I’ve come across a fantastic product that I absolutely must see it reviewed! It’s called RescueTime, and I found it through the GetSatisfaction.com network. The goal of the software is to install a “fly on the wall” on the user’s computer, which tracks and monitors the time spent using various web pages and applications.
The user is enabled to tag web sites with custom-defined tag words, and further to define goals and alerts that remind “too much time spent on x, that’s 45 minutes already today” or “not enough time spent on y today, forget about that extra round of golf tomorrow!”
A time management software is central to any business as well as technology or legal firms, and this one promises to allow each user an equal chance to conjecture about their own usage patterns, with beautiful charts and graphs, as well as world-class support.
The support delivered on the GetSatisfaction.com network itself is worth a plug, as long as our threads are so closely intertwined… this network enables companies to define products which can be discussed and reported on in a public forum atmosphere!
Dedicated support personnel can be assigned or volunteer to represent a product in the public eye, in a digital community place where that product can earn publicity and attention, even funding patrons, capital investors or users.
March 11, 2008 at 12:30 am
So, what am I supposed to be doing?
My course schedule says I’m supposed to be at classes, 2pm-4pm and 4pm-6pm, or 6pm-8pm, I can’t remember exactly. I went to one of the classes but I didn’t have the pre-requisite, so it will be a serious endeavor if I want to continue in Roxanne Canosa’s Image Understanding class. Made contact with both professors, and I learned that Image Understanding won’t be held again until Monday 17, the Add-Drop deadline.
I made contact with Professor Kaminsky also, in charge of the Parallel Computing class, and he gave me the information about the course website, excused from the first class by my request. I promised to review it, and get back to him.
Also talked to Phil White and Gregor VonLaszewski from the CASCI lab… I think I’ve promised both of these gentlemen a resume, along with a couple of other people. So, my #1 priority tag is “resume” — should be superseded by “pay the bills” but these tasks are starting to look more and more alike to me.
March 11, 2008 at 3:00 am
So, what do I have to do to accomplish my goals?
I have a lot of data in RSS feeds. There are RSS feeds and Atom feeds, and some RSS applications generate only one or the other product feed type: RSS or Atom data. I could care less about this, it’s a standards difference, but here’s the thing: AgileRss, my prototype “cache manager” is not going to take Atom data, it only processes RSS.
So, this means that we have to learn something about the content of RSS and Atom feeds, and endeavor at least slightly to translate between them. Somebody has already done this. I’m currently reading their work and it looks like some work I’ve done before, regarding PHP (I was working in VBScript) XML processors that conform to a DTD or Schema, and translators that operate using XSLT stylesheets.
https://blackruby.nerdland.org:8443/svn/JackSVN/trunk/Testing/PEAR/atom
The URL is behind my private VPN, and there are comments… evidently not enough comments at this point, and the scripts do not compile or execute. More coming soon, along with a resume from Kingdon Barrett!
If I don’t finish my comment without revisiting my goal then I will feel really incompetent, so lets do that: I have a lot of data in RSS feeds, and I want to review it all and uncover the rubies or gold, wherever it may be inside of there. I’m quite sure there is some value in a collection of 5000 bookmarks all viewed and reviewed by a single user!
So, I need to establish a workflow in which I can review and classify RSS data. What I really want is a tool like gmail, for RSS: but Google Reader won’t do, some of my Atom feeds especially are protected by password and this is why I have chosen AgileRss to access them. But: really what I want is a shell in which I can manipulate RSS feeds like POP3 or Unix mbox format… so, for Wednesday’s class, I had better get comfortable with an XML library!
March 11, 2008 at 4:46 am
anyone caught the double negative in previous “if i don’t finish without”? that’s pretty neat fast fingers…
March 12, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Spent a day or two with this software, I felt compelled to turn it off in the middle of the day when I realized yesterday just how much time I was spending on a social networking website! I miss having tasks with associated dollar amounts…
March 12, 2008 at 3:14 pm
11am Wednesday and the software is back online. Spend some time on the telephone, then come back and learn how to translate ATOM to RSS using XSLT and PHP.
March 12, 2008 at 5:22 pm
1:20pm Wednesday and we’ve defined some language-based goals for programming tasks. The RescueTime app is probably going to have some trouble separating one programming task from another based solely on application usage statistics: maybe the host information in the title bar (PuTTY: kingdon@thursday, kingdon@svnc, etc) is enough information to determine on which project a sprint of work should be billed?
March 12, 2008 at 6:06 pm
2:00pm I’ve defined some more tags and goals, eliminated some data for apps that don’t seem to be getting very much attention… paid the credit card bills… two disparate paths of research going right now and neither has an immediate opportunity to make any money fall out of the computer, but both seem like useful tools for generating a grant of some kind.
That means committing to a budget and a project plan at the same time. That does not mean filling out time cards and making thousand dollar checks turn lazy bums into happy consumers. Could also mean an extended stay in my home office or collegiate-sponsored office. All I know is I have not currently negotiated anyone else into my managerial job.
And, I still have coding tasks.