Sleep.fm is a personalized alarm service for your computer, phone, or Internet-enabled alarm clock that lets you and your friends leave each other personalized wake-up messages. While I agree that waking up to the radio, the standard alarm clock beep, or some obnoxious fake birds is less than ideal, I'm not sure I'm 100% sold on the utility of Sleep.fm.

I started to get the picture a little more clearly after checking out a video on the Sleep.fm FAQ page. In this little demo, a woman who had missed her Japanese studies the day before wakes up to a teasing message from a friend, in Japanese. I think that says a lot about what Sleep.fm is trying to do: turn the wake-up alarm into another useful way to communicate. I wouldn't object to waking up to a message that all of my meetings for the day were cancelled, for example, or finding out about a change of lunch plans with a friend.

Isn't that what we have voicemail, email, text messages and Twitter for, though? I agree with the Sleep.fm theory that waking up is personal, but for me that means just wanting to be left alone. If you're the kind of person who likes to jump right into the day with new information, someone who checks email and rss feeds before even getting out of bed, this might be a good new tool in your arsenal. The site is taking signups now for its upcoming relaunch.

As more and more folks abandon traditional phone lines in favor of exclusively using cell phones and broadband VoIP services, home alarm system technology is getting dragged out of the dark ages. Historically, in order to alert the alarm monitoring service of an intrusion, an alarm system would place a modem call over a phone line. But since VoIP services and cell phones don't properly support modem calls, the alarm makers have had to adapt.

Some new alarm system vendors now provide IP-based monitoring, so intrusion signals (and in some cases, two-way voice communication) can be transmitted to the security company using the Internet instead of a phone line. NextAlarm.com offers such a solution: a wireless control panel with keychain remote that sits on your home network. Also included are a pair of wireless magnetic door contact sensors and a wireless infrared motion detector. NextAlarm allows its users to install this stuff themselves--and since it's all wireless, you won't need to worry about slinging wires through your attic. The whole system will set you back less than three-hundred bucks, assuming you don't need extra sensors. NextAlarm provides monitoring service, too.

One of NextAlarm's competitors is ProtectAmerica.com, who offers a very similar broadband-capable alarm solution. Completely wireless, ProtectAmerica offers additional sensors for glass breakage, flooding, and low-temperatures. Handy for keeping an eye on that damp basement if you live in the recently water-soaked midwest. ProtectAmerica touts their two-way voice monitoring (through the control panel device) and broadband-compatibility as advantages over a traditional security player like ADT.

Besides your choice of music, you can also enter an rss feed (hopefully www.downloadsquad.com/rss.xml) to be displayed so that when you come to and scramble to your computer to turn off the alarm, or turn it up, you'll have the day's fresh news sitting there waiting for you.

Perhaps a few features would make this idea even better, including a multiple-feed rss reader, nothing fancy, but a way to get news from several sources, as well as the ability to enter your own internet radio station URL to be played upon wake-up would be especially helpful. The design isn't complete, and it is a work in progress, but it is an interesting approach to the age old problem of being awake. Coupled with enough strong coffee, you're on your way!

What better way for the geek to greet the world than use the web? Watch out for the trance station, that is almost more soothing than "wake-up" material, but to each their own.

Thanks Vincent!

OnlineClock.net is pretty simple, but pretty cool. Online clock lets you choose the color, and size of the clock, along with what time you want it to ring, and presto, many minutes later you are buzzed awake. The sound is annoying enough that it actually might work to wake me up, and my wife too. It sounds like an easy way to "get rid" of hardware, so I can get a new PC. She trashes the bleeping beeping thing (my laptop), feels sorry, and I walk away with a new PC, right? Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Dang! Anyway, like I said, the site is very simple, and serves as an excuse to serve up some Google ads.

[Via LifeHacker]

Your MacBook Pro has a built-in tilt sensor and camera. Since using Apple products for their intended purpose (like, say, running Mac OS X), here's a cool way to repurpose those features: iAlertU is theft alarm software that monitors your MacBook's camera and tilt sensor and, if it thinks your laptop is being manhandled while you've stepped away to grab another latte, sounds a loud alarm. Currently iAlertU is in beta, and Evan Blass over at Engadget says that it's not perfect, but actually works pretty much as advertised. You can see a video of it iAlertU in action at YouTube. The arming and disarming sound effects are pretty cute.