Alarm

For some, it can be quite the challenge to get out of bed in the morning. This is where alarm clocks come in handy, and it’s quite likely you have one or more set on your mobile phone. However, programs like Alarm can also help remind you of upcoming events in case your work is mostly done on a computer.

Take note that for the application to work, you need to be sure that .NET Framework is installed on your PC, even though modern Windows iterations come with it in the default set of features. Moreover, there’s a separate installer for the variety of colors it offers, which is pretty frustrating to not be able to change the style from the built-in menu.

Apart from the ambiguous mode of picking a color for the clock, the visual design itself leaves much to be desired. There are no elements to make it stand out from the crowd, with a simple layout of buttons and a clock to show time, all wrapped around a classic window frame, which can be resized only to reveal empty space.

As mentioned, the application shows you the time in a 12 hour format. There aren’t really any controls other than the value field which is used to set a new alarm. This is easily done by specifying the right hour, minute, and second.

There’s only a small audio alert which gets triggered when the right time comes. Unfortunately, you don’t find any options to have a custom message appear on screen, so you need to know exactly what the alert is for. Only one alarm can be configured at a time, and the window can’t be sent to the tray area during countdown.

All things considered, we can state that Alarm is heavily underprepared, even if its core purpose is to alert you of upcoming events. Customization options and methods leave much to be desired, and there’s a high chance you miss the alarm if not around the PC on time.