How to create a pop-up alarm in Drupal based on the results of a view

This is a simple jquery + ajax + views based pop-up alarm based on the results of a view consulted by a timed process.

Step 1 – create the view

Create a view having a filter which determines whether or not there are any nodes of the type you are interested in (say, Todo) with a date field "less than or equal to" "now".