Trying to find a program.

[The Million Dollar Prons]

I've spent a lot of time on google trying to find a PC alarm clock, basically something that will play an MP3 at a certain time. So far I've found a lot of crap, and stuff that isn't free, anyone know anything good?

[Leader Desslock]

Have you tried simply making a Scheduled Task to play the MP3 at the designated time? That's what I use for an alarm clock, sometimes. It's a standard part of the OS.

[Bradster]

In XP (I know you don't use that one, LD), you have to run a program when scheduling a Task. I'll admit I'm not savvy enough to know if you can adjust the command line settings to have an audio program run and play a song, instead of just open up.

I went through the Remote Alarm Clock phase myself a while back (gotta get up and turn the monitor on to turn off the alarm, an easy hotkey defeats the purpose), and remember using ClocX. I tried a few others, but that's the only prog still in my archive disks.

[Leader Desslock]

^ In Win2k it says you have to run a program as well, but if you select an MP3 file with the file chooser dialog that's presented to you, then the Scheduled Task will open that MP3 file and play it in whatever application you have set up to to play the file type by default.

It's almost as though the default application/action gets set to "Open in Windows Explorer" if you check a document/content type file, rather than an app. I can't check this on XP, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't work the same way. The only difference I'd expect might be to change the option to "All Files" rather than just "Program Files" in the chooser dialog.

Of course, he could always make a batch file that opens the MP3 in a program, then run that.

[Reidar]

I use this extension for Winamp media player:

http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=104265

[Bradster]

^ In Win2k it says you have to run a program as well, but if you select an MP3 file with the file chooser dialog that's presented to you, then the Scheduled Task will open that MP3 file and play it in whatever application you have set up to to play the file type by default.

It's almost as though the default application/action gets set to "Open in Windows Explorer" if you check a document/content type file, rather than an app. I can't check this on XP, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't work the same way. The only difference I'd expect might be to change the option to "All Files" rather than just "Program Files" in the chooser dialog.

Of course, he could always make a batch file that opens the MP3 in a program, then run that.

I didn't think of using Browse and forcing a specific file. While that bit was successful, the task itself didn't work because XP claimed that without a password I didn't have access/permission to do this operation, even though I'm the admin of my PC. (I don't use a password because I live by myself, and probably have bigger things to worry about if someone else is in the apartment and I'm not around)

Might have to try that aforementioned winamp plugin.

[superplough]

i just did the task scheduler, it woke my up pretty well