How-To Geek
New Year’s Resolutions: Use Your Computer as an Alarm Clock the Easy Way
Anybody who knows me knows that I’m not exactly a morning person… even with the awesome Tassimo coffee machine I got this year for Xmas, I still don’t want to get out of bed. But now I can use my computer’s loud speakers to help wake me up easily.
The solution for my waking up problem is a website called Kuku Klok, combined with turning my speakers all the way up.
Note: of course this requires your computer being in the same room that you are sleeping in.
Using Kuku Klok
Once you load the page, you simply set the time you’d like to wake up:
Select the sound you want (previewing it helps to test if your speaker volume is up enough)
And then click SET ALARM.
The great thing about this website is that it will work even if your internet connection goes down after setting the alarm. (In fact you can use this site offline by doing File \ Save As \ HTML Complete).
Personally I think the Slayer Guitar sound is the best for waking me up.
Disable Other Windows Sounds
One problem you might notice is that Windows will sometimes make other sounds during the night which might interrupt your sleep… I recommend going to Control Panel \ Sounds and then setting the Sound Scheme to “No Sounds” on the Sounds tab (works the same in XP or Vista).
The only real downside is that now all my co-workers will read this article and start harassing me more when I’m late to work.
|
Subscribe |
Daily Email Updates |
|
You can get our how-to articles in your inbox each day for free. Just enter your email below: |
- By The Geek on 12/31/08
Comments (17)
Comments are closed on this post.
If you'd like to continue the discussion on this topic, you can do so at our forum.
Go to the Forum
this is a pretty good idea…web 2 alarm clock :)
I don’t like how you can’t pick any sound you want but only a few they provide…so I built a script myself that lets me pick whatever song I want…I use “I Will Be Heard” by Hatebreed.
I prefer to use my Cell Phone to wake me up. Then I can end the alarm or hit snooze without getting up and going to my computer.
I use http://sleep.fm/
It wakes me up with a cool sounding woman that says things to me!
I do like the idea, but after years of leaving my desktop on 24/7 I’ve started to turn it off because of the yearly energy savings in these economic times. I can save $100-$200 by turning the desktop, monitor and printer off at night and between $200 and $350 by only having it on when I need it.
The electricity used by the alarm clock is far less and I can always use the Blackberry as an alarm when I need it.
My email security program is warning me that there is a redirect hidden in the link to kukuklok.com, that the actual link is aweber.com. Is this intended? I don’t normally click hidden links.
I use http://sleep.fm too!
Wakes me up and tells me the weather! I wonder if these writers have heard of it before?
@Spacegold
Almost all email newsletter services (like Aweber) do redirect link tracking for statistics. That’s why I usually put “at website.com” in the featured links, so you know where the final destination is supposed to end up.
sleep.fm is very nice…looks better than kuku as well but again they both have the same problem with not having real control over what wakes you up…still proprietary sounds.
I do like sleep.fm more because of time, day, or weather announcements. That’s pretty slick…still not as good as mine though because I can pick what mp3 I want or even youtube video if I so desired even though I don’t.
As soon as sleep.fm gives ability to upload or even direct link to a online or preferably a local mp3 then it will be the best option for my tastes. Its so close but still so far.
Hi
Interesting to see comments about our site here sleep.fm – thank you!
Kukuklok has very nice design and sounds! Cheers to it’s creator!
Were a little different as we want to wake and inform you to brief information that helps u sleep more (flight, meeting, exam, schools canceled/delayed) to info that helps you prepare for the day like weather or just waking up to happy birthday wishes. A smart/social alarm clock … I guess you could say
Time will tell if people want to hear this type of wake up info or centuries of waking up to meaningless noise is what we are accustomed to and not interested in changing such. We are hopeful of the former :)
Cheers,
Ryan Spahn
http://Sleep.FM
“Sleep in, your flight is delayed!” – Sleep.FM
@Ryan
Thanks for the comment… I hadn’t heard of your site until Mysticgeek told me about it today, but it looks quite useful.
As far as I’m concerned, anything that can help me wake up is worth trying out =)
If by the time the internet knows that your flight is delayed, you’re still in bed – you need to get up earlier! The airport never knows about my flights untill 45 min or so before takeoff, and you’re still in bed to get the update from the internet? sheesh – those plains flying over you’re house all night must be why you have trouble getting up in the morning, you must be sleeping on the runway
Is “Webpage comlete” the same as HTML complete? HTML complete does not appear as a type in my save as dialog.
I use headphones, and cannot rely on classical sound system.
That’s where primitive speakers on my motherboard become useful.
They can produce only simple tones and they are relatively loud.
I use “windows scheduler” to run some old (squiky) MSDOS program. :)
hah…i use windows task schedular instead…it wakes me up without a doubt…and even saves electricity…as computer remains on sleep mode through the night….try its worth it.
Thanks for info about this new alarm I was using onlineclock.net on and off when cellphone died I’ll have to try these others next time cell is not available. Would be great to knew if my flight was canceled, as it was recently due to snow
That guitar one is really loud – I think it would work!
I just use task scheduler to play a really loud in-car video of Hans Stuck driving a BMW M3 racecar on the Nurburgring. It works!