for Chameleon, and it appeared that they hadn't updated any of their software or been in business for over 10 years. So, Egil contacted me and asked me to develop my own version of "Birthday Reminder", which I have done. Installing and Using this Program : ----------------------------------- To use this program, unzip the contents of the ZIP file to a directory - such as c:\Birthday_and_Date_Reminder\ - and run the executable file : Birthday_and_Date_Reminder.EXE. If you want the program to run automatically when Windows starts up, then select this option under the "File" menu in the program. If you would like to be able to run this program by clicking on an icon in the Windows Start Menu, or on the Desktop, etc then you can use the "Create Shortcut ..." options under the program's File menu. I hope you find the program easy to use and useful. Using this Program : -------------------- To add a new birthday, anniversary, etc, click the "Add" button, and select the event date, and fill in the name and event type fields. The event type contains a list of pre-define event types - such as Birthday, Anniversary, etc, but you can type in your own even type here. i.e. the event type list is just a basic suggestion list, you can type in your own event names or any other event types. e.g. "Tax Return Due" or "Baby Christening" or whatever you like. To edit / modify an existing event, select it in the list and click the "Edit" button. Change any data you want, and then click "OK" to accept the changed data or "Cancel" t reject any changes. To delete an event, click on the event with the mouse and click the "Delete" button. To delete multiple events, click on the first event and with the left-mouse button held down, drag and highlight other events, and then clicj with the mouse and click the "Delete" button. To erase all events from the list, click the "Reset" button. To ensure that you can never lose any data (even in a power failure), after every Add, Edit, or Import operation, the data is automaticaly saved to a file. When you exit the program, the data is also automaticaly saved to a file. When you Reset or Delete data, then the data is NOT automaticaly saved to file, and you can undo any deletions up to the last save point. i.e. up until the last Add, Edit, or Import operation, or up until the last time you exited the program - whichever is most recent. To sort the data, click on any of the "Sort Data By" or "Sort Order" radiobuttons. To get a list of all up and coming events click the "Report" button. A report of all coming events will be displayed, and you can copy this report to windows clipboard - so you can paste it into an email or other document - or you can print this report directly to a selected printer. You can change the timeframe (i.e. the number of days before the event) that you are warned, and also choose whether to display the report automatically when the program is run, and whether to run the program automatically at Windows start-up. The program should hopefully be pretty easy and straight forward to use. Uninstalling this Program : --------------------------- At the present time, there is No Uninstall function. If you ever want to delete this program from your computer, then : 1. Exit the program, and delete it from wherever you installed it on your harddrive. Before doing this however : - If you have selected / enabled the "Auto-Run at Windows Startup" option (under the File menu), then you should ensure that this option is not checked / enabled (which you can easily do by re-selecting the "Auto-Run at Windows Startup" option from under the File menu). - If you have used any of the "Create Shortcut ..." options under the File menu, then you should use the "Delete All Shortcuts" option under the File menu to remove these from your system. Simple as that ! The Future : ------------ In the future, many improvements could be made to this program, such as : - Birthday and event shopping lists, so you can enter shopping / gift ideas for each event - which you can add as you think of them during the year. These could be printed in the report. - One thing then program does not do is weed out any duplicates – so if you Import the same data 5 times, then you will have 5 copies of it in the list, and the reminder for someone’s birthday would appear 5 times on the report. I wasn’t sure whether to weed out duplicates or not. e.g. there could be 2 or more John Smiths with the same birthday – unlikely but possible. If anyone feels strongly about this, then please let me know and I will add an optional setting into the program to enable you to ignore duplicate data ifn you like. - Anything else ? If you would like any of these improvements, or would like to suggest more, please email me and let me know. How much more work I do on this program depends entirely on what support I get, how many people use the program, etc. Special Thanks To : ------------------- Special thanks to Egil L for suggesting / requesting this program. Reviews / Awards / CDs : ------------------------- None so far. Freeware Information : ----------------------- This is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. However, if you find the program useful, then please consider making a PayPal donation to support my efforts. (To make a donation, please run the program and select the "About" option under the Help menu, and then click the PayPal link on the "About" screen). Warranty : ---------- This software and the accompanying files are provided "as is" and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. The user assumes the entire risk of using this software. If you do find any faults with this program, email me and let me know. Amendment History : -------------------- Vers Date Description 0.9 25-Apr-2005 Initial Private / BETA release to Egil L for comment / feedback. Hope you like the program Egil ! (59,780 lines of code / comments.) 0.95 29-Apr-2005 Next Private / BETA for comment by Egil L. Names column and column headings are bold. The data in some columns is now centered. Hide the main screen if just the Report is required at run-time. Bring the internal program name into line with the external EXE name. Change the program name from "Birthday and Date Reminder" to "Birthday and Event Reminder". Fix the Auto-Run feature - break-up the fights. ;) (63,946 lines of code / comments.) 0.98 05-May-2005 Fix a strange "Grid index out of range" error. Make the person's name bold and blue in the report. Improve program start-up when the report is to be shown on start-up. 1.0 16-May-2005 First Public Release. (64,691 lines of code / comments.) 1.0f 3-Sep-2007 This program is now FREEWARE - see "Freeware Information" above. If this program was not downloaded from my Home Page, then it is possibly an old version. The latest version of this program is available from my WEB page - see below. Mike "Moose" O'Malley ____________________________________________________ Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://move.to/moose ____________________________________________________