Holiline Reminder

If some events deserve a constant reminder, Holiline Reminder places birthday countdowns, special holidays, and upcoming weddings in a banner that will stay at the top or bottom of your screen. It doesn't offer anything fancy, but it's easy to set up and it worked exactly as promised in our tests.

You'll need to unzip a folder to find Holiline Reminder's install file, but the process is quick and painless. The first time you launch the program, onscreen guidance tells you to right-click to create an event. There's a lack of punctuation and the oddly worded notice "You have no any events," but once you get to the event tool, things definitely improve. The interface is on the plain side but easy-to-understand icons open small windows to add birthdays, weddings, tasks, and holidays. You can also opt to create a custom event if the defaults don't cover it. Once you add your items, a semi-transparent window sits at the bottom of your screen with any current or upcoming items. For holidays, it announces the day, "Today is Halloween," for example. For events, it tells you how many days until your dad's birthday or your friend's wedding. There aren't a whole lot of settings, but you can change the language or opt to have the program run at startup. You can also place the toolbar over the taskbar or at the top or bottom of the screen. If you choose the first option, you can't access anything on your Quick Launch bar, which proved to be too intrusive for us.

If pop-ups or e-mail reminders aren't enough to keep you on task, Holiline Reminder gives you a constant visual way to see how many days you have to buy a gift or get to that party. It couldn't be easier to use, and it's offered free of charge.