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One prime requirement of any modern
PDA is a decent alarm facility. However very few PDA
manufacturers seem to realise this. Having used PDA's
for many years only one manufacturer has ever realised
this need.
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Unfortunately this manufacturer is now almost
out of the PDA scene completely and of course I am referring
to Psion, the original creators of the PDA for everyday users.
Psion offered such wonderful features as:
- Appointment alarms
- ToDo alarms
- Alarmclock
- Any alarm in any application could play
any specified sound sample
- Alarms tended to start quietly and then
repeat at given intervals gaining in volume with each occurrence
- Alarms could be set to occur X minutes
before an appointment
Alarms on the Palm PDA's were / are not up
to these levels of sophistication until third party applications
were written to add such features.
The Wonderful Pocket PC Operating System?
When the Pocket PC's arrived with all their
technological advantages I expected great things concerning
alarm features. However I was to be disappointed, alarm features
are very much lacking - especially in the new PPC2002 operating
system where Microsoft in their wisdom have even removed repeating
alarms - a major step backwards.
The standard Pocket PC operating system (PPC2002)
only supports:
- 4 daily alarms integrated within the clock
application
- A single reminder option for tasks - at
8:00am only
- An alarm for an appointment which can be
set to sound at X minutes prior to an appointment.
- Single notification alarm sound
- Flashing warning LED
There are NO features such as:
- Choice of different alarm sounds
- Repeating alarms
- Varying sound volume
- Flexible task alarms
- Data as to when the next alarm is due to
sound
and user have complained that alarms do not
always sound which can result in missed appointments and even
wake up calls. Microsoft may have designed a great notification
system using their alert bubbles, but on the alarm side of
things they have missed the boat completely.
Super Alert
Enter Whittaker Moore Associates Limited
(WMA) who as a UK company may also miss the days of those
fabulous Psion alarms.
WMA have worked long and hard to alleviate
some of these problems, investigating registry hacks (none
possible) and other ways of modifying the system. The result
of these investigations is Super Alert which adds the
following features to the Pocket PC:
- Different alarm sounds for:
- Clock Alarms
- Calendar Alarms
- Task Alarms
- Third Party application alarms
- Repeating alarms for each of the above
- all with different repeat intervals
- Repeating alarms for each of the above
in PPC2002
- Use of a Media Player file (*.WAV, *.WMA,
etc) as an alarm
- Aims to ensure all alarms sound when set
to do so (no more missed alarms) *
- View when the next alarms is due to sound
and for what event
- Super Alert remembers it's settings
and whether it is activated even after a soft reset
* - reliant on the system recording appointments
in the alarm database correctly.
These are all superb features which go a long
way to address the lack of flexibility within the operating
system. Super Alert accomplishes all this in an application
that is only 34Kb (34816 bytes) in size. Small enough to be
run on any Pocket PC.
The Grand Tour
On running Super Alert you are presented
with the main dialogue control system which allows you to
Disable or Enable the application as well as control the various
features.
Suggestions and Bugs!
Of course there are always a few suggestions
and occasionally one or two bugs:
Bugs:
Items to note:
- Opening .MP3 files in Windows Media Player
(WMP) can be erratic (this is WMP's fault, and not that
of Super Alert) and seems to be related to the size
of the Playlist WMP had opened last. There is however a
very easy work round for this. Create a playlist in WMP
and tell Super Alert to open that instead of the
MP3 file. WMP seems to be able to play any size of playlist
this way. (This also means you can wake to some very complex
alarms by putting them in a playlist )
- At present Agenda Fusion Custom Alarms
are known to give some issues. WMA are going to work with
DeveloperOne to get these issues resolved.
- Support for PocketInformant AlarmNotes.
Alex Kac has informed WMA that he will add enhanced support
to PocketInformant 3.0. At present you will get both PocketInformant’s
repeating alarms and those from Super Alert.
- A plug-in architecture is now supported
allowing more sophisticated alarm plug-modules in the future.
This could allow for add-ins that offer specialist functionality
that would not necessarily be required by all users but
would benefit advanced users. Such as allowing different
alarm sounds to be specified for specific events.
Suggestions:
- Support auto-volume increase as per the
original Psion alarm system.
On the 'official wish list' from WMA:
- Increasing volume
- Escalating alarms (repeat more and get louder)
- Alarm patterns (play w times delay x seconds play y times
delay z seconds)
Conclusions
Super Alert adds alarm features that
are very much worthwhile on the PPC2000 operating system.
If you own a PPC2002 system then it becomes an essential if
you wish to recover the repeat alarm functionality removed
by Microsoft. Three cheers to Whittaker Moore Associates
Limited for working to create such a badly needed application.
Yet another program that will be installed constantly on my
iPAQ until Microsoft learn to catch up with Psion!
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