A computer alarm clock is not an alarm clock that looks like a computer (although those exist, they are usually called novelty alarm clocks). A computer alarm clock isn’t a physical device that you can hold in your sweaty little palms. It's actually a computer program that turns your traditional desktop, laptop or PDA into an alarm clock. Your computer has a regular clock – why not an alarm clock?

Advantages

The main advantage of a computer alarm clock is that you don’t have to carry a separate device when you go traveling. You just pack your laptop, your toothbrush and you're off. This also means you don’t have to worry about dead batteries as can happen with traditional travel alarm clocks. It's one less thing to loose.

Computer alarm clock programs are generally easy to use, easy to program and easy to remove if and when you ever get sick of them. You do need to have some basic ability loading and deleting programs from your computer in order to use one. Computer alarm clocks are not recommended for beginners.

Another big advantage of computer alarm clocks is that there are a lot of free programs available on the Internet. You do want to be sure that all of your computer security software is updated before downloading anything from the Internet. Spyware of other malicious software have been reported hiding out in benign looking free computer alarm clock programs.

Disadvantages

If you don’t do a lot of traveling, then there's not much of a point of getting a computer alarm clock or even a projection alarm clock beyond the "golly-gee-whiz" factor. It might even wind up being more expensive to run a computer all night than it is to keep a regular old digital alarm clock plugged in.

Some internet security experts feel that you should never keep your computer on all night, even if you don’t have it connected to the internet. Connecting to the internet all night will definitely leave a door open for cyber criminals to take advantage of. You also want to save your battery as much as possible when you are on the road using a laptop.

You also will not get any customer service, tech support or any kind of guarantee if you use a free computer alarm clock program. That's one of the reasons why it's free. When you use a free computer alarm clock, you're pretty much on your own.