MP3 Alarm Clock download
I hate to go to sleep, and I hate even more to wake up. I'm totally that guy setting multiple alarms, and then getting up 4 times hitting snooze on all of them. They're not exactly sexy, but half of life is just showing up...
For the Mac, I've used "MP3 Alarm Clock" for ages, primarily because it was the first, it's never screwed up on me, and it does everything I've wanted it to do (My big thing is having a gradually increasing volume feature, which starts the alarm quiet and slowly amps up the music till I have to get up or risk hearing loss). Unfortunately, the site and the software dropped off the planet awhile ago, so I was biding my time until it happened to go wonky with a software update, as then I'd switch over to iRooster since I know the author and its icon amuses me.
While it's not unusual for freeware to drop off the planet, there was enough dev sweat invested in it that I was wondering what the deal was. As luck would have it, another dev I knew happened to have theDo be aware this is FreeWare, and while it's great if you can use it, it isn't exactly supported at the moment -- for that I'd look to iRooster, although I'm sure there are other I'm unaware of.
Posted by drunkenbatmanNovember 30, 2005, at 06:46 PM
Comments (17)
Posted by: Nicholas Pacheco at November 30, 2005 07:19 PM
Again, iCal & iChat has never failed me.
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/6185/picture12pz.png
Posted by: Nicholas Pacheco at November 30, 2005 07:30 PM
err, make that iTunes and not iChat :)
Posted by: Dustin Sacks at November 30, 2005 07:31 PM
Nice, I know the iRooster guy and he's awesome. We were both at student WWDC a few years ago.
Posted by: Chris at November 30, 2005 08:11 PM
And here we all thought Vinay was dead
Posted by: Mindflayer at December 1, 2005 12:09 AM
Some stereos have increasing volume wake; combine that with an iPod alarm, and you're golden.
Posted by: Art at December 1, 2005 12:12 AM
DB: Now I remember why I keep coming back to your feed -- sometimes, I read things and learn, and sometimes I read things and go away with tools. Thanks.
Posted by: Cap'n Hector at December 1, 2005 12:51 AM
I use an unholy combination of cron, AppleScript, shell scripts, shell functions, and iTunes.
The cron job calls a shell script that uses an AppleScript function I wrote which starts iTunes.
It handles fade-ins, fade-outs volume, and can be controlled from the web and from command-line
Posted by: Mike Margolis at December 1, 2005 03:17 AM
Hey. This is Mike Margolis, the actual author of MP3 Alarm Clock. To my knowledge, I was never contacted about mirroring it - but I hereby give my full approval and all of that jazz. Feel free to do whatever you want with it! I'm glad MP3 Alarm Clock is still working and that it never gave you problems - I still get lots of e-mail from people who still seem to use it even after all of these years. Crazy!
That said, I'm sorry that the site went offline... throughout college I was running a web hosting company, I was running sugar cube software, I was a full time student at UC Berkeley, and I was an intern at Apple. I did all of the work for sugar cube software - design, development, tech support, bug fixes, GUI, etc, and I gave it all away for free. My goal was to provide clean, simple software that didn't exist for the Mac at the time and to help out the Mac community. Eventually MP3 Alarm Clock and Pic2Icon got to the point where they worked well enough, so I just froze the code. Nobody complained that there weren't new versions, everyone seemed happy, and I was happy that people found my programs useful. When people asked for crazy new features I'd redirect them to the numerous shareware apps that started showing up (some good, some bad), and everyone seemed happy with that arrangement. Once I started working at Apple back in 2002, MP3 Alarm Clock and Pic2Icon sort of conflicted with Apple's plans (iCal alarms, iCal and iTunes integration, finder thumbnailing icons, etc). I sort of had to stop working on them. This year I finally shut down my web hosting company (that I had run for over 7 years!) and sugarcubesoftware.com went with it. Sorry about that. If anyone has any questions or comments, feel free to email me.
All of that said, iRooster looks pretty cool ;-)
Mike Margolis
Apple Computer
mike at yipe dot org
BTW: Vinay did not write any code for MP3 Alarm Clock 1.0 (which dates back to Mac OS 8) through 2.2.
Posted by: Ben at December 1, 2005 07:33 AM
That's some accomplishment, Mike, and glad to hear from the developer directly about things.
Did you close down those two companies because of the lack of time, or just that you're no longer committeed in them?
Posted by: Arden at December 1, 2005 08:15 AM
DB, I'm like you... I'd rather just not go to bed. Usually I use a simple drumset alarm clock that sits on the other side of the room and plays an annoying song very loudly; tonight, I'm giving Awaken a shot. Let's see how it goes...
Posted by: aaron at December 1, 2005 08:54 AM
To thine own-self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day. Thou can'st not then be false to any man. -- Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 3
I avoid having a computer in the room where I sleep [with my wife]. I KNOW that there is always one more forum to post to, one more blog to read, one more email account to check. And then she's asleep and I'm watching video.google.com (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6935627455041246445).
I'll stick with the annoying clock radio on my dresser from 1980 to wake me up but I might use MP3AC to remind me to go to bed. Thanks for the tip.
Posted by: Cherdevall at December 1, 2005 03:24 PM
Nice one, I looked for something like this a couple of months ago. I eventually ended up making a cron job on my server playing music thru the stereo, very overkill and eventuay I bought a radio wake up alarm. But I'le definatly try this out.
P.S I rally like the T-shirt :) nice one
and the video was really nice
Posted by: Jerry Brace at December 2, 2005 07:35 AM
It's great to hear about people trying Awaken. If anyone is wondering where it is:
http://www.embraceware.com/awaken.html
Features iTunes alarms (daily and specific date alarms), sleep timer, wake computer from sleep, also works with specialized playlists like Podcasts, Videos, and the usual.
I am available via iChat at anytime if you have any comments or questions about Awaken.
jerrybrace@mac.com
Posted by: Justin at December 3, 2005 02:09 PM
I've been using MP3 Alarm clock for years and years and I love it to death, but I'd really like to see an integrated alarm function built into iTunes/ Front Row. Since they released the new iMacs, Apple has been pitching these things directly towards the dormroom/bedroom. That's sort of an interesting change. It'd only make sense to build it right into Front Row. Sleep with the remote on your bedstand and wake up to your favorite streaming station or song or podcast. Integrate it with your playlists.
Or, if this DVR is going to happen, whose to say you won't be able to watch TV over the LAN from the DVR box when you wake up every morning?
I think that's why the iMac as bedroom appliance is so interesting. You don't watch movies in an office or in the livingroom near the big T.V., right? But LOTS of people have a small TV in the bedroom. Why can't it be a computer, too?
Posted by: Sir Jon Kantro at December 4, 2005 02:07 PM
"ve been using MP3 Alarm clock for years and years and I love it to death, but I'd really like to see an integrated alarm function built into iTunes/ Front Row."
I totally agree with you. It would be very cool and I dont see how it isn't possible. As for awaken, I love the UI and its functionaltiy but due to paying f*&ck loads of money for tuition and my apartment I haven't been able to pay for anything shareware or commercial. So for now MP3 Alarm Clock it is.
I used to use this program years ago in college. I remember emailing the author for the OS X version.