alarm

Ever wish you could disarm your alarm system while sitting in your driveway? Or check in on, say, the cat while you're out of town? Alarm.com's new iPhone app lets you do all that and more. It's a freebie for Alarm.com customers.

Designed for homes and businesses alike, Alarm.com's systems (which are sold and installed by various third-party dealers) rely on wireless sensors and GSM/GPRS networks. In other words, they're highly connected.

The eponymous app gives you full control over your system, allowing you to arm or disarm it from just … Read more

Your computer will tell you the time, no problem. However, there are few things as boring and basic as the standard clock. AIV Reminder offers users a chance to spice up their clock situation and keep on top of important appointments.

This free program presents itself as a simple analog clock. In addition, a small, blue genie gives you advice on how to make configurations. If you're not fond of genies, there are three other characters to choose from. Double-clicking the clock face takes you to a menu screen where the ins and outs of the program are laid … Read more

Hott Notes offers users an opportunity to keep themselves organized with a virtual pad of yellow sticky notes. This program offers a simple set of tools to create notes, but does not live up to all its promised potential.

This freeware pops up instantly and allows users to quickly sketch down a note and paste it to their desktop. This is much like any note-making program on the market. However, what makes Hott Notes enjoyable is how it handles its added features. Where many programs are cluttered and sometimes confusing, four simple tabs allow users to customize their notes. Note … Read more

TurboNote+ aims to eliminate pesky yellow sticky notes from piling up on your desk. This simple program provides a service that numerous other downloads do, but manages to create a unique and superior system with an intuitive layout.

This program differentiates itself from other note downloads with its ease of use. A new yellow note appears by simply clicking and dragging the tray icon onto your desktop. While this sounds like a simple move, many other programs make creating new notes far too complicated. TurboNote+ keeps the more complex options a simple right click away. An expansive menu gives you … Read more

Alarm Clock Pro makes organizing your life via your desktop a breeze, assuming you can untangle the innovative options. By offering users a wide swath of date-keeping and time-monitoring options you can make your life simpler, however, learning the program itself may take up the bulk of this newfound time.

Alarm Clock Pro will appeal to anyone who is used to the multiple alarm features that Outlook offers. Unlike Outlook, this simple to install 15-day free trial is independent of a calendar or e-mail system. The many unique aspects are the alarm's capability to function on a specific day … Read more

If you have ongoing tasks throughout the day, this desktop alarm will keep you on track to the tune of your favorite song. We didn't understand the name, but we loved what it had to offer.

MP3 Pizza Timer offers a sleek, easy-to-understand user interface composed of an oval-shaped window with the countdown clock at the top and buttons for selecting a target time (in military format) as well as the MP3s. There are also buttons for playing, stopping, and pausing the song. Shortcut buttons on both sides of the window let you add or remove time increments of … Read more

Simple and reliable, this free desktop alarm is one of the better ones we've seen. Users of all levels will appreciate the useful features that it brings to the table.

Alarm 3.5.5 offers a basic, digital-style display. The program comes with a large selection of themes that really only change the color-scheme. Drop-down menus let you quickly set the hour and minutes for the alarm, but the minutes can only be set in 15-minute increments. If you don't feel like going through the trouble of manually setting the alarm, the Quick Alarm feature lets you set … Read more

This free desktop clock takes shapes as a screensaver. We didn't particularly care for the numerous desktop and taskbar icons that came with it, but 7art Crystal Clock performed its job well.

Once installed, 7art Crystal Clock appears in your screensaver menu. Like your other screensavers, you can set the time intervals for it to appear. While that was straightforward, we weren't happy that it also managed to install five other icons to our desktop that pushed other products. Also installed was a taskbar icon that really served no real purpose other than to provide contact information for … Read more

While this desktop alarm successfully alerted us at the specified time, it lacked many features commonly found in similar programs.

Alarm has a bland user interface, with the current time displayed in the 24-hour clock format, which you can't change, and it looks like a digital clock. Below the time display are arrows for setting the exact alarm hours, minutes, and seconds. As far as customization options, you can change the LED color and size, as well as the message that is displayed when the alarm sounds, but that's it. The alarm sound was disappointing. Regardless of whether … Read more