“Why should you spend money for an alarm clock or a software that does an equivalent job, when you can just use you Linux box? This short tutorial will guide you step by step in creating an MP3/ogg alarm clock using your computer, it works with all Linux systems, and can easily be modified for MAC OS X, *BSD, well you got it.”
How does this compare to a “normal” alarm clock? Some points to consider:
How much power does it consume?
Do I have to leave the monitor turned on to see the displayed time? Is this considered in the power consumption calculation? BTW the article doesn’t really mention how the time is displayed and how this interacts, for example, with a screen saver.
How easy is this to carry around, compared with a normal alarm clock? Can I put it next to my bed easily? Can I turn it off without getting up (in case I decide to sleep on anyway) and while I’m still dizzy?
How much time do I spend configuring this thing? What is the ratio of saved money to spent time?
What if I accidentally turned the speakers off? This cannot happen with a normal alarm clock. Do speakers have “standby” power consumption and was this considered above? What guarantee is there that nothing but this home-grown alarm clock will produce sound and wake me up?
– Morin
Good points Morin!
My guess, though, is that the person wants their MP3/OGG files to be able to play, something a vast majority of alarm clocks cannot handle. Most have radio, but if you live in a dorm/basement like me, that’s worthless. And trust me, you do NOT want to wake up to that incessant beeping!
I’d give almost anything to wake up to, say, The Corrs rather than some random song with huge amounts of static blaring in my ear.
So true, this is no replacement for most people’s alarm clocks – but
A. It’s cool and kinda geeky and
B. It CAN be useful for a few people.
Good points though, I’m interested in seeing what other responses the readers come up with!
It’s for those people, who never turn their computers off …
One can also build that feature into e.g. Yammpp
http://www.myplace.nu/mp3/ – it has open source firmware.
Edited 2006-01-01 21:31
Those with reasonably-new stereos with CD players will sometimes already have the ability to play MP3s from CDs as an alarm function. This provides lower power consumption, white noise generation, and increased reliability in comparison to a typical desktop computer. The next candidate would be the introduction of alarm functionality to portable music players.
What would be useful and geeky, is the development of a mechanism for awakening the subject without producing audible sound or inflicting physical discomfort. Using a general-purpose computing device to replace a specialized computing device is noticeably less novel.
I might try this one night as I leave my pc on for most nights. It sounds interesting, I think is difficult to replace the clock but is a start. I shall play with this. There are so many things we can do with Linux that we don’t even know. Anyways I feel the article needed some more details.
Edited 2006-01-01 17:47
sleep 480; ogg123 music.ogg
served me well through college.
er, 480m, rather.
May be better to use `at` command?
% at 07:40 [hit return]
ogg123 music.ogg
I had a very similar script. It was a pain to have to get out of bed wait for my eyes to adjust to the monitor just to run a second script to go off in 5 minutes or walk over and hit the “c” key to pause xmms or worst of all I turned the speakers down/left headphones plugged in. Anyway if you want to geek out on your alarm clock http://quozl.linux.org.au/alarm-clock
I like AdamW’s Idea, I’m gonna have to find a similar app for PalmOS
Now everyone mentions bash scripts and the like, but they are unhandy and hard to use. While the article mentions Amarok, it doesn’t mention the easy graphical ways it provides for an alarm clock.
So, with Amarok:
Extras->Scripts shows the available scripts, and with “Alarm” there’s already a light variant included which plays music at a given time.
There’s also a more extended version avaiable, which can set different alarm times for different days and has also more features like snoozing.
You can get it in the scripts dialog via -> get more scripts, which fetches new scripts from the KStuff network.
No more several pages long tutorials necessary!
Browser: Lynx/2.8.5rel.1 libwww-FM/2.14 SSL-MM/1.4.1 GNUTLS/1.0.16
Especially since I wrote it almost two years ago.
http://grimthing.com/archives/2004/01/23/cron-mp3-alarm-clock/
It’s kind of overkill for most people, you can substitute `at` for cron. It’s a bit more adaptable.
http://grimthing.com/archives/2004/05/20/at-mp3-alarm-clock/
And as far as power consumption, etc goes, my computer stays on all the time, it’s hooked up to my stereo, used to watch movies, etc. Buying additional equipment just to wake up to music would be a waste of money in my case, and an additional drain of power.
What prompted me to set up something like this via cron is that it’s too easy for me to hit snooze and oversleep and be late for work. Having to get up and become alert enough to open a terminal and kill the script makes sure that I am indeed awake.
Of course I nixed most of that benefit when I keymapped a `killall -9 mplayer` to a key combo, but it still does the job I intended.
I’m wondering if I should be flattered that the author lifted the entire article almost verbatim, or …
I wrote everything on my site, don’t plagiarise what I’ve written, This isn’t high school or a friggin’ encyclopedia britannica. Do the research and write your own stuff. You might write something better than me but, if you’re stealing my stuff I kinda doubt it.
Edited 2006-01-01 23:35
Actually I wanted to contact you about this point. It is indeed true that it resembles your article. The structure is so similar that it seems like a 1:1 verbatim copy.
This is because I initially searched a lot throughout the internet and man pages to create it, and I also got into your good article.
However, I started to write one for myself, but having in mind your clear and simple structure I could not do anything but to follow it, even unconsciously. I DID realise that it was VERY similar to yours, but I figured that there weren’t so many ways of putting it, even trying very hard. Probably if I hadn’t read yours, I would have produced a similar result anyways, since I think you would agree with me that the complexity of the topic is pretty low.
So what I did is I rewrote the article with your structure in mind, but modifying all the parts I felt needed to be inserted, and omitting the others.
If you REALLY feel like you deserve a direct link quoting the “source” I think it’s fair enough, just tell me and I will add a line quoting your work. I certainly do not intent to commit plagarism, I just did not think it was necessary given the situation.
I hope this solves the problem, if you have to feel any way you should feel flattered, if from all the pages I read I had in mind yours there should be a reason. ^__^
Peace.
Federico Pistono.
Define plagiarism.
1. To use and pass off (the ideas or writings of another) as one’s own.
2. To appropriate for use as one’s own passages or ideas from (another).
v. intr.
To put forth as original to oneself the ideas or words of another.
Look, I wrote that two years ago. It’s been used on at least five other sites that I know about and they all have me attribution without me having to ask. If you’d have linked to the article where you got the information, I’d have never said a thing.
If you want to give me a link, that’s fine, if you don’t, that’s fine too. I’ve said my piece and anyone who reads the article can follow the links to my site and read what I wrote, then they can also read what you wrote and decide for themselves.
What you need to ask yourself is this–will the readers of OSNews read both articles and come to the conclusion that you did, in fact, commit plagiarisim, or will they think I’m some hack that’s trying to make you look bad and get cheap publicity for myself.
If you think the former is true, it’d probably be in your best intrest to link me to maintain credibility. If you think the latter is true, laugh my criticisims off and go on about your life.
I’ve said my piece. Do whatever you think is right.
It is not a matter of credibility around the net. After talking to you
I think it’s just fair that I give you the credit. It is a metter of
respect. If the article were a wiki, I would have just modified it,
but it wasn’t.
Link added, I hope you don’t take the whole situation the wrong way,
and if you were irritated by my behaviour I apologise. Don’t think I
added the link just because you complaint, I just was not sure if I
should have, the method of oberving a situation is not always
objective.
No hard feelings, it is much more important the respect of someone you
like that the ones of hendreds you don’t even know. Now that I think
about, I’m fairly sure I wrote you an email of appreciation of the
article a few days ago, I was impresed by the fact thet I agreed on
almost everything you said, especially about the usage of Mplayer and
Vorbis.
The article I found was not reachable though, I used google’s cache
the read it and the CSS was non exixtent, I also wrote you about that
telling you you might wanted to check that out and upload the page
again.
From: Federico Pistono <[email protected]> Mailed-By: gmail.com
To: [email protected]
Date: 28-Dec-2005 14:34
Subject: Cron-MP3 alarm clock
Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Add sender to Contacts list |
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http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:KVQt1vYy7FEJ:grimthing.com/arc…
Very nice tutorial, it was useful and appreciated.
Keep up with the good work.
p.s. The page is down, I only reached it through the google cache, you
might want to check that out.
The fact that these points were used in my article is a (not so)
shocking coincidence, If you read through my site you’ll see how I
point out the same thing over and over.
http://www.federicopistono.org/index.php?mod=Tutorial/DVD_ripping
Plus, I used the same structure for another guide/tutorial (this one
si ALL mine, no insertion from any other site were made, except short
quotations in which I always displayed the source) I wrote, a DVD
ripping guide. See it for yourself if you don’t believe me.
In the end if you read the Alarm Clock article I rewrote all the
paragraphs and not all the code is the same, diverse programs are
used, it’s longer, there’s discussion about the player to use, I spend
several hours writing it and checking the veracity of the words, the
correct spelling, if the code was functioning properly… It was yes
an easy job but I guess it’s fair to say that I did not exactly
“copied” it, don’t you think?
If you want your alarm clock that plays your mp3/ogg files, why not get a CD alarm clock and burn your tunes to CD-R? What about battery backup? If the electricity goes off in the middle of the night, will the script still be work the way it’s supposed to when your computer spontaneously reboots?
Ehm, if the electricity goes off in the middle of the night, your computer isn’t going to come back up, unless it’s one of these ancient systems where the power-button has a physical on/off state.
Quote: bogomipz – Ehm, if the electricity goes off in the middle of the night, your computer isn’t going to come back up, unless it’s one of these ancient systems where the power-button has a physical on/off state.
Only if you have a crap mainboard or don’t know how to configure your BIOS. Most good system BIOS these days give you options for power loss/resume; usually “Off”, “On” or “Last State”
BTW, yes the cron job will still work if the computer reboots, but a graphical client like AmaroK won’t since you don’t have access to an X-display. For this reason I’d much prefer MPD or XMMS2, both of which are daemons that are controlled by various graphical/ncurses/cli/web clients.
Even if it’s turned off. I would prefer a way to have my Linux box turn itself on in the morning and then play music. But I’m going to try the Amarok script.
I’ve been using my computer as an alarm clock for 8 years now since I leave it on most of the time. But I have experienced that it sometimes doesn’t work for one reason or another so I never rely on it to wake me up, it’s just a complement to the alarm clock on my cell phone (which I tend to turn off in my sleep every now and then). So having both feels pretty safe to me. And I like the fact that I have to get out of the bed to turn it off because then I’ll be forced to wake up.
I’ve always considered PC a very sophisticated clock/watch and never had problems turning it to a real alarmclock via Windows taskscheduler. I’m not really on very busy schedule but as a geek I found it interresting firstly to have a digital gizmos all over my desktop and later in very utilitarian fashion to have all my alarms, reminders,to do lists etc. organized in one place thanks to MS Outlook and its journals.
I used to play with numerous more or less succesfull free and commercial alarm-clocks, PIM and organisers and I made a hughe collection of digital “time peaces” for my Windows based computers.
Freeware sites like Dirfile ( http://www.dirfile.com/home_personal_clocks_calendars_planners-1.ht… ) are loaded with very good, alarms/clocks/reminders applications for Windows platform and it is really easy to find one that suits ones needs, aesthetics and other requirements.
Linux is ( always ) different story ( GUI inconsistencies, lack of applications etc.) but, hey, there’s K-alarm ( at least for KDE people ) for those who prefer GUI over command line . And it is very good alarm-clock which can trigger reminders and alarms
no matter whether that’s system beep or MP3 or Ogg file
which can send you an email and display funny wake-up message in your native language like “Budi se,ti lijeno magare!” ( Wake-up, you lazy donkey! ) . It can also launch Real Player so I can watch Radio Television Belgrade morning news directly from my bed ( somewhere in Ohio, USA) or just play McFerin “Don’t worry be happy” ogg/mp3 if I want that.
There’s nothing wrong with CLI alarm option for Linux but I prefer GUI ( even in Linux).
I’m happy with my Kalarm ( since days of Mandrake 7.2) and I think Morin was wrong with his math. I would spend much more money for my alarm clock replacement bateries then for utility bills for energy powerning my 500Mhz Celeron PC last six years.
nedvis
P.S.
Since when OSNEWS turned to be one more how-to WEB site for Linux fans?
Maybe I’m too lazy but I’d rather set cronjobs via a graphical interface. Isn’t there a GUI in Linux for doing this?
Seems like there is a GUI in KDE for setting cron jobs. It’s called KCron.
An article about how to spend a couple minutes dicking around with a *nix command line to do something I’ve been doing in task manager since Win 95 came out… Yeah, I’m impressed.
You can do the same thing from the GUI in KDE if you like.
It is just that the CLI requires much less memory to run than a full GUI environment. People that want to turn an old no longer used computer into an alarm clock might prefer the CLI.
Also, as you point out, doing it from the GUI is sort of obvious so that wouldn’t require much of an article.
…is Redminer
Its interface isn’t the greatest, but it gets the job done. I’d much rather use cron, because in the case my computer does reboot itself I’d have to have a timed login in $DM or be pretty well screwed. With a root owned cron job I don’t have to be logged in or even in X, the thing’ll just execute.
I’ve been planning to do this when I get my 100% passive cooled HTPC. The one additional feature I’m wanting is to choose a random subdirectory (album) to play. I guess I’ll have to finally bite the bullet and learn to shell script.
As others have mentioned a few programs have alarm functionality. Xmms and beep media player have plugins, which both have a fade in function so you can set it really loud if your like but don’t get a heart attack with it blasting from the start.
Also, as one other pointed out amarok has a script for this and it has a snooze feature. Part of the reason I’m posting is I requested that snooze feature, and in short order that feature was there. I’ve already had this happen for me a few times in linux/open source apps. I’ve talked to developers on their respective irc channels, or their forums etc. Never did I experience this communication in my windows days.
Just wanted to say to people until you learn how to code yourself, if you think you have a good idea, don’t just sit on it, you’d be surprised that just by mentioning it, you might actually see it come to light.
p.s. The page is down, I only reached it through the google cache, you might want to check that out.
Yeah, this is part of the problem with my soon-to-be-ex-hosting provider, Fuitadnet. When I signed up for their service, they failed to mention that system instability and downtime were major “features”.
Anyhow, I’ve left up the two articles I have linked on the previous page so that readers can make any comparisons if they feel necessary. Everything else is down until the DNS updates and points to the new hosting provider.
I decided to go with pair.com, they’re a little more pricer, but hey, I’m uptown now baby!
It was yes an easy job but I guess it’s fair to say that I did not exactly “copied” it, don’t you think?
Whatever you say. I’ve said my piece and I’m tired of arguing the point.