The standard Windows solution for automating a PC function is Windows Task Scheduler. And that’s fine if, say, you just need to run some program once a week, but if you need to trigger a task by something other than the passage of time then life gets a little more complicated.

Mayhem has a different philosophy. Originally devised by Microsoft, now open source, this interesting tool aims to take Task Scheduler to the next level, providing many more automation possibilities, while still being easy enough for absolutely anyone to use.

The core of this idea sees task automation reduced to its two most basic elements. The first, the events you’d like to monitor: apart from a simple timer, Mayhem can check local events, noting when a folder changes, a key is pressed, or a phrase is heard (the program uses Windows’ own speech recognition). And it can also react to the outside world, raising the alarm when an RSS feed updates, a stock price rises or falls or the temperature changes.

And the second element is the reaction, what you’d like to happen when one of these events occurs. Right now these include the option to control a media player; open the default browser at a given URL; run a program; take a screenshot; play a sound, and more.

Mayhem can trigger reactions to a host of events, from an RSS feed updating to recognising a spoken phrase

Setting these up is very easy. To get started, click Set Event, choose the “RSS Feed Alert” option, say, and enter the RSS feed you’d like to be monitored. Then click Choose Reaction, select what you’d like to do when the feed is updated (play an audio alert, say, or open the relevant website), turn the task on, and you’re done, whenever the feed is updated your task will fire.

Even though the current Mayhem release is just the Developer Preview, there are enough other events and reactions to be useful, just about. So you could, say, run a command to back up a particular folder whenever its contents change (assuming that’s not too often), or play some audio alert at regular timed intervals.

And the program can be extended further with “packages”, downloadable addons which provide custom events and reactions. There are already one or two of these, including a mobile phone (iOS, Android or Windows) remote option which should allow you to trigger PC reactions from your phone (it’s a little shaky right now, but then this is an early build), and a reaction module which can send a sequence of keypresses to an application window.

This plainly isn’t nearly enough, but the Mayhem authors are running a $3,000 contest for developers to create more packages, and some of their suggested ideas sound promising. What if the program supported events from eBay (getting outbid, auction ending), Amazon (a product going on sale) or Google (an alert is sent), say? What if Mayhem could interact with Twitter? Recognise or set your Facebook status? Send a text message?

Mayhem is a little on the basic side right now, then, but that’s hardly surprising for a preview release. If the program attracts just a little attention from developers, though, that will change in a hurry, so keep a lookout for its first public release: the program could quickly become one of the most versatile automation tools around.