As most of our computers run through day and night, we can also use computer as our alarm clock. The stand alone alarm clocks for windows always tend to be a costlier approach but with the advent of sidebar widgets there are lots of good alarm clock solution for free.
Of all the widgets the best one is the Vista Gadget, Sphere Timer.
It offers numerous features,
It has Unlimited Alarms, Alterable Countdown, count up and Milliseconds Chronometer. It’s designed for docked and undocked usage, with 5 beautiful skins (LCD, blue, dark blue, green and red). The sound alarm is fully configurable and handles many sound file formats, such as: MP3, WAV, MIDI, WMA, AIF e AU. Also, the Sphere Timer includes a Multiple Format Clock (activated with a click over the time), that shows: Local Time, GMT (UTC), Decimal and Hexadecimal Time, Decimal GMT, New Earth Time, Swatch Internet Time and Universal Metric Time.
The only option that I found missing is snooze. The interface is neat and good. The setting options are easy and you can set unlimited alarms but don’t forget to enable the alarms you want in the alarms tab.
For others who use Windows XP or MAC, there are other sidebar widgets from Yahoo like iTunes Alarm Clock, Softcode Analog Clock etc and Google Desktop gadgets for alarm clock.
If you are looking for a stand alone version of alarm clock for Windows XP, use Banshee Screamer Alarm. It doesn’t have a big interface but its the best among the free alarm clocks.
Got to have Vista? Is any such thing avl for XP?
@Shankar, You can use the yahoo Widgets or Google Gadgets that I have mentioned in the last para of the post.
Thanks. Didn’t see that!
Wow this gadget is good , what gadgets are u using in you sidebar right now ?
@Madhur, This is from Vista sidebar gadgets.
These are lot of new utilities in Vista I guess. I need to upgrade my computer to Vista. What would be cost of purchasing Vista?
@Nirmal, If you are looking for Home Premium, it would cost around INR 9000. But you might also need to upgrade your hardware if you want to use it effectively. So the actual price you may be spending may be more.
is there a way to make it standardly show metric time instead of having to click to bring up the list?
It sure would be great if this clock included a “world time” feature for other citites (could be another ilttle tab, “world”
At a minimum, it would be nice if there was an option to set how many hours plus or minus, the display should show.
Other than that, this is the best clock/timing gadget I’ve seen.
For XP, there is a fantastic and free alarm clock that I found called “wake up pro.” You can set unlimited alarms, skin it, use custom sounds for the alarm tone… Really awesome… It just doesn’t seem to work for me on vista.
Thank You !!!!! Sphere Timer ROCKS!
Good luck setting your alarm. Too bad this doesn’t work like Atomic Alarm Clock. The latter is available on both XP and Vista, and it doesn’t even have to go on your Sidebar.
@Nirmal: be careful what you wish for. Vista has its share of problems, one of which is what I’ve been searching for A LONG TIME. I’m trying to activate the 10-band graphic equalizer that used to be on XP, without which sound without external speakers will suffer high treble and no discernible bass. The Vista driver (any version) Realtek gives you just these useless “presets” that don’t help you lower the treble and up the bass both at the same time. Your audio is going to go south. You will whine. People will tell you to use Winamp, which is only good for MP3s. You will begrudgingly end up with external speakers.
well the link isnt working for me…it gives some error from windows live site and asks to try again later