What's New • Installation Notes • Download

What's New

Here are some of the new features of Talking Alarm Clock version 1.5

• This version of Talking Alarm Clock uses the latest Windows^® media technology.  It can now use Video for Windows^® or DirectShow^® to play most media formats, including WAV, MIDI, MP3, WMA, AIF, SND, MPEG, AVI, and WMV (yes, an alarm can now play a video clip).

  The alarm window now includes a mute button which either mutes or silences the media clip.  This is a configurable option in the General settings of the Talking Alarm Clock Support program.

  Also, if the most recent updates to DirectShow^® are available on your computer, you can preset the media clip volume for each alarm.

• An alarm can now be set up to run programs, open files, open web pages, etc.  Each alarm can have one or more shortcuts to launch when it rings.  You can have the alarm launch its shortcuts automatically, or have it show them to you so you can launch them yourself.

• You can now assign a shortcut key to the Close, Snooze, Mute and/or Silence button in each alarm.  The keyboard settings are available from a drop-down button on the alarm Style page.

• There's a new "Say when" feature that lets an alarm announce a date (and an optional time).  This is useful for reminding you of future events.  For example, you can set up an alarm that says "Mom's birthday is on October 10" by naming the alarm "Mom's birthday" and adding a "Say when" schedule for October 10.

• The user interface aesthetics have been updated.  New bright, shiny and glass configuration options have been added to General settings of the Talking Alarm Clock Support program to enable these new visual effects.

• In response to requests from Talking Alarm Clock users, we've made some minor adjustments:

  • You can now snooze an alarm for longer than 24 hours.  For those who prefer not to do date and time arithmetic in their heads (everybody), we've added a little tip window that shows when the snooze will end.  Also, each alarm now remembers it's own latest snooze time.

  • When more than one alarm rings at the same time, they can be cascaded or tiled.  This is a configurable option in the General settings of the Talking Alarm Clock Support program.

  • The Restore feature has been updated to fix invalid user accounts.  This is helpful when you've changed the accounts on your computer, or when you're transferring alarms from one computer to another.

  • You can now organize your alarms into named groups (available only on Windows^® XP and Windows^® Vista).

  • You can now open the Talking Alarm Clock Support program with the Settings and diagnostics item in the alarm clock's View menu.

• Due to the addition of new features, the Talking Alarm Clock windows have been rearranged somewhat.  The alarm details are now shown on three pages rather than two, and the New Alarm Wizard includes more optional pages.

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Installation Notes

To install and use Talking Alarm Clock, your system will need:

• Windows^® 98, Windows^® ME, Windows^® 2000, Windows^® XP

• Microsoft^® Agent (optional)

• Approximately 20 MB of free disk space

Upgrades

If you already have a previous version of Talking Alarm Clock installed, you can upgrade to the latest version by simply downloading and installing it.  The installer will automatically recognize it as an upgrade.

Compatibility

You can't have more than one version of Talking Alarm Clock installed at the same time, and when you install version 1.5 it will replace any previous versions installed on your machine.

However, Talking Alarm Clock version 1.5 is "downward compatible" with version 1.4.  You can uninstall version 1.5 and reinstall version 1.4 without losing anything (except the new version 1.5 features).

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Download

Run the Talking Alarm Clock 1.5 setup (click on the link and pick Run or Open).  The setup program will download and open the installation package.  Then just follow the installation instructions.

Once Talking Alarm Clock has been installed, look for Talking Alarm Clock in the Programs Menu.  You should also see an icon that looks like this or this in the Windows^® system tray.  Right click on the icon to add a new alarm or show the alarm clock.

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