Time Tracker Tracks Time (Say it five times fast!)

Lately I’ve been trying to keep track of how much time I spend on any one task. It helps me stay focused on that task and also helps me plan when I need to repeat that task. While searching for an app that could assist me, I came across a little utility called “Time Tracker”.

This freeware application simply does what it says- tracks time. It allows you to create new projects and tasks within those projects. You can keep track of the time spent on each task using the built-in timer. It also has a menu icon for starting and stopping the timer.

I like the simplicity of Time Tracker. There are only three buttons: one for the timer, one to create a new project, and one to create a new task. There are no extra frills. Adding new projects and tasks is easy and tracking time spent on any one task is very straight-forward. I know I’ve mentioned OnTheJob before for keeping track of my consulting work, but I don’t really want to use that for personal tasks. OnTheJob does a good deal more and for personal use, I just want a glorified timer.

I also like Time Tracker because open source, licensed under the GPL so I can check out the code. I was hoping to learn a little Objective-C and thought this would be a good place to start.

Time Tracker does lack a few features that would be useful. It would be helpful to be able to export and import projects and tasks. I’m sure all the GTDers out there could see the possibilities if this somehow synced with kGTD, or at least export to some text file. Since I use Alt-Tab so often, I’d also like to see my time spent on the current task in the Alt-Tab menu, instead of having to switch to the Time Tracker application.

But who knows? These features could be included in the next version. Time Tracker is still an active project. You should definitely check it out if you need and easy (and free) way of keeping track of your time.

What’s on your mac? (Part III)

I’ve come across another nice program, X Resource Graph by Gaucho Software.

X Resource Graph (XRG) is a nice freeware utility that presents system monitoring data in a self-contained bar. The graphs provide quick and easy summaries of the various operations of your system, from CPU usage to memory consumption to network traffic. It even has a temperature monitor. My mac doesn’t have the appropriate temperature sensors, so I’m not sure how well that feature works. In case you get bored or still feel understimulated with information, there are even graphs for monitoring stocks and local weather.

XRG’s user interface is configurable; you can choose what data you want to see. If you don’t want to see what’s happening on your ethernet interface, you don’t have to see it. The interface also supports skins. It’s pretty easy to configure the look to match your favorite background. On my machine, XRG is configured with transparent borders and background, only showing labels and graphs, so it doesn’t clutter up my desktop.

XRG is not a widget. I’ve seen a few other system monitoring widgets out there like iStat nano, but I use widgets so infrequently that something like iStat would annoy me.

Overall, X Resource Graph is a great, free system monitoring app. Everyone should give it a try at least once. Maybe twice.

The Little Things I Like… (Part I)

Since the switch from my hp pavilion laptop to this MacBook, I’ve really been more and more pleased with OS X. I like the way it just works. Apple has put a lot into the OS X interface, making sure that the environment is consistent across the board. Granted, there are some inconsistencies, but I’m not concerned with them right this second. What I am concerned with are the little things I like about my MacBook.

Here’s a perfect example. Say I download an application to try out- a text editor or whatever. It doesn’t really matter. Now my mind is racing and I want to get down some thoughts so I open my newly downloaded and installed text editor and start typing…But wait! The text is bright green! I hate green! Green is the devil! Green is the mindkiller. Green is the little death that brings total Oblivion. And no one likes Oblivion. So what do I do? “Well it depends on the program, you know. It depends…Is it Text Wrangler or BBEdit, or are you using TextMate, maybe did you actually download Emacs?” But you’d be wrong because 99% of the time it does not depend. All you need to do is press Command-Comma. That is consistently the easiest way to get to an application’s preference pane and change that horrid shade of green.

Do you know how to do that in Windows? “Well, Rebby, if that’s your real name, it’s probably as easy as…well…um…it depends.” Correct! It’s as easy as clicking on “Tools” and then “Options” or “Preferences”, or maybe “View” and then “Options” or “Preferences”, or even “File” and then “Preferences”, or even some other combination of clicks. You get my point. I’m not bitter about Windows. I don’t even think that three mouse-clicks is torturous. I’m just saying that it is so much easier in OS X to get to the pane that changes the font color to something besides that putrid shade of green. And to me, that’s important.

What’s on your mac? (Part II)

I’ve already listed a few of the programs that are in heavy rotation on my mac, but I left out a few. Here’s the second list.

• NetNewsWire Lite – This is one of several feed aggregators for OS X. Before moving to NNW Lite, I was using Firefox as my browser and RSS reader. If you weren’t already aware, Firefox has a feature called Live Bookmarks. This is great when you want to check a couple feeds; just save your Live Bookmarks on your Bookmarks toolbar and peruse at your convenience. However, once you get more than seven or so, the Bookmarks toolbar starts to get crowded.
  Enter NetNewsWire Lite. It’s true that there are others out there (NewsFire, Vienna, etc.), but I tried NNW Lite first and liked it. As an aggregator for my 10-12 feeds, it works great.
• The Missing Sync – This is a great app for syncing your PDA [read: Treo 650] with your mac. I tried going with the Palm Desktop and iSync, but it was just really messy to try to get categories to sync correctly. I don’t even remember if I ever got it to work completely with the Palm Desktop. Anyways, The Missing Sync works really well for syncing up iCal events and todos, and your Address Book contacts. It has its own little app for managing your memos, which is nice because I use memos pretty often for random notes. It has other features like syncing with AvantGo, iTunes, and other media, which is nice if you need that functionality. But I do need my calendar, todos, and contacts, and this program syncs them faithfully to my PDA.
• On The Job – This app is useful for anyone who does any freelance work and needs a way of keeping track of the services provided. Personally, I do some IT work on the side and needed some way of recording my hours on each project. I know I could do it easily with a spreadsheet, but I don’t currently have a spreadsheet app, and ended up stumbling across this app first. It lets you create job and task records related to the job. You can record hours worked and services provided. It also has a very easy mechanism for creating invoices. It’s a pretty slick app.

So these are a few of the other programs you should at least check out.

What’s on your mac? (Part I)

Since getting my MacBook, I’ve been scouring the web for interesting and useful software to check out. So now, after a month, I’ve come up with a list of some of the software that I’ve become accustomed to using.In no particular order, I give you the list:

• Quicksilver – This is the multi-tool of app launchers. At first glance, I didn’t see how it was very different from Spotlight, aside from its interface. But I learned quickly and now it saves me a few steps when I want to open new emails, recently edited files, or add events to my calendar. It’s far more than just an app launcher, and worth more than the $0 it costs to get it.
• Adium – This is a versatile chat client that aggregates all your IM accounts into one client. It supports AIM, MSN, Jabber, and others. You can also get a bunch of plug-ins that change the look, feel, and function of the app.
• Growl – This little utility comes with bundled with Adium, though you can obtain and install it separately. From the FAQ, Growl is a “notification system for Mac OS X.” It basically will bring unobtrusive pop-ups to your display, letting you know that you got a new email, or so-and-so just IMed you, or your ethernet plug just came loose. If you’ve ever used MS Outlook or Trillian, you’ve seen notification pop-ups perhaps a little similar. Growl is very configurable with different skins and preferences. You can even control what it will notify you about. It’s a neat app.
• Camino – Camino is a web-browser that uses Mozilla’s Gecko rendering engine, like Firefox. Unlike Firefox, it has a more native look and feel, like Safari. One might ask, “why aren’t you just using Safari?” Well, I have two reasons at this point. The first is that Camino has ad-blocking built into it. To the best of my understanding, you need to purchase the PithHelmet plug-in to get similar functionality. My second reason, is that Camino seems to load pages faster than Safari. But, I’ve not run any benchmarks to prove that fact. If you can prove me wrong on either count, I’d gladly use Safari.
• AppZapper – Coming from a Windows/Linux background, it makes me a little nervous to just drag-and-drop applications. I have no idea where anything is going. Are there any extraneous files being installed? AppZapper is an app that attempts to track down all the files associated with an application’s install and remove them. So I can feel more comfortable about trying out new software and trust that I’ll be able to remove it cleanly if I need.

Okay, so that’s just a few of the apps that I’ve been using. I’ll follow up with some more of them later on. If you haven’t checked them out, you really should. And let me know, what’s on your mac?