NotifyMe

In this day and age, we have plenty of ways to remind ourselves of things; we can set alarm clocks on our cell phones, have Google Calendar send us e-mails or text messages, or use Outlook to get alerts on our desktop. Desktop alerts from Outlook, however, could never be as fun as the ones from NotifyMe. This simple program lets users create multimedia alerts that are both useful and fun.

The program’s interface is plain and easy to navigate. For each notification, users can enter any combination of text, image, and audio. There are plenty of options that can be tweaked, including text color, size, and font; whether or not the notification fades in and out; the duration of the notification; and the display style. Users can set the notification for a specific time of day or have the program count down a certain number of hours, minutes, or seconds. We can think of many potential uses for NotifyMe. Sure, you could just enter a text message reminding you that it’s time to go to the staff meeting, but how about an image of a nature scene and some calming music to force you to take a break now and then? On a shared computer, you could use it to set a surprise birthday message for someone. Our only complaint about NotifyMe is that we’re not sure if we’re using it to its full potential; the publisher’s description says that the program can be used as a virtual photo album, audio player, or virtual radio, but we’re not sure how you’d do any of these things without a lot of fiddling and scheduling of individual events. The program’s built-in Help file is brief and doesn’t address any of these features. Still, we like NotifyMe a lot just for its basic notification features, and anything else that you can do with it is a bonus.

NotifyMe installs and uninstalls without issues. We recommend this program to all users.