Windows only: Computer activity logger TimeSnapper takes screenshots of your computer desktop every few seconds as you work throughout the day. Then, you can play back your computer activity to calculate the amount of time you spent on certain tasks—great for filling out timesheets or just getting the hard numbers on how much of the day you burned reading celebrity gossip or, ahem, productivity blogs. The Pro version of TimeSnapper (which is not free), lets you assign certain a productivity score on apps you work in, and will run reports that show your productivity scorecard. A free version of the software, TimeSnapper Classic has fewer features than TimeSnapper Pro, which costs $US20 for a single licence, with a free trial available. TimeSnapper is available for Windows only.

US-centric: Now you can truly see why our commenters dubbed Python the programming language that "can do anything." One intrepid (and hungry) hacker, possibly named Nick Jensen, put together a small script that tracks Domino's Pizza orders from phone... Read More »

Windows/Mac/Linux (Adobe Air): Klok, a free time and project-tracking app for the Adobe Air platform, is a great time-tracking solution for multi-platform users, as well as anyone who likes to keep it simple. Simple projects allow you to simply create and describe time entries on a drag-and-adjust grid, or use a template like "Web project" to automatically create sub-categories of HTML, design, text, and the like. You can also use Klok as a work timer using the "Work On" button, and export reports and invoices for clients. Klok is a free download for any system running the Adobe Air platform.

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Tempo isn't the first or only web-based project tracker, but it conforms pretty well to whatever methods you prefer for entering and receiving data—email, Twitter and SMS messages, mobile or desktop browsers, or even RSS feeds. The site is geared toward those tracking personal or group time spent on particular clients, with a tag-based tracking system and all the graph and chart-y goodness you'd expect out of a data-rich site. Tempo is free to use in its "Adagio" version for one worker and one client, $5-$49 per month for incremental versions after that.

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Windows/Mac/Linux (Firefox): Browsing tracker 8aweek is strikingly similar to previously mentioned extension RescueTime, but with two notable differences. First, it focuses only on your web habits, leaving out the desktop app measurement of RescueTime that might not have mattered to those who know their procrastination lies in the wilds of HTML Land. Secondly, 8aweek's preferences are set at the program's site, allowing you to impose a timer on your own list of "Restricted" sites on any browser you use. I'm not a huge fan of browser toolbars, like the one 8aweek throws on to give you quick access to your stats, but you could bypass them with a few links to your 8aweek account. For those looking for a simple cross-system procrastination buster, 8aweek could be an apt solution. 8aweek is a free download, works wherever Firefox does.

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Windows only: Free, open source application Personal Task Manager (PTM) tracks how you spend your time at the computer. The application is developed to look and feel a bit like the Windows Task Manager, but it's goal is to help you manage a completely different breed of tasks. As soon as you run PTM, it starts tracking what applications you're using and when you're not using your computer and logs all of that data to your database. Once it's been running for a bit, take a look at the mile-high stats and charts to get a better idea of how and where you're spending your computing time. PTM is basically an open source version of previously mentioned trackers like Slife and RescueTime, so if those looked useful to you, this one might be worth a glance. Thanks Manuel!

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Windows and Mac OS X: Previously featured Slife, a time management application that shows you exactly how you've spent your time on your computer, has released a beta version for Windows XP and later. As with the Mac version, tracking more than three applications at once requires a $34 license purchase, but one license can enable both Mac and Windows versions of Slife. The Windows tracker can supposedly track any program simply by launching it after Slife, but I had trouble (in Windows Vista Home Premium) getting Slife to recognize anything beyond the default Firefox, Internet Explorer and iTunes—perhaps some of our commenters can let us know how it works on their systems. Slife's basic versions are free downloads for Mac OS X or Windows XP or later; Windows requires version 1.1 or later of the .NET framework installed.

Windows only: Free software site Donation Coder challenged its code-savvy users in November to write small, simple programs that help users better manage their time and tasks. The results are in, they're free, and some of them look really darn useful. Evaluweight, for instance, helps make decisions by providing a customizable grid with weighted factors. AnotherOneDone is a tiny window that simply keeps track of how much of anything you have to do, how much you've done, and how many remain, while Interruptron helps you track when and why you get distracted from your work. All of the programs are free downloads for Windows 98 and later, and each requests that you consider throwing a few bucks the author's way.

A new version of the Activity Tracker gadget has been released for the iGoogle homepage. I've mentioned Activity Tracker before when I used it to conduct a time audit of the working week.Notable new features include the ability to expand and collapse your task list (see picture), the ability to drag and drop your tasks to rearrange them, and the ability to add notes to each activity log. You can also edit the activity logs. The full list of new features is here.

For the multi-tasking amongst us, the developer mentioned a cute way to track 2 tasks at once: Add Activity Tracker on another tab and you should be able to have 2 Activity Trackers running on 2 tabs.

Activity Tracker Version 1.0 with new advanced features [ScreeperZone]

We've previously highlighted unnecessary meetings as a workplace practice that should be over, but not all of us call the shots. For those brave enough to point out the cost of unnecessary meetings, or look at the cost of their own time, salary comparison website PayScale offers the free webapp Meeting Miser. The in-browser timer uses actual or estimated salaries of everyone in the room to tally up the cost of a meeting by the second, the minute, or in total. There are lots of personal timers with more functionality out there, but Meeting Miser's narrow time = money focus makes for a persuasive argument. Meeting Miser is free to use, but requires a PayScale registration to save meetings for later reference.