iMarvel Home Page

Alarm Explanation

Alarm:

  To set a simple alarm, simply click on the box labeled Hour  and type the hour you want the alarm to go off.  Then click on the Set button to set the alarm.

Currently, the all-HTML Alarm Wizard is used to set events in the Schedule Wizard.  It doesn't actually sound audible alarms.

  All the other fields are optional:

• Minutes:  Type in the minutes (if you don't, ":00" is used.)
  
• AM/PM:  Select "AM" or "PM".
  
• Month/Date:  Select a date (if not, the alarm will be set for a time within 24 hours.)
  
• Repeat:  You can repeat an alarm any number of times.  Example: if you put "2" in this box, the alarm will ring, then repeat two more times.  To repeat an alarm forever, put "999" in this box.
  
• Frequency:  You can put any number of hours in this box, such as 24  to make it a daily alarm.  You can put in any hours:minutes combination, for example 1:30  to make it ring every 1.5 hours.  Or, you can use one of these abbrevations:  for a weekly alarm, put W.  For a weekday (Monday-Friday) alarm, put WD.  For a yearly alarm, put Y.  For monthly alarms, put M.
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  Type: Select an alarm type: The Memo Box will pop up a message window when it goes off The Radio Alarm will visit the site you have selected in the Radio Wizard, and also play the RealMedia clip. If no site is selected, ABC News is used. The Midi Alarm will play a file called "alarm.mid" (a Bach melody.) Optionally, you can also type a memo that will appear in a message window. The Visit Sites alarm will visit all sites selected in the Favorites Wizard.

  Tip: you can use the tab key to move between boxes, and the space bar to push the AM/PM radio buttons.

  The Alarm Wizard is one of the neatest things about iMarvel! It is often better than any other alarm device, because it gives you both an audible reminder and a visible reminder whenever you pass by your computer.  Here's some of the alarms that everyone should consider setting in their iMarvel program (or any other scheduling program):

• If you do any important work with your computer, a great thing you can do with iMarvel is to set a Memo Alarm  to pop up every 15 to 60 minutes to remind you to save your work. Many people have had computer crashes that wiped out their unsaved work.
• Use iMarvel as a "reminder system." Think about anniversaries, appointments and any events you look forward to but sometimes miss. When you schedule appointments, you should set the alarm to go off well before the appointment time, to make sure you have enough time to prepare for it.
• Think about some good habits you'd like to get into. If you have trouble remembering to back up your hard disk regularly, you can set a repeating alarm to remind yourself to do that daily. The possibilities are endless: feeding the dog, a health/hygiene activity, whatever!
• Leave a message, reminder or love note for someone else who uses the same computer.
• Yearly flu shots around mid-October. Many places offer flu shots, including public health clinics and some stores (CostCo sells them for $8.) It's very important, but also very easy to forget.

When you set a Radio Alarm  or a Visit Sites  alarm,  iMarvel  may stay online and only log off when your software disconnects.  Internet Explorer will normally log off after 20 minutes. To change this setting, click on the View  or Tools  Menu, Internet Options  line, Connection  tab, then Settings  button.   Here are some more things you can do with the JavaScript alarm: Have iMarvel give you the news you want, at the time you want. For example, you can set it to play a news site every morning at the time you want, instead of waiting for the network news to come on. Customize the MIDI alarm. Currently it plays a Bach melody. If you prefer a different MIDI file, copy it to the /starbase7/ directory as "alarm.mid" (e.g. "C:/starbase7/alarm.mid") How about using it for inspiration and/or learning? Find a supercool site on the web that updates content daily (e.g. a "cool site of the day" site), and have iMarvel download it for you each morning. If you go to Yahoo and search for "of the day" (remember to type the quote marks, to get exact-phrase matching), you'll get over 3000 categories and sites, including Poem of the Day, Joke of the Day and many more. Let's say you're eagerly waiting for news of some important upcoming event on the Web. You can use the "Alta Vista" URL in the Radio Wizard to set an alarm to periodically search for any term you wish. You can use iMarvel to simultaneously download a lot of different sites that you like to visit regularly. For example, you could construct your own "morning briefing" of the news you want.  Set the alarm for anytime in the morning, and it will all be downloaded in about 5 minutes.   To create a morning briefing, take the following steps: Add the sites you want to visit to the "Favorites" Wizard. While holding down the [Ctrl] key, click any number of sites listed in the Favorites Wizard. Set Visit Sites  alarm to visit those sites regularly. Remember to put "999" in the "Repeat" text-box, which will make the alarm repeat forever. Notes: You can minimize iMarvel to the Windows 95/98 taskbar, and alarms will still be activated. When you add a Memo Alarm, try to use alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9).  The browser can't accept quote marks or apostrophes.

  See also: Calendar Wizard, Clock Wizard, Schedule Wizard.