Reviewer, 2008-01-30 11:28:00

Tracks details of the time spent by user on tasks performed on the computer, making it possible to analyze unproductive times.

Pros: People like designers, writers, software developers who spend a lot of time with computers quite often wonder where did all the time go! Particularly so when deadlines loom. Often when working on fixed price project you need to wonder if you are spending more time than estimated and thus eating into profit margins. If so, how critical that is and so on. What’s needed is an accurate measure of time of various types of activities on the machine. One may be spending an inordinately long time in checking e-mails and deleting spam or some unproductive activity without being completely aware of these unproductive moments.

Real cure is if accurate time measurements could be taken, without you being even aware of these or having to tell someone what activity you are engaged on. For example while working on actual development work a developer may take a smoke break. Just the idling of the machine is enough to tell the application that here is an unscheduled break. The user need not consciously intimate the application that you are going on a break. You could do that too of course.

The time analysis is carried out for categories the user defines at the initial configuration time. Reports generated can help one analyze precisely what portion of your productive time is getting used up for what kind of activities.

This initial set up and configuration is easy enough, the interface provides enough hints to do this correctly. Hints provided are quite helpful.

Cons: Nothing problematic here.

Overall a easy to use, fairly simple application for a simple but quite a crucial task. It certainly deserves a 4 star rating.