The Zen Clock

Like those seen on http://www.now-zen.com/, you can create your own Zen-Alarm Clock with your PC for free! I'm sure that you've heard about them. I've been wanting to do this for a while to see if the Zen clock really does make a difference. You can try it for yourself, as I have timed the sounds to the web site's specifications for the optimal ultimate wakeup call. If this works, I may buy the real thing.

Download the .ogg files and the m3u for making your own Zen Clock. I added a task into the Task Scheduler so that my alarm starts going off at the exact time so that I am awake by 8. Try it yourself, here are the files:

• ZenClock5sec.ogg - Set of 3 tones, 5 second separated (15sec)
• ZenClockTimed.ogg - The Variably timed tone file
• ZenClockOgg.m3u - Standard Play list File
• ZenClockOgg.xml - Vista Task Scheduler Task XML File (setup for an 8am wakeup)
• This task launches Windows Media Player with the m3u above. Of course, you'll need to either edit the XML or load it into Task Scheduler and edit the argument to have it point to the location of your m3u.
  

Make sure your media player supports ogg audio files. If not, just convert them and use find/replace to change the ogg's in the m3u to mp3 or whatever. Ogg was just the smallest file size for uploading.

**UPDATES:
Jan 30, 2007 - Last night, I tried my Zen Alarm. It worked almost as advertised. While, I think I woke up after the first tone (perhaps due to the volume), I was still able to wake up, less groggy than normal AND I can remember most (?) of my dreams from last night. I say, overall, it was definitely successful and this will be my alarm clock permanently. I'll try finding the sweet spot for the volume.
Feb 2, 2007 - Media Player freaked out this morning and kept repeating the bell sound in about .5 sec intervals from the beginning. I woke up groggy and tired. I got the same amount of sleep as before. This shows that the placebo effect is not in place as I expected to be woken up by the gentle alarm, but instead what I got was essentially, a regular annoying alarm clock.

If you've had success, post your results in the comments.

Link to JAVA MIDlet Applications

After looking all over the internet to figure out how to make a shortcut directly to a JAVA MIDlet on my Pocket PC for the Start Menu, I finally compiled this for your enjoyment:

• The "right-click" in explorer didn't give me the option to create a shortcut.
• I didn't find out 'till after the fact, that you have to "Show All Files" for the "jmm.exe" file to show up in "\Windows\". Oh well. Doesn't matter.
• I'm pretty sure this requires "Total Commander" Google it, it's free and easy.
• You should already have launched your Application once from MIDlet manager.
• Some apps, like Gmail, must already be running to work from this shortcut.
  

To create a Start Menu or Programs Shortcut to your favorite JAVA application:

1. Open up the MIDlet manager however you do that.
2. "Hold tap" to open the context menu.
3. Press "A" or click "About".
4. Note the name of the Vendor and Name that appears.
• In my case the Vendor is "Google" and the name is "Gmail" for the Gmail Application
• WRITE IT DOWN... You need it in a minute...
• Yes, it's case sensitive.
  
5. From here, there are three options, but they both end in the same place, so start at step 3.
1. Use your Pocket PC to create the "shortcut":
1. Create a shortcut to "\Windows\jmm.exe" by...
2. Go to "\Windows" in "File Explorer".
   
3. "Hold tap" on "jmm.exe".
   
4. Select "Copy".
5. Goto "\Windows\Start Menu".
6. "Hold tap" and select "Paste".
7. This supposedly creates a shortcut. I didn't do it this way, so I don't know.
   
2. Use your Non-Pocket PC to create the shortcut:
1. Connect with Active Sync.
   
2. Right click in "\Windows\Start Menu" and click "Create Shortcut".
3. My computer (Windows Vista) did not give me this option, so I don't know.
• The best and easiest way to do it is below.
3. Create the shortcut in one swoop with "Total Commander":
1. Use TC to locate "\Windows\Start Menu".
2. Copy and paste one of the other shortcuts located there.
• I used Media Player
  
3. Select your newly created shortcut and rename it to whatever you desire.
• In my case, I chose "Gmail".
4. With your new shortcut selected, click on the notepad icon at the bottom to open the file with TC's built-in text editor.
• You should see (if you used Media Player as the source to copy):
  
• 13#:WMPLAYER?:mediaplayerapp
5. Delete that line.
6. Type (/Transcribe/Letter Recognize/Tap in):
• 48#"\Windows\jmm.exe" -r"","",""
• 48#"\Windows\jmm.exe" -r"Gmail","Google","Gmail"
• To pick a special icon, you can follow up this line with:
• "?file.ext,index" where "file.ext" is a file containing icons, and "index" is the index of the icon within that file.
• For example: "...CALENDAR?outres.dll,-10002"
7. Click "OK" to save and wham, bam, check out that Start Menu.
6. Click to launch.