How to program "stop slouching !" message

[pacman10]

I want my computer to throw up a custom message in the middle of whatever I am doing (reading mail, writing a document, Skype-ing, etc.) which reminds me to do something. The example I have in mind is a message that pops up every 5-10 minutes saying "Sit up straight in front of the computer" or "Stop slouching !"

In fact, it would be neat if the tool would pick lines at random from a .txt file and it would be even neater if the time between displays of the message could be set, e.g. every 5 minutes or every 10 minutes.

Does anyone here know whether such a utility exists or whether it could be easily set up using existing Windows 7 tools ?

 

[boohbah]

Does anyone here know whether such a utility exists

Its called a wife!

 

[Gornot]

:roflmao: I completely agree. But for the purpose of this thread, there might be something a bit... cheaper? You know, without the wedding and reception and the honey moon... Well, okay, honey moon is something else xD

 

[boohbah]

i dont know of any! however an alarm of some sort could be set to display a message and repeat every hour or so,
several alarms could display different messages

 

[Prisoner]

I always use this. [link]

 

[pacman10]

Thanks for this but I already have an alarm. I'm rather looking for a utility which throws up messages at random times. I'm sure something like this must already exist because it would be useful for other purposes, e.g. for throwing up aphorisms and philosophical sayings.

 

[Ascor]

If you really need it i could programm something in vbs for you.
But i'd need the right motivation

 

[pacman10]

Thanks very much Ascor but it's not so important that I'd want to invest anything in it. I just thought it might be possible with some existing Windows 7 utility or some utility out there in the WWW that I haven't yet discovered.

 

[masterX244]

Try it with the tool Win-Fehler.It creates fakeerrors in a random time and you can use custom alerts with your texts. Maybe it isuseful!

 

[pacman10]

Thanks very much. An interesting oblique approach to fulfilling this need. I haven't yet worked out whether I can dispense with the database that comes with the program and make my own messages but I'm going through the FAQs to check this out.

 

[gladson1976]

Hi pacman10

I couldn't find any program that did what you wanted, so I wrote a simple script to read a simple text file and display a random line from that file.

<job id="vbs">
    <script language="VBScript">
        Set objFSO=CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
        Set objReadFile=objFSO.OpenTextFile("Quotes.txt", 1)
        I=1
        Do Until objReadFile.AtEndOfStream
           Redim Preserve arrData(I)
           arrData(I)=Replace(objReadFile.ReadLine, "vbCrLf", (CHR(13) & CHR(10)))
           I=I+1
        Loop
        objReadFile.Close

        Randomize
        MyNumber=Int(Rnd()*UBound(arrData))+1
        'WScript.Echo MyNumber

        strContents=arrData(MyNumber)
        'WScript.Echo strContents
        MsgBox strContents, 0, "Quotes"
    </script>
</job>

You can save this to a file with the extension .wsf and create a shortcut with WScript "Path to the wsf file" anywhere. The data file 'Quotes.txt' must be in the same folder as the .wsf file.
If you check the data file I've attached you'll find a few lines with vbCrLf. Wherever you add vbCrLf to a line, a line feed [ENTER] will be added.

You can then use Task Scheduler to run the shortcut repetitively.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/12444-task-scheduler-create-new-task.html



I've attached the files also with this post.

 

[pacman10]

Hi Gladson1976,

Thanks very much indeed for taking the trouble to write this script. Very neat !

I'm still trying to work out how to fire it up with Task Scheduler at, say, 6 hourly intervals. Task Scheduler only offers Daily, Weekly, etc. as options.

You really ought to publish this script under a snappy name. I'm sure lots of people would use it. It could also be used to throw up aphorisms and jokes. Attached is a list of sayings that some people might like if it's their kind of style. Unfortunately I can't remember where this list came from. I don't like stealing things and would like to have been able to attribute it to its author or compiler.

Anyway, back to finding out how Task Scheduler works !

Thanks again.

 

[boohbah]

well done gladson, some thing that occured to me when reading another thread about vocal messages on startup was that you could possibly have a recorded message and set it as a system sound , perhaps when closing a programme to say your message . not sure exactly how you would go about it but its a thought and if anyone knows how perhaps it could work, you could find a text to speach site where you can type your message then have sound effects and different voices (from anna)
anyone?