I'm entering dates for birthdays and anniversaries, how do I get them to put
the data into the cell as I'm typing it; i.e., Jul 10; and also, I have a
birthday of February 29, how is this typed in so the configuration doesn't
change the date to something else?

When you enter a date only as month/day, excel interprets it as a date
of the current year. If you later click on such a cell and view the
formula bar, you will see that excel has added the current year.

If you enter a Feb 29 of a leap year then it will be correctly entered
as date, otherwise it will become text.

If you want to be consistent you could enter the dates with the birth
year included, unless this information is too sensitive for some of
your peers :)

HTH
Kostis Vezerides