Alarms question

[a? CeliyTeima?]

Typically, my alarms are set for specific times during the day; but recently I added one that has no specific time of day, just the day. The alarm went off; but there was no audible notifications. Only the exclamation point flashed. I checked the preferences, and the alarm sound is set and the details of the specific item have the alarm turned on and the alarm icon. Since I don't use the non-time-specific items that often, I was wondering if it's standard not to have an audible alarm, since the device wouldn't 'know' when to activate the audible alarm (unless it was 12 am that day).

[Lamia]

By the way, I perused the LD manual, and it's amazing how much it differs from the actual screens on my device. It seems as if the illustrations are from a Treo and not an LD.

Plus, it doesn't mention alarms for appointments without specific times.

[bbaddict29]

In what app did you create the entry with this alarm? Calendar, Tasks? Anyway, the Reminders system in Palm OS is full of quirks, especially due to DB issues. I suggest you the regular drill, you know, hotsync for backup and do a second hotsync with Desktop Overwrites Handheld.

[pupucashu]

Hal, I used the calendar function. It's not a 'task.'

For a long time, even if it wasn't a calendar entry for a specific time, I'd just put it in for some time early on the given day and set the alarm. In those cases, it would sound the alarm. This time, it was an event that repeats yearly and I put it in with no specific time. It didn't kick off any audible warning; but it did 'flash' the exclamation point and it showed up on the 'today' screen.

Oddly, neither manual (the getting started guide or the full manual) say much about this, other than to show how a user can select the alarm for a given event and use the Preferences screen to adjust sounds and alarms.

[Ladyblue17]

In the calendar, does the little alarm clock icon display next to the untimed event description?

On page 185 of the Lifedrive User Guide, it says, "For events without a time, the alarm settings are based on midnight of the date of the event."

[av3ng3dwarri0r]

Thanks Jig. Yes, I made sure the alarm icon was there. I think I read somewhere that note about midnight being the delineation point (I don't think I saw that when I posted originally). But if the alarm went off, it didn't wake me up, and the LD was inches from my head. That's not a great solution either, though; since who wants to be awakened at midnight for something the next day? I guess those should be repeating TASKS and not time-indeterminate appointments/events.

Off the top of your head, do you know if birthdays, which can be displayed if the info is in a contact also provides for an audible alarm? I never used that function either (again, I used a non-time-specific appointment).

Edit: Thanks much for that page reference. I couldn't find the passage you referred to at first. (I went by the PDF pages in Adobe instead of by the manual's page number at the bottom right). I see that it says that; but it's a bit ambiguous as to whether that's the ONLY time the alarm will sound. It's also odd that there seems to be a different 'Prefs' screen from both the 'details' screen of a particular event and from the main Preferences > Alarm and Sounds settings panel. This panel offers more options in sounds, etc. It does explain that one can alter the pre-warning in details and such; but I guess you can't alter the sound there. Confusing.

[eneka]

It's been quite a while since I dealt with this on a Palm device. As I recall, if you add a birthday to a contact, it automatically gets entered into the calendar. I typically had my preference set to notify me 7 days in advance. Sure enough, at midnight a week ahead, I would get a notification. I don't recall if an alarm went off or not. Sorry I can't help.

[emmypants]

From what I read in the manual (not far from what you cited), birthdays have their own icon (if drawn from the contacts b-day field) and behave mostly like events without specific times. They appear at the top of the day's queue but with a 'cake' icon instead of the diamond icon. But there's no real mention of how/when the audible alarm sounds.

Again, part of the problem seems to be that there are actually three locations that seem to control the audible alarm:
1. The alarms and sounds section under the main Preferences screen
2. The Details screen when you actually add the specific event and choose whether to include an alarm or not.
3. Calendar > Preferences screen

That's a lot of room for conflict.

[SexyIAm]

Sorry to chime in so late on this, but I don't think there is a place in the default calendar app for you to set what time the alarm for an untimed event will sound.

I've used DateBk6 since back in my Palm Tungsten|C days, I know there's a setting in it that allows you to set the specific time of day that you will be notified of of an untimed event (like a whole day event, like birthdays, holidays, etc.). The reason why I'm pretty sure that the original Palm Calendar app doesn't offer that is that there's also a setting in DateBk6 where you can set whether DateBk6 or Palm Calendar handles alarms. When I accidentally unchecked the box to have DateBk6 handle all alarms, I (and more importantly, my wife) was woken up at midnight for untimed calendar events.

The Palm Alarm System is a pain in the posterior, especially on NVFS devices. I had all kinds of issues and conflicts with it when trying to use Palmary Clock as a MP3 alarm clock (with multiple alarms for me, my wife, and the kids to wake up each morning), and then any alarms in Calendar or DateBk6, and that's when I discovered that there are many functions on Palm devices that use the Palm Alarm System even though they're not really alarms per se (ie, Text Msg notifications, voicemail notifications, etc.). I finally (by trial and error) figured out a solution, but I have to be careful in the alarm order, and when more than two MP3 alarms have been triggered, I have wake up enough to go into Pocket Tunes (which is used to play the MP3 alarm) and then exit out of it. Otherwise, Pocket Tunes will remain in memory (even though it's set not to) and also hog the Palm Alarm System and prevent anything else from using it. I also have to set it so the phone is off (which I can thankfully do in Palmary Clock) before the daily alarm sequence begins because if I get an early morning text or voicemail notification, none of my alarms (Palmary Clock or DateBk6) will sound until I clear those text/voicemail notifications.

Ugh....this is bringing back really bad memories. I can't wait to move on to a new phone/OS and/or start using my Palm Tungsten|C as my alarm clock again (no NVFS -- thank God!).