I thought you may like this neat trick someone showed me a couple of weeks ago. Are you a Google Calendar user, as am I? Do you enjoy keeping track of your Facebook friends’ birthdays? If so this trick is for you.
I use my Google Calendar all of the time. I use it to enter all of my scheduled items including syncing all of my work appointments. (More on that in a future article.)
When you log onto Facebook you get alerts for your friends’ birthdays. However, with this newly discovered feature (by me anyway) you can put all of your five million FB friends’ birthdays into your personal Google calendar, Outlook and others.
There are several steps in both FB and GC so here we go.
First log into your Facebook “Home” page.
1. Click Events on the left side of the screen.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the Events and look to the right.
3. Where it says, “You can add your events to Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar” (you may click on “Learn more” for additional help) right click on “Birthdays” and select “Copy Link Address.” (Make sure you right click, if you left click on it nothing will happen.)
Now log into your Google Calendar.
1. Open Google Calendar.
2. In the left-hand panel, find the section called “Other Calendars.”
3. Click the downward-pointing arrow.
4. Choose “Add by URL.” (titled “Add network location” in Outlook.)
5. Paste in the Facebook link you copied in the previous paragraph.
6. Click “Add calendar.”
You may have to click to mark your new calendar for viewing. Play with it a little and set it up the way you like.
If you noticed when you set this up and selected the link it shows Outlook, Google and Apple calendars. I have tested this feature with Outlook and Google but not Apple calendar so you are on your own for that one. It did work in the first two. I use Thunderbird email program on my personal systems. I tested it in their calendar and it worked flawlessly.
I also tested the link for “Events” so if you need to keep your Facebook Events in a calendar that works as well.
I personally do not want all those birthdays and events in my calendar; however, many people like to use this feature. If you are one of them I hope you enjoy it.
Next week we look at Thunderbird (which I have mentioned in the past but not written about) and the following week syncing calendars. You may prefer Thunderbird (free and excellent) over Outlook (costly and excellent) for email on your new Christmas computer.
