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I'm a deep sleeper and I can learn to sleep through any alarm that just beeps, so I wanted wake up to my music instead - dynamic, melodic, pleasant, and I can change it every day. Since all my favorite music is on my computer, I can pick the most pleasant sound to wake up to (Jolie Holland singing "Sascha", or the opening to a Toots and the Maytals concert, or U2 singing "Beautiful Day". I still sleep through the Beatles' "Here comes the sun").
The fact that I can listen to my own music makes this wayyy better than a clock radio.
I've been using this since I was ~12 or so. That's a lot of mornings spent reliability-testing this alarm clock by waking up on time for school, work, etc., until the advent of the Sunshine Alarm Clock I built last year.
*nix users can apply this easily to xmms (I've done it, it works). Windows users, switch to a better operating system, or hang on to your seats and maybe you'll one day be able to script your OS. These directions are for Mac OS/iTunes users.
thanks to Rachel Darman for the photos!
The fact that I can listen to my own music makes this wayyy better than a clock radio.
I've been using this since I was ~12 or so. That's a lot of mornings spent reliability-testing this alarm clock by waking up on time for school, work, etc., until the advent of the Sunshine Alarm Clock I built last year.
*nix users can apply this easily to xmms (I've done it, it works). Windows users, switch to a better operating system, or hang on to your seats and maybe you'll one day be able to script your OS. These directions are for Mac OS/iTunes users.
thanks to Rachel Darman for the photos!
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Signing UpStep 1Cron
Cron is a utility that makes something happen at a specific time. (think Chronos, the greek god of time)
Here's what you do:
Get into your root-suit by typing "sudo", and sic your favorite text editor on /etc/crontab.
That is, run "sudo emacs /etc/crontab" at the command prompt.
If your crontab is pristine, you should see the first image.
Allow me to explain what all this means.
"# minute hour mday month wday who command"
These are column headings, like in a table. Just insert the time you want into the row below, your username, and the command.
You can add any number of rows. The "command" line will be run verbatim, just as if you were typing it onto the command line.
If a particular time doesn't matter, use a * (wildcard).
For example, if you only specify a minute (e.g., "15"), and fill in the rest of the colums with '*'s, that command will run every hour on the 15 minutes.
If you put a * for the minute, the command will run every minute. It's rare that you'd want to do that, unless for some kind of prankery.
mday is a particular date (e.g., "14" to run on the 14th of every month), wday is a day of the week (0-6, e.g, "0" for Sunday).
Dig it a lot? Learn more by running "man crontab" and "man cron" at your terminal.
Here's what you do:
Get into your root-suit by typing "sudo", and sic your favorite text editor on /etc/crontab.
That is, run "sudo emacs /etc/crontab" at the command prompt.
If your crontab is pristine, you should see the first image.
Allow me to explain what all this means.
"# minute hour mday month wday who command"
These are column headings, like in a table. Just insert the time you want into the row below, your username, and the command.
You can add any number of rows. The "command" line will be run verbatim, just as if you were typing it onto the command line.
If a particular time doesn't matter, use a * (wildcard).
For example, if you only specify a minute (e.g., "15"), and fill in the rest of the colums with '*'s, that command will run every hour on the 15 minutes.
If you put a * for the minute, the command will run every minute. It's rare that you'd want to do that, unless for some kind of prankery.
mday is a particular date (e.g., "14" to run on the 14th of every month), wday is a day of the week (0-6, e.g, "0" for Sunday).
Dig it a lot? Learn more by running "man crontab" and "man cron" at your terminal.
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In Step 4, is "9 * * * * stasterisk osascript -e 'tell app "iTunes" to play playlist "Coffee"'" the proper syntax for 9:00am? I thought it would be "0 9 * * *" instead but I am worried that I am misunderstanding.
http://www.mediafire.com/?wbozmnk2m3d
and it always goes off =]
I believe there are downloadable options for the Mac, too.
The problem is that Windows users can't script, even if they want to.
Thanks for the link, I'm sure someone will find it useful.