Here is a neat little application which extends the UNIX at daemon with the XOSD (X on screen display) for very effective, non-blocking, and simple notifications.

I am assuming the following:

• You know what the at daemon is and how to use it
• You are running X and logged in at the time of the notification
• The X display is hardwired to :0.0
• You agree that command line apps properly strung together are infinitely superior to clunky GUI apps

Obviously, you'll need xosd-bin and at installed.

Usage is simple: notify.sh "Feed the cats" 22:54


#!/bin/bash

echo "echo $1 | DISPLAY=\":0.0\" \
osd_cat --align="center" --pos="middle" \
-f \"-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-*-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-*-*\"" | \
at $2