document updated 18 years ago, on Apr 5, 2006
Features
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- plays one random MP3 from a directory
- windows scheduler allows one random MP3 to be played every 15 minutes, and allows a laptop to hibernate overnight
Setup
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- make sure perl and winamp are installed
- tweak alarm.cmd to your specific paths
- drop a bunch of MP3s in the folder indicated in alarm.cmd (I just use the same folder alarm.cmd is in)
- go to Settings > Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks > Add Scheduled Task, tell it to run alarm.cmd
- configure it to wake the computer up
- for super-hard-sleepers like me, you can tell it to keep calling alarm.cmd every 15 minutes for the next 3 hours
- put your laptop in standby or hibernate
(be sure to test it to make sure it wakes up and plays... sometimes it needs your username/pass, or various other specific settings)
(i prefer a laptop because I can plug it into my bedside amplifier, to give it the best chance at waking me up)
ToDo
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- it's currently hard to stop winamp when you wake up. Right now I just use pskill.exe from sysinternals.com
on a shortcut on the desktop, assigned to a keyboard shortcut
- it relies on my current password, which I have to change every month. Either create a separate user so I don't forget
to update this password, or switch over to using linux.