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Tired of always keeping iCal open, hitting cmd-k and choosing a Reminder calendar to add an event to? No? Oh, then go away.

But, if you *are*, then check out the following mini-tutorial that will allow you to create a tiny little app you can keep in your dock/desktop/wherever, that will allow you to simply enter in text and have it added to your iCal Reminders (which are then synched via iCloud to your iOS devices).

This is rudimentary programming – it’s nothing you can’t finish in 5 minutes and it’s also far less feature rich than an app you could spend a buck for in the App Store – but if you want a simple, fast way to add a reminder to a specific Calendar, this will do the trick.

I’ve added a small image gallery below in case you have problems with the instructions.

1. Open ‘Automator’, which is in your ‘Applications’ folder.
2. Choose ‘Application’ as the project type.
3. On the left hand pane, select ‘Text’, then double-click ‘Ask for Text’. A new item is added to the far right pane.
4. In the ‘Question’ field, enter whatever text you want to be greeted with, such as ‘What is your bidding, Master?’.
5. Check the ‘Require an answer’ checkbox.
6. Next, click ‘Calendar’ on the far left ‘Actions’ pane, then double click ‘New to Do Item’.
7. In the ‘Add to’ field, choose which calendar you want the Reminder to be added to. If you do not, it will be added to the default local calendar.
8. Click ‘File’, then ‘Save’. Choose to save the file as an Application in the ‘File Format’ field. I’d suggest saving it to your Applications or Documents folder so you can easily find it later. You can then drag it to your Dock for easy access.

Now, when you want to add a new Reminder, click your icon, enter the text and hit ‘Enter’. It will be added to iCal instantly and synched with your other iCloud devices. The app closes after adding the item, so you aren’t wasting any system resources.

Advanced: If you want to be prompted for date, time, calendar, priority every time, don’t add the ‘Ask for text’ action, and check the ‘Show this action when the workflow runs’ checkbox in the Options tab of the ‘New To Do Item’ action, as seen below.

One of his doctors told him that there was hope that his cancer, and others like it, would soon be considered a manageable chronic disease, which could be kept at bay until the patient died of something else. “I’m either going to be one of the first to be able to outrun a cancer like this, or I’m going to be one of the last to die from it,” Jobs told me right after one of the meetings with his doctors. “Either among the first to make it to shore, or the last to get dumped.”

Jobs invited Ma to play at his wedding, but he was out of the country on tour. He came by the Jobs house a few years later, sat in the living room, pulled out his 1733 Stradivarius cello, and played Bach. “This is what I would have played for your wedding,” he told them.

Jobs teared up and told him, “You playing is the best argument I’ve ever heard for the existence of God, because I don’t really believe a human alone can do this.”

Davey and Shane tried to get their inheritance early…

Starbucks, sticking it to the man.

Remember, remember, the froth of November.