LiveSide reader DrWhoFan98 (thanks!) just pointed us to what appears to be a new feature in Hotmail Calendars (previously called Windows Live Calendars), “new reminders”:

The old Calendar options page is pretty basic:

but in the new one (after you’ve agreed to start using the new reminders), you get some new choices:

You can set up reminders to your email address (or additional addresses you set up, see below), to Messenger, or to mobile devices, via a text message.  You can set the reminder time, anywhere from “0 minutes before” to “2 weeks before”.

You can set reminders per calendar, but you can also set reminders per event, by editing the event (click on “more details” if you’re adding an event):

The new calendar reminders also allow you to send reminders to additional email addresses, which you set up in Calendar>Options.  However you don’t appear to be able to send a reminder to an additional existing Live ID address:

nor does it work with Windows Live custom domain addresses:

You can set up a new Hotmail address to use for reminders, which doesn’t make much sense to us.  We’ll try to find out more.

You also don’t appear to be able to send reminders to an address that’s set up as your alternate (security) email address:

The new reminder features to add some much needed functionality to Calendars, in spite of the quirks.  Will they be helpful for you?