Set a default alarm sound in iCal --------------------------------- 2009-08-18 1. Open iCal - Prefences 2. On General tab, check Add a default alarm to all new events and invitations 3. Set your default minutes before start time, I like 2 days, 2880 minutes. 4. Quit iCal 5. Open Terminal and run: plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.plist (this converts the binary .plist to an editable xml file) 6. Open ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.plist in TextEdit 7. On about the 5th line you will see a tag, edit immediately below that Default alarm sound Hero Note: Drop any .aiff file in /System/Library/Sounds/ and enter the name of the file in the tag without the .aiff or you can use the full path to a file stored in another location. 8. Save and Quit TextEdit 9. Open iCal and create an event and it should have your default sound set (iCal will automatically convert the .plist back to a binary file)