Lately I have been customizing my Windows sounds. I know, I know, not a hard thing to do. But occasionally you just gotta cut loose and have some fun.
I mean until Window 10 is mainstream (and I can’t wait for July 29th), customizing my sounds will be one of the best ways that I can have my computer “talk” to me. (I’m currently writing this blog post on Windows 10 Technical Preview and it’s been running flawlessly … woot!)
So I have played Warcraft and currently play World of Warcraft as well (Oakensledge, Retribution Paladin on Silvermoon). I like the old “Job’s Done” from Warcraft and thought it would make great addition to my workday. Here is how I did mine.
- I simply looked up the Job’s Done sound on YouTube and copied the link to the clipboard.
- Then I went to one of several sites where you can (for free) download only the sound from a YouTube link. I chose this one called ListenToYouTube.
- Then I used a different site to convert the MP3 file that was extracted to a WAV file. Here is the link I used. You could also used iTunes I’m pretty sure but I was working on a computer without it (Gasp! Yes it does happen).
- Viola! WAV file successfully created! At this point there whudn’t nuthin’ do it but to do it!
- Cheerily I moved the file to a place on my computer where my nerd-self likes to store my custom sounds. I’m sure you have your own favorite place too so we won’t get into that.
- Lastly it was simply a matter of going into my Windows sound settings and changing the sounds. In there Visual Studio is actually listed. I assigned my sound to the appropriate event and I was good to go.
- (hint: this also works for SQL Server Management Studio for when a query completes, as long as you’re willing to use this as your default Windows sound.
Even though my favorite thing is AngularJS, I do a lot of work with .NET as well as SQL Server. So I did assign the Job’s Done .wav file to my SSMS query complete as well as my .NET Build Successful event.
All day long, I get to hear “Job’s Done!” as I work away .. so in that regard I’m a lot like the little guy on the screen carrying wood for someone huh?
Well I hope this little silly article helps someone assign their sounds to help out their workday.
You can also take this to other levels, which I have by getting hold of a synthesizer program to convert text to speech. I just typed out what I wanted my computer to say for various events, then ran it through voice modulators in the program. I saved those custom sounds to all kinds of Windows events including ALL of my .NET sounds.
So my personal computer at home, when encountering a build error in .NET, wildly exclaims “Holy Crap!!!” in a robotic synthesized voice. Let your imagination run wild kids. After all it IS 2015 .. AND we’re programmers .. our computers should be talking to us in some way or other right?
Cheers!