Play Random Sounds for E-Mail Notifications? 156
An anonymous reader asks: "I, like many of my fellow Outlook-using geek friends, like to set funny sounds to be played when a new message arrives ('Leeroy Jenkins' is the one I have set now). However, we have always wanted to be able to have random sounds be played when a new message arrives, rather than the same sound over and over. I've searched high and low, and I was hoping Slashdot could suggest/write a program that can randomly play sound files from a specified folder when a new message arrives. Any ideas?"
hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
pretty clunky but relatively simple for the average bear
Re:Just write an AppleScript... (Score:2, Interesting)
... Use the Macros (Score:4, Interesting)
Write your macro that plays your sound file.
Go to your Rules & Alerts
Create a rule for receiving emails - to play your Macro.
Bonus point.
Make your macro play a random sound.
I think the whole effort should take about 5 minutes.
Skip the boing old alert sound - go festival (Score:3, Interesting)
So anyway I had a bit of a brainwave one day - I hooked up festival (the voice synthesis software) to Evolution (my preferred mail client) and now instead of non-informational alert sounds I have festival read out-loud the sender and subject.
It's probably the best thing since sliced bread as far as I'm concerned (I've had it like this for, umm, about a year I guess, and it's still very cool). Now when an email comes in I don't have to stop what I'm doing, I know if it's important enough to go look at because my PC tells me
Even better..like all good geeks I have my PC running 24/7 a couple of meters from my bed (and like all good geeks I'm the only one in my bed), so no more do I have to get up and go see what the email was if I'm in bed
Most useful thing... ever. Perhaps I should patent it
OK, instructions for Outlook (Score:3, Interesting)
1. install Mandrake Linux or similar over the top of Outlook and MS-Windows
2. restore user data
3. configure KMail or Evolution to play random sounds
4. problem solved. forever.