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Hate being late to class, work, gigs and midnight tea parties? Me too.
Unfortunately, like most of us, there are occasions where I need to be up and an anemic alarm clock just won’t do it. To make matters worse, my (anemic) alarm clock took a dive this week and I had no backup. I was in a bit of a pinch.

Needing a newer, more robust wakeup call (and not wanting to leave the house at 1AM in search of one) I decided to use my computer for this purpose. Keep in mind, this computer is my media center, hooked up to a surround sound system and television. It is usually reserved for watching movies and listening to music. Perfect for an MP3 alarm clock!

Instead of buying software or downloading sketchy freeware for this purpose, I decided to see if Windows can inherently pull off such a feat as waking itself up (literally from sleep mode) and playing an MP3 or two. Sure enough, a built in Windows feature called “Task Scheduler” can do just what I wanted (sort of)! This works on most versions of Windows including Windows XP and Windows Vista, although setup may differ a bit between them. Here’s the skinny on setting it up in XP:

• Navigate to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Task. (In Windows Vista, just type Task Scheduler in the search bar)
• At the top of the window, click Add Scheduled Task.
• Even if you want to open a playlist or music file, you can’t do it just yet. You MUST select a program at this screen. I just chose Winamp.

• Select the option for weekly if you want to choose specific days of the week for this task to run. (say, MWF at 7AM). This is the most common.
• Choose a time and days of week for the task to run.

• Enter the password for your account. Your account must be an admin account and have a password associated with it. If you have no password for your user account, you must set one up before task scheduler will work.
• Click the check box to open advanced properties then click finish. If you missed the check box, you can just double-click the task in Task Manager.
• Click the browse button
• Select all files as file type and select a playlist or music file that you want to open.

• In the settings tab be sure to select the wake the computer to start this task check box. This allows you to sleep your computer at night and have it wake up in the morning to play your wakeup music.

• TEST your alarm clock before relying on it as any mistakes will likely cause it to not work. (My mistake the first time was not entering a password).
• Lastly… enjoy your custom playlist/mp3 alarm clock!

-PL

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