Play Random Sounds for E-Mail Notifications?

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?"

Comments

hmm...

[sycotic]

set windows to play a sound eg. c:\sounds\newmail.wav and then have a folder with a number of wave files in it eg. c:\sounds\collection and schedule tasks to copy sounds to c:\sounds\newmail.wav every X minutes/seconds/whatever ?

pretty clunky but relatively simple for the average bear

Re:Just write an AppleScript...

[1Oman]

You do realise Outlook and Outlook Express are two different products right.

... Use the Macros

[johnnliu]

In Outlook, press ALT-F11
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

[Bitsy Boffin]

I used to have alert sounds on my email system, but it got really tedious, because I get lots of mail and most of it can wait, while some of it is important enough that I must look at it there and then (think important clients, not so important clients) - every time the alert went off, I'd have to stop what I was doing, go to the mail software, check to see what the message was and if it was important enough to deal with there and then.

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 :) Strangely enough I find I often sort of half-wake up in time to hear the subject being read to me even in the middle of the night (perhaps the hard drive churning before as fest starts up etc wakes me slightly).

Most useful thing... ever. Perhaps I should patent it ;)

OK, instructions for Outlook

[leonbrooks]

0. save all user data from computer
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.