alarm

A number of iOS users have found that their calendar alarms seem to have stopped working today. This issue has caused a few to wonder if any alarms would work, but Apple Spokesperson Natalie Harrison mentioned to MacWorld that the problem is expected to resolve itself on Monday.

The specific issue only affects nonrecurring alarms, so people can just enable the alarm as a recurring event for it to work as expected. The problem is expected to only be for the first couple of days in January, and alarms set on Monday or later should be functioning properly.

Do not … Read more

If you were a UPS employee, would you be tempted, just occasionally, to open packages? Perhaps, out of curiosity? Or because they didn't smell quite right? Or because they did?

This difficult question arises because of the story of Richard Lynch from Grass Valley, Calif.

Lynch told ABC News 10 that he used UPS to ship a laptop for repairs. The laptop reportedly disappeared en route, the box allegedly arriving with just sheets and soda cans inside.

Keen to prove his notion that someone at UPS has thieved his laptop, Lynch reportedly rigged another package and took it to … Read more

Some European iPhone owners rolled into work late this morning due to a bug in the phone's operating system that reportedly caused its alarm clock to go off an hour late, as Europe switched from daylight saving time back to GMT.

While the phone's clock changed over correctly, the bug in iOS 4.1 reportedly affected those who had set their alarms to go off at the same time every weekday. "Stupid iPhone's alarm woke me up one hour later today," wrote one Twitter user based in London. "Apparently I wasn't the only … Read more

Remember Clocky, the wheeled clock that rolls away from you and wheels around beeping until you get up and chase it down? It now has a sibling named Tocky.

This latest version doesn't come with wheels but is instead spherical and will tumble around on your bedroom floor while making a racket. You can record your own wake-up messages or play MP3s as an alarm.

Tocky comes in four different colors--orange, white, aqua, and kiwi--and costs $79 from online store Nanda Home.

(Source: Crave Asia)

SurplusMeter--formerly known as NetTracker--keeps a close eye on your bandwidth use. This utility lets you set a bandwidth limit, a start day of the month, and a connection type (such as PPP Modem or Network Card).

SurplusMeter also calculates a daily allowance and reconfigures that depending on how much you've actually used for the month. The interface is simple and uncluttered, but it also lacks the alarms and graphs found in similar Windows apps. Progress bars help track the days left in the month, the download megabyte count, and the total downloaded and uploaded, and you can easily make … Read more

We recall a time when we held an office job that required us to keep track of a lot of little bits of information, and our computer monitor and stacks of file folders were often covered with little yellow sticky notes. These notes are great for keeping information handy, but they have a tendency to get lost or get stuck to documents they weren't meant for. We've seen many attempts at creating electronic versions of these notes, and Secure Reminder is one of the best. This versatile program has a ton of features that replicate the best parts … Read more

Pester is a freeware alarm clock utility that provides a simple way to set timed reminders, along with a few cool extras.

Of course, you can use iCal and other scheduling software to alert you to upcoming events, but sometimes these apps are overkill--like, for example, when you're just putting something in the oven, or you're trying to remember to catch a bus. Pester occupies a middle ground between iCal and more bare-bones timers (such as egg-timer widgets), letting you quickly set an event, name it, choose a countdown or a specific time for the alert, and then (… Read more

Quieter yet more effective, the latest ZoneAlarm Firewall Free should be considered an excellent tool for replacing the otherwise adequate default Windows firewall.

It's a stronger option that includes quieter outbound protection, behavioral detection from the ZoneAlarm Internet security suite, automatic Wi-Fi security setting activation, antiphishing protection, an overhauled ZoneAlarm toolbar that will protect you even when hidden, six months free identity theft protection, and 2GB of free online storage.

All you owners of 64-bit Windows computers will be pleased to know that Mozilla is finally throwing your Windows PC a bone. On Friday, Mozilla announced an early-stage version of a Firefox browser compatible with 64-bit processors. The experimental build is available to anyone brave enough to test an unstable, in-development browser, though we recommend taking caution if you do. Otherwise, patience should get you a stable version of Firefox 4 with support for 64-bit PCs around November.

It's been a long time since we've seen significant change to ZoneAlarm's Firewall, but a new version of the … Read more