WINDOWS 7 USERS:
The Alarm Clock of Justice--and many others--need you to enable wake up timers in the control panel to wake your computer from sleep. Guide: Allow wake timers in Windows 7. Quite frankly, I find this ridiculous. Why are wake timers disabled by default?
WINDOWS VISTA USERS:
There have been reports of bizarre errors. Please exercise caution.
Update: May 4th,2009
I have been very busy with school and work this past year and I have been unable to fully test and release a new version. I have re-written the core alarm engine and I am doing more testing than ever before to ensure reliabilty. I am hoping for the upcoming release to be the last release, and a solid one at that.
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About
The Alarm Clock of Justice is a computer alarm clock that can wake your computer from standby or hibernation to play a customized alarm. The alarm includes
videos, websites, songs, movies, and any other file type.
By waking up from standby and hibernation your PC does not have to be turned on all night--and neither do its cooling fans.
Release 2.2.x has
snooze, a new interface for profiles (formerly called "configurations"), customizable alarm timing, and a lot of other improvements from version 2.1.
Instead of reworking large portions of the Alarm Clock of Justice for large releases, I will release new changes more frequently, but they will mainly be bug fixes.
Notable Features
- Wake computer up from hibernation and standby to play an alarm
- Backup alarm plays unless you stop it from doing so--it unmutes your volume and sets it to the highest level. It plays the "Alarm Clock of Justice song", which is meant to wake you.
- Volume effects can make the system volume fade in and out, be set to a certain level, or be random.
- Alarms with Music, videos, websites, programs and just about anything can be launched from the Alarm Clock of Justice.
- Reminders with random flashing colors, a background picture, and adjustable text can be part of the alarm.
- Snooze (Finally--details below)
- Timing customization--for example, set the volume to unmute ten seconds after playing a song.
- Insomniac mode will try to stop you from shutting down your computer for a specified amount of time
- There is now built-in support for putting your computer into hibernation/standby/logoff at a certain time. It is under the "Open File/URL" tab
and is actually a built-in command that calls another program I wrote.
- Comprehensive tests to see if your computer can wake up from standby/hibernate and play the alarm
Changes from 2.2.1
- After you close the reminder/snooze window, the main window will pop up.
- Fixed volume bug
Changes from previous version (2.2)
- Fixed alternating volume bug
- Fixed background picture bug whereby a background picture could not be loaded
- Changed location of profiles to "Application Data" directory with various fallback directories
Backup alarm details
This is one of the stranger features of the Alarm Clock of Justice. After all of the alarm actions have been started (as set in "timing"), the backup
alarm waits for a customizable amount of time (10 minutes by default). After ten minutes, it will blast your volume (both Mixer/System and Wave volume) and unmute the volume.
It will play the Alarm Clock of Justice song. It will constantly set your volume to full blast every 10th of a second until you stop it. The backup alarm has saved me a couple times
because the website I wanted to play didn't load in my browser.
Snooze details
Snooze is implemented as part of the reminder screen. If snooze is enabled (it is by default), then the reminder screen will pop up with a Snooze button.
There are three ways to snooze the alarm:
- Press any key (Except for O (as in the letter "O") and Escape
- Hold both left and right mouse buttons down at the same time
- Click the snooze button
Then the alarm will snooze as specified (5 minutes by default). When the snooze is over, the alarm plays again (at least by default) and can launch an
additional website/file. Snooze can turn your monitor off and mute the volume (set by default).
Snooze can be avoided altogether and the backup alarm disabled by pressing and holding the "O" key and the Escape key. A snooze limit can be set if desired.
Alarm details
There are four things an alarm can do:
- Play a media file with your default player--if that fails, the Alarm Clock of Justice reverts to using Windows Media Player.
- Open a file or website--be a program/movie/URL/YouTube video--with the default player.
- Open a reminder
- Volume effects
These four things can be timed under the Snooze & Timing tab. For example, you can play a song, and then 2 minutes into the song, unmute the volume.
There is built-in support for running a program that can put your computer into hibernation and standby, logoff, or shut it down. Many people asked for this and
I didn't think it should be part of the main program, so I made a seperate program that can be setup from within the Alarm Clock of Justice.
Mini-faq
Question: Will this program destroy my sound card?
No. An individual with the Internet alias of "setianfarts"/"Angry Saddie" claimed their sound card was destroyed by the Alarm clock of Justice. To this end, some of my long-time users responded with their experiences using the program. Unlike other people who have experienced problems, "setianfarts" did not email me to discuss the problem. The way the Alarm Clock of Justice controls the volume during volume effects is _exactly_ the same as you opening your volume and dragging the slider with your mouse. It cannot access internal hardware or any other such nastiness. I tried to contact "setianfarts" to get more information but to no avail. When there is a problem with the Alarm Clock of Justice, at least 2 to 3 people contact me all within about the same time period. Since no one else has contacted me, I assume no one else has had this problem. This problem was most likely caused by a very cheap sound card and the Backup Alarm. After setianfarts complained, FreeWareBB.com investigated the issue and came to the same conclusion: "we have to assume that your sound card is the actual issue here, or at least it may be your driver therefore we have removed the warning from this download".
Question: When my computer wakes up from sleep, it makes me login. How do I turn this off?
This is actually a Windows setting. I have _almost_ no control over it. As of version 2.2, there is a check box to change this under the "Program Settings" tab
that seems to work on Windows XP but not Vista. The best way is to change it from the Control Panel. Go to Start->Control Panel->Power Options->Advanced and uncheck "Always Prompt ...."
Question: Does your program do [whatever]?
I don't know--download it and see.
Question: Are there any plans to translate the Alarm Clock of Justice to a different language?
If I can get dedicated translators then I will create a translator kit. Most likely, I will run all the text through Google Translator and have translators double check it and clean it up.
Question: I got an error message--what should I do?
Contact me and tell me what you were doing and how it happened. If you get the Exception message, click the details button, copy and paste the first dozen lines of text and send that to me.
I can't help you if all you say is "I got an error message." In the Alarm Clock of Justice, go to Program Settings and press the "Restore to Defaults" button--that sometimes fixes the problem, but make sure you tell me what is going on!
Question: What happened to my configuration?
The Alarm Clock of Justice switched directories and it doesn't know where all your old configurations are located. Open Windows Explorer and go to
C:\Program Files\Alarm Clock of Justice 1.9.8 and grab "Configuration#.xml" files and drop them into the home directory of the Alarm Clock of Justice version 2.2
Version 2.2 will attempt to recover your previous settings.
Question: Why doesn't this work on Mac OS X or Linux? Do you hate them?
No--I do not hate them. Windows fulfilled two critera:
- ACPI support from APIs to wake up from standby and hibernation
- I own a copy of Windows.
ACPI support (wake from hibernate/standby) is simply non-existant (for whatever reason) in regular Linux distros. It has never worked on my computer with Linux.
Windows has good support ACPI support. Mac OS X has support for these kinds of things and there are programs that wake from hibernation on Macs.
Question: Can I have the source code?
I am not releasing the source code right now--but maybe later. This program will always be free to download, though. It's not about the money--it's about the fame.
The source code for the interesting part of this program--waking up from hibernation--is available in a bunch of places, including my Simple Alarm Clock.
Reliability
I use the Alarm Clock of Justice every day. It works very reliably. Release 2.2.1 has not failed to wake me up--except for when I forgot to plug in my speakers.
System Requirements
- Windows 2000,XP, or Vista
- .NET Framework 2.0
What does the Alarm Clock of Justice not do
The Alarm Clock of Justice is an alarm clock. It is not a light reminder program or a skinnable desktop clock. It was not meant to remind
you to go to the store, although some people use it for that. You cannot set more than one alarm without opening more than one Alarm Clock of Justice windows.
Screenshots
Known Issues
- Wake from standby/hibernation is flaky on the 64-bit version. At least one user has reported fixing this by using the "Restore Defaults" button under "Program Settings"
Credits
The Alarm Clock of Justice is not simply coded by me and released on the Internet. There are many people who send suggestions via email (or in person).
There are people who test beta versions of the Alarm Clock of Justice to make sure it doesn't crash _all_ the time.
Some people simply wrote sample code that helped me solve a problem.
Special thanks go to:
Ben F.
Matt Z.
Mat D.
Robert S.
Jon M.
Larry Osterman (MSDN)
Sarina N.
Travis R.
Jill G.
Fred N.
Tarik A.
Laz L.
Louis K.
Troy C.
"Ducela"
Y. Chang
Gaurang G.
"Corinne"
Philip S.
Curtis K.
Puck Ja
"Maxima"
"Francesco"
My parents
Vista Support:
"Robert" from University of Colorado
Andy B.
Ray M. M.
Amands S.
John B.
From Warpstorm:
"Icy"
"Chersh"
"Koder"
"Polyphoric"
"Holly"
General:
DaveS
CodeProject.com
Kyle D.
"Bill McCarthy" (MSDN)
Whoever wrote the article where I learned how to use SetWaitableTimer
Last names have been abridged here--I don't know who wants to be listed on the Internet and who does not. Full names and such are included in the Alarm Clock of Justice itself.
The credits have been in the Alarm Clock of Justice since the first release. Resize the window and make it bigger--the credits will appear.
