If, like me, you're forever forgetting people's birthdays and incurring disappointment from your friends and family who think you don't care about them then maybe it's time to change things.

Best Birthday allows you to do just that by providing you with a handy tool for keeping a record of when people's special days are. It does this by plundering your Outlook and mobile Contacts, and organizing them in such a way that you will always know when to start buying cards or presents.

What I like most about Best Birthday is the way in which you can quickly sort your contacts based on a variety of factors, such as by name, date or number of days left until their birthday. I always keep it set on the latter filter, so I know exactly who it is I should be thinking of buying for next. There's also an option to 'split' the contacts, either by birth month or zodiac sign, a neat little way of packaging different people together.

Amongst the options, you can tick a box to display anniversaries as well as birthdays, and there's even a feature for composing message templates for quick sending when it comes to someone's big day. Perhaps the inclusion of a 'Notes' section would've also been useful for recording gift ideas for each contact in advance.

The inclusion of a Today screen plug-in for your Pocket PC is great because it allows you to view and edit upcoming birthday events without having to manually launch the program.

If you're looking for a way of ensuring you never forget a birthday, Best Birthday certainly beats the old-fashioned pen and paper recording method.