How to build an audio reminder to take meds?

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I wasn’t sure how to title this thread or exactly where to put it, but here goes.

I get up in the morning and turn on my computer and usually get caught up in answering email, etc.
Then I forget to take my morning Diabetes Med’s. I wind up taking my meds around noon or even later.

So what I’m looking for is an Audio reminder, like “have you taken your med’s today?” that I can set up in the task scheduler, to go off mid-morning while I’m sitting here at the PC.
Yes, I’d actually like my PC to talk to me and remind me to take my medication.

Does anyone know of such a thing or how I might make one for myself. ???

Thank You!

The Doctor

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Could you create a batch file or script that launches an MP3, and then use the Windows Task Scheduler to play it?

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In my e-mail client calender I get reminders each day that I have set up in advance. I wonder if you could do this in GMail (I think this is what you use)

I actually take mine first thing in the morning when I get up. First thing, take meds, second thing check BG. It’s become a habit. I then use an Excel spreadsheet to record results and use Microsoft Health Vaultto store results on line where my PMD can check things out.

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You can record yourself saying the reminder with Sound Recorder, which comes with Windows (XP anyway). And a microphone. Obviously.

You can save it as a .wav file, but, if you need to, convert it to a file type that (say) Windows Media Player can play. Plenty of tools around for that – thisis my favourite. Then, as you say, set up a scheduled task.

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Ok, I made a little batch file and saved it in My Documents. Then I accessed the task scheduler and pointed it to that batch file. It should work. So far I am just using a sound effect. I have yet to record a meaningful message. That can come later.

Thanks for all your help.

Case Closed!

Happy Holidays Everyone!
The Doctor

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You could replace your operating system’s “start up” sound with a short recorded message. That would be the simplest method.

You would need a simple microphone or a recording of yourself downloaded to your computer and converted to an acceptable
format that Window’s sounds would accept.

Example:
“Take your Haloperidol now“.

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“Take your Haloperidol now“.

Good burn!

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… an Audio reminder, like “have you taken your med’s today?” …

29551-IDEA Maybe your telephone operator has a daily recurring wake up call service, maybe even for free.

Or google for automatic wake up call (free). 29550-callme (I’ve had several hits in the US)

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Remember, I said:
“On the Alarm Clock, I Found One.”

[/B]So for me, the problem has been solved.

Just the very fact that I have the alarm set, reminds me to take my meds.
The alarm doesn’t even have to go off, because when I boot up, here’s this alarm clock
window, the size of a post card, in the middle of my desktop screen. That’s really all
the reminder I need.

I do thank yous guys, for all the interesting comments.

Happy Holidays Everyone!
The Doctor

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Maybe if this were 1943 that might be possible, but we’ve not had real telephone operators here in decades. Nice thought though.

I did create a little batch file, to play a .wav file and I put it in the Task Manager folder, but…..
I get an error message:

The attempt to retrieve account information for the specified task failed; therefore, the task did not run. Either an error occurred, or no account information existed for the task.
The specific error is:
0x8004130f: No account information could be found in the Task Scheduler security database for the task indicated.

What security database? What account information? Never heard of such a thing!
Oh well, it was a good try.

I just need to get my head together and remember to take my meds the first thing in the morning.

Merry Christmas Everyone!
The Doctor

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… I just need to get my head together and remember to take my meds the first thing in the morning. …

There’s also coffee cups that play a tune when you lift them off the table …
or a sticky note on the door of the head …

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Why are you so surprised? Not everyone lives in or around a HUGE metropolitan area, like Philly.

I own a cell phone but I’m 8 miles from the nearest Cell Tower and my phone, which just makes and receives calls, doesn’t work here.
I just leave the phone in the car and only use it for emergencies, like if I’m going to be late for an appointment.
I turn it ON, make a call and turn it OFF. If I don’t turn it off, I get some butthead calling me saying something like, “Mom? Mom? Is that you mom?”. After the last time that happened to me, I started turning the phone OFF just as soon as I’m done with it.
I wish more people would do that!

As I said, twice, I have found the program that I needed and it’s working just fine.

Happy Holidays Everyone!
the Doctor

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Like I said Dr, do it when you get up while preparing your coffee. Ir took me a while, but ultimately now I feel something is wrong if I don’t.

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Technology can be quite enabling when you find the right solution. My wife and I share calendars through our smartphones, but you don’t need a smartphone to enable this technique.

We have separate gmail accounts; mine is also setup in Outlook. I use a sync tool to connect my Outlook calendar to my Gmail calendar. Furthermore we have both configured SMS text alerts from our gmail calendars to our phones.

When I enter an appointment in Outlook it is synced to my Gmail calendar and is shared with my wife. Our phones both pickup the the appointment so we have a mobile shared and synced copy of our diaries too. We can both make appointments on our phones and these are synced and shared across both phones and my Outlook.

When an appointment comes up we get a free SMS text from Google to remind us and if Outlook is open it chimes too.

It’s not quite the PC speaking to us, but a busy family life balanced against our separate work schedules is made much easier.

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I think you have also forgotten to take your ‘memory pills’ Why not keep your medication next to your pc.

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Yeah, I figured that!

Merry Christmas y’all

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Mission Accomplished reminder for once-a-day or twice a day pills, such as vitamins: turn bottle upside down or rightside up after taking AM or PM pill, or to make odd or even-numbered day of month, for example. You can see at a glance that you have missed your pill, although it may admittedly be too late by then.

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Hey Doc,

Off topic. First of all thanks for reminding me of something which runs all the time!, I found this rogue in my task scheduler, fortunately it removed itself using control panel. Note how often it wants to update itself though! (Seems CPU-Z installed it)

29556-ts1

Back on topic, do you need to use a batch file? I linked directly to an MP3 file which plays as scheduled under W7.

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Joining the 21st century and letting a reminder widget do the work is probably asking too much?

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Try Karen’s Alarm Clock–download at http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptalarm.asp. Record your reminder as a digital audio file and select that as the alarm sound. Simple and works well.

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I find updaters and reminders and schedulers on customers PC’s, running in the background, sucking up resources and the customer had no idea why they are even there. I shut them OFF.

My little Alarm Clock pops up on the screen every time I boot up and once I’ve seen it, I shut it OFF. Then I go take my pills, if I’ve not already done so. Just having such a thing has prompted me to be more conscious about taking my meds on time. Soon I should be able to completely do away with the Alarm Clock.

Y’all have a great 2012, Y’hear?

The Doctor

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You could put this in your startup folder, as a text .vbs file:

Dim speaks, speech
speaks=” Take Your Medicine”
Set speech=CreateObject(“sapi.spvoice”)
speech.Speak speaks

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A Stickie will only remind you, IF you make it a point to read it. Eh?
Some folks are just anal about things on their desktop, to the point of even hiding their desktop shortcut icons.
So a Stickie up there would be sort of like a Red Nose on a Wino, and they would find it totally offensive.

Personally, I thank you for the suggestion and I did download the program. I’m trying it out, with two stickies for things in the future that I don’t want to forget. (To pay my phone bill on a certain day and a service call two weeks away.)

Thanks again!

The Doctor

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Clicky

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I wish there was a reminder to take my morning medicine on my desktop.Thats the first thing i see in the morning.A picture of a huge “Take Your Medicine” staring me in the face will get my attention.( I Hope)

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I wish there was a reminder to take my morning medicine on my desktop.Thats the first thing i see in the morning.A picture of a huge “Take Your Medicine” staring me in the face will get my attention.( I Hope)

That’s easy in Windows (probably in Mac OSX too, but I don’t know that OS), provided two conditions are met:
1. you power up (cold boot) or restart (hot boot) your computer every day,
2. “Windows Photo Viewer” is the default application to open *.jpg graphic files.

How to proceed:

1. With your graphic application (Paint,The Gimp, Adobe Photoshop, Paintshop Pro or whatever you prefer) you design an image showing the warning you desire, a large bold-faced text or a drawing of a raised finger or a photo of a scantily clad nurse or whatever grabs your attention. Save it as a jpg-file in a folder of your choice.

2. Navigate to your Startup folder.

3. In your Startup folder create a shortcut to the jpg-file you just saved and give it a self-explanatory name.

That’s it. Each and every time you cold boot or restart you machine, the “Windows Photo Viewer” with your warning graphic will appear on your desktop.

OTOH, if your machine “sleeps” or “hibernates” at night, then this little trick will only work if you create an entry in the Task Scheduler.

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I have Active Desktop Calendar – I have mine set into the bottom RH corner (customisable and free) and have reminders for anniversaries. birthdays, bill paying etc. It opens a little window and chimes – click close and it goes away, click snooze and it pops back up as many times as you like that day.
These reminders can be set for daily, weeekly, monthly, annually or just as one-off’s. Comes in 32 and 64bit versions too.

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I have Active Desktop Calendar – I have mine set into the bottom RH corner (customisable and free)

How did you get it for free? It cost me twelve quid!

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I’m not totally sure now – I did think it had been free, and there’s no order details stored in my folder …perhaps I’m mistaken as it’s been a number of years since I got it.
I just upgraded the current programme to the 64bit version last March when I got this W7 computer.

Apologies – it obviously costs now after a trial period, so I may very well be mistaken.

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My solution to this sort of thing is Stickies. http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/index.html

It has a number of advantages: it’s useful for lots of stuff (anywhere you might want a yellow sticky note to scribble something onto) but it can make recurring reminders, complete with some sort of sound if you want it. Oh, and it’s free. You can make it start with Windows, it’s extremely unobtrusive and alarmingly reliable. It reminds me of a load of recurring things — daily, weekly and monthly events — and has also become a useful repository of those little snippets of things I sometimes need to remember too. I commend it to your attention.

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You Might try a program called “GigAlarm”. Its freeware too. And very versatile. It’ll run text files or MP3’s or Wav (I think) and It’ll repeat itself as often as you like. NO, I don’t work for them or own the company, just a very satisfied user !

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Sometimes we reply on technology far too much. Occasionally it is easierbetter to revert to non-technology to find a solution for every day problems.

I have quite a few tab’s to take 3 times a day and my way of reminding myself (yes hard as it to believe even after years of taking them I can occasionally forget if not at home)

I keep all my daily tab’s (in a daily dispensercontainer) lying nextclose to the kettle. This means that when I switch kettle on for first morning cuppa the tab’s are lying there. If your med’s require injection just put empty syringe (no needle attached) some place near kettle or coffeetea container and leave it lying there permanently, or secure it to the front of your coffee (granules) container. Does not look right but a good way of reminding myselfyourself.

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Some great ideas!
The mention of something that snuck in with CPU-z (I think it was) is nothing unusual. As I update things on my PC I get offers to install stuff from Norton, McAfee, Bing, Ask, etc. I don’t want any of that crap on my own PC and I take it off of customer’s PC’s all the time, so it’s a constant battle to keep those wolves at bay.

On the Alarm Clock, I Found One.
I don’t even know the name of the program other than “Alarm Clock”. (ain’t that weird?)
It allows me to set up an alarm for each day of the week for the time I want and the sound effect I want.
When I boot up my PC in the morning the Alarm Clock opens a window on my desktop, that alone is enough
to remind me to get up and go take my meds.

I really DO appreciate all the interest this thread has spawned and the very creative suggestions.
Yous guys are the bestest.

But I’m still a bit befuddled, by why my batch file won’t run in the Task Scheduler and why it gave me that elaborate error message.
Well, that’s a task and a puzzle for a different day. That may require some Googling.

I just got a telephone call from my Dr’s receptionist, reminding me of my Dr’s appointment for tomorrow. I like that personal touch.
Most all the local Dr’s do that, as well as the VA Hosp. It’s unusual in this day and age of automation to get a reminder call from a real live person.

Thanks again guys, and Happy Holidays!
The Doctor

PS: A good idea about the “Kettle” but my kettle is a Mr Coffee, automatic coffee maker. I load it up at night and set the timer to ON and at 7 AM the next morning it makes me a pot of coffee. The smell of fresh coffee is great to wake up to. It’s been proven that just the smell of coffee is Stimulating.

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Very nice, and very easy.

Fred, did you see this one?

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… Fred, did you see this one?

Who? Flintstone?

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I use Alarm:

http://bluefive.pair.com/alarm.htm

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I use Alarm:

http://bluefive.pair.com/alarm.htm

So … computer permanently ON while governments and power suppliers keep nagging consumers to save power?

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Who? Flintstone?

My mistake, I confused Fred and DrWho. This happens at least once a day it seems. Perhaps I am getting as bad as DrWho in remembering some of the important stuff. I apologize to both Just Plain Fred and DrWho for the mistake.

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I’m surprised that, with cell phones so ubiquitous, you’re not using that as an alarm. I don’t have a smartphone, but my dumb ole cell does have an alarm function, that I’ve creatively named “pill”. If I needed more alarms during the day and my memory were REALLY bad, I’d name each alarm with the name of the med.

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I have used CCY Alarm clock to take meds at different times for 6 years, very easy to use, if you don’t like their sound reminder just download any WAV file from internet to ccy folder and use that sound, http://www.ccyjchk.com/catalog/
Works on Windows 7 too

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Well Doc, even though you have your answer that works you are going to continue to receive more answers. perhaps one will come along that’s even better, who knows. Merry Christmas! (I’m not afraid to be politically uncorrect with this)

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I wasn’t sure how to title this thread or exactly where to put it, but here goes.

I get up in the morning and turn on my computer and usually get caught up in answering email, etc.
Then I forget to take my morning Diabetes Med’s. I wind up taking my meds around noon or even later.

So what I’m looking for is an Audio reminder, like “have you taken your med’s today?” that I can set up in the task scheduler, to go off mid-morning while I’m sitting here at the PC.
Yes, I’d actually like my PC to talk to me and remind me to take my medication.

Does anyone know of such a thing or how I might make one for myself. ???

Thank You!

The Doctor

I had been following your post but not completely, so apologies if this has been suggested already. http://freewindowsvistatutorials.com/setupRemindersInWindows7OneTimeNotificationsRecurringAlerts.php

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When you have such common problems as this, you should do a search at CNET (http;http://www.cnet.com) for a free program.

They have a free alarm clock that allows you to use your own MP3 file http://download.cnet.com/Free-Alarm-Clock/3000-2350_4-75328290.html

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