Birthday Reminders Triggering at Midnight: Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?

[Jason Dunn]

<p>It's a couple of minutes after midnight, and I'm trying to finish an article before hitting the pillow - and what should chime loudly beside me? My Windows Mobile smartphone, helpfully telling me that it's someone's birthday tomorrow. Birthday reminders are great - I'd miss almost every birthday without them. But why, please someone tell me why, would someone at Microsoft have thought that birthday reminders should trigger at <em>midnight</em>? Is there some maniacal Windows Mobile program manager who calls people one minute after midnight to wish them a happy birthday? I can't think of a single reason why anyone would want their phone chiming at midnight to remind them of a birthday. 10 AM on the day of the person's birthday? Sure, why not. Midnight? Insanity.</p><p>There's been more than one occasion when I've forgotten to put my phone in silent mode and I've left it downstairs in the kitchen, only to be woken up by the reminder chiming about someone's birthday. The problem is that birthdays are automatically created as all day events, starting at 12 AM on the day of the person's birthday and ending at 12 AM on the day after their birthday. Short of going through and editing every birthday reminder I have in my calendar, is there a solution for this ridiculousness? And why, with the latest Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system on my phone, hasn't this been fixed? Every version of Windows Mobile Microsoft adds some swanky new Exchange feature, yet these irritating little bugs don't get fixed. It's enough to make a guy stay up late on a Friday night ranting about it...</p>

[OTHHC]

Jason - interesting perspective and clearly an indication that your Friday nights aren't very exciting :).

This has been an issue for me ever since I used a Sharp Zaurus ZR5800 as my primary device (I suspect many of your readers have no idea what I am talking about - but I know you do). The Zaurus was probably the best integration between applications that I have ever seen. If I recall correctly, when you entered a contacts birthdate in the contact application, you had the opyion of being reminded several days (user configurable) before the actual birthday.

The great thing with the way that this was implemented was that the reminders would appear when the device was started up and you could snooze or dismiss the item depending on whether or nor you had taken the appropriate action.

I can't tell you the number of times this saved me or made me look good. I have yet to find a device that provides as useful of reminders as the Zaurus did and I bought it around 1996! I still have it so I will have tofire it up soon to remind myself of the good old days :).

[starstreak]

Hard part is as default, what would you have it remind you of a birthday on that day? Unless it goes into having its own preference screen, 12am is prolly the best time. But a few things I hate:

1) The chime, continues way past the initial reminder. So if yu don't turn it off, it'll beep all night long.

2) Whos bright idea was to have the unit turn on when something alerts us? Can't tell you how many times I took out my Tilt only to see I changed the date...

3) The (*&# date and time screen can be changed if you click on any clock on the Today screen! WTF! That shouldn't be done. MAKE me goto a menu for time to change. Not if I touch the clock on the Today screen. This is a TOUCH screen device! I will touch that clock by accident. And I don't know how many of you there are, but when I set my clock, its normally doesn't NEED changing that often.

Back to #2 sorry. Don't have a touch screen turn ON when off. Let it make NOISE. Let it shine those little indicator lights. DON'T turn on a touch screen when not in use! *sigh* Ok, ok. Hows about turning on the screen for like 15 seconds BUT disable the screen so if anything touches it, nothing will get changed or deleted. I can remember times, besides the time, that my calender was activated and things got messed up because I had the device in my pocket.

4) Allow us to use the vibrate mode for anything that could be used as an alarm. Works wonders.

[Dyvim]

Hard part is as default, what would you have it remind you of a birthday on that day? Unless it goes into having its own preference screen, 12am is prolly the best time.
I disagree- I don't want to be reminded at 12am of any of my "all-day" events, and I suspect few others do as well. By default it should remind at your configured start of day time (e.g. 8am) that day or else maybe at end of day (e.g. 5pm) the day before (so you can prepare). Then if you're some crazy freak who really does want your device beeping at midnight you could always go in and configure a specific reminder time.

This is a problem with desktop Outlook as well. Another huge gripe I have with desktop Outlook is how it handles all day events when you change time zones. If I go from say east coast to west coast and set the new time zone on my laptop (so that the clock displays the correct time), all my all day events go to being from 9pm on the previous day to 9 pm of the desired day. How hard would it be to always make all day events go from midnight to midnight? Microsoft actually provides a tool to go through and "fix" these events if you move between time zones, but this doesn't help a traveler who is only temporarily in another time zone. And this is supposed to be one of Microsoft's greatest business apps? (I don't remember if Pocket PC devices handle all day events and time zone changes properly- I know the iPhone does.)

[hiatus]

I have been using my Dell Axim X50v on WM 2003SE for a few years already, I had similar problem with Outlook. When I input birthday in contact, it will create a birthday reminder as an appointment in my Pocket Informant; I always know it will remind me at midnight, so what I do is to search for "birthday" in Pocket Informant, click into each "birthday reminder" manually and turn them off one by one.

This is not bullet proof though; once that person's birthday is passed, it will reset the alarm reminder for next year, so I ended up doing it again and again once in a while when I am bored.

Well, don't know if it's the same in WM 6, hope this help though

Good luck.

[Dave Beauvais]

I'm usually up at midnight, so I am annoyed by this for a different reason: It really highlights the absurdity of the Windows Mobile reminder snooze options.


5 minutes before
5 minutes
10 minutes
15 minutes
30 minutes
1 hour
1 day

That's it. Why no "4 hours," "8 hours" "half day," etc.? It just jumps from 1 hour to an entire day. Why isn't there an option to specify a snooze time? It's been a while, but I could swear that was available in some previous Pocket PC version.

As it is, a midnight reminder goes off and my only real option is to dismiss it -- thus forgetting about it by the time I wake up in the morning -- so as not to be annoyed throughout the night.

[Jason Dunn]

Hard part is as default, what would you have it remind you of a birthday on that day? Unless it goes into having its own preference screen, 12am is prolly the best time.

Well let's see here...the point of a reminder is to tell you to do something. How many people are going to wish someone a birthday at midnight? So, even if you were awake at midnight, what would you do? Maybe send an email...but it's not like you can go shopping for a gift or call the person. Having a default is important, but why not have a default that makes more sense? 8 AM? 10 AM? I think anything would be better than midnight.

[dma1965]

Here is a partial list of annoyances which have been part of the Pocket PC experience since at least 2000:

1. The afformentioned midnight Birthday/All Day Event Bug

2. The afformentioned inability to snooze something in a custom manner.

3. The inability to set a custom reminder sound for a task or appointment (one global sound is your choice).

4. The inability to view tasks and appointments in one interface (I find this utterly ridiculous).

5. The ridiculous limitations of the file open and file save dialog (no ability to access file system globally)

6. The afformentioned utter stupidity of the clock dialog opening when I touch the clock.

7. The annoying proplem of the device waking up on a touchscreen device when a reminder goes off. This would not be so annoying if I could turn this off and/or at least have the device disable or lock the touchscreen when this happens so a device in my pocket does not stay on forever and end up with God knows what applications open when I pull it out of my pocket. Dear God! They fixed this issue so it would not wake up when a push email comes in over Exchange, so I know it can be done. Why did they stop there???

There are third party applications available to resolve some of these issues, but I must then live with the constant reminder that some of my precious and still limited memory is taken up by the less-than-stellar Windows application that the more suitable application replaces. Why,oh,why can't I have the option of uninstalling the craptacular Windows application if I find something else that suits me better? I usually run a custom ROM on my Tilt, and some do not include office as part of the ROM, but include it as a cab, which installs and runs just fine. If I should choose to switch to the Softmaker suite of office applications instead, I can uninstall MS Office and reclaim about 6 megs of RAM. My preferred music player is Pocket Player, and my preffered video player is TCPMP. Why can't I uninstall Windows Media Player?

It just seems to me that the development team has deluded themselves into thinking that because we have dealt with the limitations for so long that we simply are no longer annoyed by the limitations, or that they somehow know whats best for us, or that they simply do not care to be bothered to address these issues. This usually comes about as a result of a miguided QA effort.

Microsoft still hangs onto the "arrogant uber developer" mentality despite constant reminders from its users, and the rest of the world, that it no longer sets the tone for the world of computing. It is like a mob boss who wakes up one day to realize that his family no longer controls the city, and eventually must get whacked because he refuses to play nicely with the other "Dons".

[Rocco Augusto]

I disagree- I don't want to be reminded at 12am of any of my "all-day" events, and I suspect few others do as well...

Normally I would totally agree, actually 99.999999% of the time I would agree, but during my last anniversary I completely forgot about it and got the standard 11:45PM reminder that if I didn't get a gift soon I would be sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future. Needless to say, after a quick run online and I was able to have some flowers delivered at 8:30am right before she left for work.

This is the only time I haven't been annoyed about the midnight reminders for all day events :)

[starstreak]

My post about saying it was "ok" for the 12am, but that unless they redid a whole preference screen for options on when to remind you, 12am would be best. If it reminded me at 8am, I would be on my way to work. I would've forgot the present that I was supposed to bring. 4am, would be as dumb as 12, but at least 12am would display a reminder and have my butt covered in saying "at least I told you" from the pda. If you could mute the ring at 12am and if it didnt continue to beep and the screen didn't turn on, then I'm all for the 12am. Did that make sense? Sorry, just got up. :)

[wetsleet]

100% agree! I have suffered numerous midnight alarms. My ancient Psion had this sussed, you set a default alarm time of your choosing, and that was it, problem solved. I can't believe we need to entertain the solutions put up here - edit each one individually, give up entirely and rely on the grey matter. I use Pocket Informant because in a few respects it kind of approaches the useability of the ancient Psion software - but sadly not here. Even ordinary appointment alarms, you can't set a default time, you can't set any time at all. Amazing but true, in PI you can not set an actual time when the alarm will sound. Its like a clock with no hands! Oh no, you have to do some quick base 60 mental arithmetic and work out the difference between your appointment time and the time you want the alarm to sound and enter the result in the box! Progress...oh yeah.

[BevHoward]

I've also discovered if you want to irritate someone, include a number of personal calendar events in your "Contact Exchange" such as your birthday, your anniversary, kid's birthdays plus a few special events and make them all day events...

Not only don't I remember some of the card exchange events which come up regularly, I get charged for them when google text messages me about them later, the contact which loaded them is long gone and I don't have the information necessary to call the idiot who spammed them into my calendar the next night at 2am to get even.

[Dave Beauvais]

... the contact which loaded them is long gone and I don't have the information necessary to call the idiot who spammed them into my calendar the next night at 2am to get even.
Sorry, but LOL. ;-)

[starstreak]

Ok, more awake now. Just making it clear, I'm just saying, as the way the OS is set now, the reminder at 12am is the best. It's the OS way of being clear that it warned you of this event.

BUT they should've fixed it ages ago, by having options on how to remind all day events. Like by vibrate/ring/NO screen turning on/light indicators/etc. I would have it put the reminder up at 12am, flash indicator lights. That way it wont wake me up at 12am, but yet, when I look at my phone, it would show a flashing light and when I turn it on, it would show notification.

[Fellwalker]

BUT, a reminder on the first second of the day does not give time to get a card, let alone send it. Unless its an electronic one, and SWMBO is not a techy.

[Down8]

There is a configurable default "start of the day," All-Day items should alert then. It is that simple.

If it is important enough that you need prep time, you need to set it to remind earlier, but default should be at the start of the day.

-bZj

[SomeAudioGuy]

I'm usually up at midnight, so I am annoyed by this for a different reason: It really highlights the absurdity of the Windows Mobile reminder snooze options.


5 minutes before
5 minutes
10 minutes
15 minutes
30 minutes
1 hour
1 day

That's it. Why no "4 hours," "8 hours" "half day," etc.? It just jumps from 1 hour to an entire day. Why isn't there an option to specify a snooze time? It's been a while, but I could swear that was available in some previous Pocket PC version.

As it is, a midnight reminder goes off and my only real option is to dismiss it -- thus forgetting about it by the time I wake up in the morning -- so as not to be annoyed throughout the night.

I know what you mean.
This drives me CRAZY!
We used to be able to set the snooze time in WM2003SE.
Aside from the losing all info if the battery died, I think I liked WM2003SE better than any of the following updates.

[wetsleet]

hmmm, so after much discussion the original question goes unanswered:
Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?
my guess? The question contains an assumption, erroneous as it tuns out, that there actually was someone who thought.

[Fitch]

Hahaha, great post Jason. This still gets me every time. I usually have to set a task or reminder to go through my Birthday events and turn off the reminders! How crazy is this, and why hasn't this happened to Microsoft Engineers!?

[Jason Dunn]

If it is important enough that you need prep time, you need to set it to remind earlier, but default should be at the start of the day.

Indeed - for the birthdays that I need to order online gifts for, and factor in shipping time, I set it to remind me seven days before the birthday, which works great. Except for the fact that it's still at midnight. :mad:

[Damion Chaplin]

Here's my latest pet peeve with WM:

Why does it feel it's necessary to pop up an entire window telling me that 'Charging is complete'? Not only is there a battery indicator at the top of the home screen, every device I've ever used has an LED at the top that shows red when charging and green when charged (or flashing while charging and steady when charged). Seriously, when there's a hardware notification on every phone, why do they have to program a notification into the OS?

The end result is that every morning when I take my phone off the charger, I have to dismiss that screen that says "charging is complete". If an appointment reminder goes off and I just want to see it, I still have to dismiss that screen.

I'm finding it more and more annoying the more I click "OK".

On-topic: For some reason my phone doesn't chime when it's someone's birthday, only when it's a real appointment... Don't ask me why...

[Pony99CA]

Why does it feel it's necessary to pop up an entire window telling me that 'Charging is complete'? Not only is there a battery indicator at the top of the home screen, every device I've ever used has an LED at the top that shows red when charging and green when charged (or flashing while charging and steady when charged). Seriously, when there's a hardware notification on every phone, why do they have to program a notification into the OS?
Your premise is incorrect. "Every phone" does not have hardware notification. The Motorola Q series has no LEDs.

Regarding the battery indicator at the top of the screen, seeing four bars could mean the charge is anywhere between 75% and 100%. The Charge Complete screen lets you know that, yes, the charge is really complete.

So I really don't mind the screen in general. I would suggest a settings option to disable it, though, for people who really are bothered by it.

However, it's not perfect. My pet peeve with the screen is that it should go away when I disconnect my device from the charger. I've often seemed to get the Charge Complete message well after the device was running on batteries.

Steve

[Pony99CA]

I'm usually up at midnight, so I am annoyed by this for a different reason: It really highlights the absurdity of the Windows Mobile reminder snooze options.


5 minutes before
5 minutes
10 minutes
15 minutes
30 minutes
1 hour
1 day

That's it. Why no "4 hours," "8 hours" "half day," etc.? It just jumps from 1 hour to an entire day. Why isn't there an option to specify a snooze time?
I absolutely agree. This has been a pet peeve of mine for years. And, up until WM 6, which added 10 minutes back, it was getting worse, not better. I believe WM 2003 had 30 minutes, 8 hours and one week. When they added landscape mode, they pruned the snooze options to fit, I think. (I suspect that's also why they went from four alarms to three. I always wondered why they couldn't scroll the alarm screen. :rolleyes:)

Even if Microsoft didn't want to allow custom times, they could offer a lot more flexibility with cascading menus. I suggest something like:


5 minutes before
Minutes

5
10
15
20
30
45

Hours

1
2
4
6
8
12

Days

1
2
3
4
7


That gives a much better set of options than the current scheme.

It's been a while, but I could swear that was available in some previous Pocket PC version.
I don't believe so. Windows CE Handheld PCs definitely had that feature. There was a combo box with suggested snooze times, but you could enter your own. I don't know for sure (because I never owned one), but I suspect Palm Size PCs could do that, too.

I think Pocket PC 2000 did away with custom snooze times. I have an old iPAQ 3650, so I can check if you really want to know. :)

Steve

[Pony99CA]

Well let's see here...the point of a reminder is to tell you to do something. How many people are going to wish someone a birthday at midnight? So, even if you were awake at midnight, what would you do? Maybe send an email...but it's not like you can go shopping for a gift or call the person.
As Rocco pointed, you can go shopping -- online. :) My problem, as others have pointed out, is that you can't snooze for more than 1 hour (unless you want to snooze for a whole day). Who wants to be awakened at 12:45, 1:45, 2:45, etc.?

Having a default is important, but why not have a default that makes more sense? 8 AM? 10 AM? I think anything would be better than midnight.
I think midnight is just the result of using a "one-size-fits-all" approach. An "all-day" event clearly starts at midnight and goes until midnight, so the alarm fires at the default time before midnight, which is usually 15 minutes. And because these events are automatically created from your Contacts, there's no option there to set a reminder (although, I suppose, that could be one option to fix the problem). It makes perfect sense, but obviously should be treated as a special case.

However, I don't think it should fire later in the day. You wouldn't schedule an appointment and (in general) have a alarm that fired off after the start of the meeting, would you? So I would suggest having the reminder fire several hours before the day begins (maybe at the point where snoozing it one day puts it at a reasonable time on the special day).

Somebody suggested the reminder should fire at the "start of the day" you've defined, but that's for work, and those events generally aren't work-related. Unless you use a hack or a different PIM, all task reminders fire at the start of the day, and nobody likes that (tasks should have specifiable alarms, too). Why would all-day events be better?

However, as I suggested in another thread, I think there's a work-around. Set your default reminder time to 8 hours before. The downside is that, when you create meetings, you'll have to reset the alarm time to 15 minutes (or whatever your preferred value is).

Steve

[Pony99CA]

We used to be able to set the snooze time in WM2003SE.
I don't think you could. I didn't have a WM 2003 SE device, but I've had WM 2003 and WM 5 Pocket PCs, and they can't do that. I'd be shocked if they put that feature in for one release and then removed it.

If you have a screen capture, though, prove me wrong. ;)

Steve

[Steve Jordan]

As I always turn my device off at night, I rarely experience this except on the rare occasions when I'm up past midnight, AND I have an all-day event scheduled the next day. Then it's: "WTF!?!" (fumble, fumble, examine) "Oh, oh, yeah, riiight..."

Personally, I try to remember to set "no notification" on all appointments on my device, and trust to catch the notification on the Today screen instead. That way, the thing stays mercifully quiet. But now that I'm on a Touch Pro 2, I wish I could get the Today screen to display appointments a week in advance, instead of just a single day...

[Sven Johannsen]

But now that I'm on a Touch Pro 2, I wish I could get the Today screen to display appointments a week in advance, instead of just a single day...Unless you are enthralled by the glitzy but useless UI's that are in vogue these days, take a look at Pocket Breeze. http://www.sbsh.net/products/windows_mobile_pocket_pc/pocketbreeze/description

Note particularly the Special Events Tab. It shows all the stuff that is coming up and how far out it is. The little bell icon flashes when something is imminent, and I think it even lets you adjust how far out that happens. Shame this sort of customization, value added, may be a thing of the past. Maybe not though. Might be possible to do a really neat Special Event Tile, that shows the next few things and animates when things get close.