I was guessing that the blotted out site was lifehacker since I don't see it in the list.

chrishad95

VLC plays video files...

dataguy

i'm surprised the porn site isn't #1

Ken

The example user likes porn almost as much as VLC Media player and gmail.

brownsin07

Pretty slick idea and the implementation seems very good. I especially like the designer's attitude. Little things, like the design of the site and the fact that he hates arbitrary rules on passwords!

Check out his blog: [blog.rescuetime.com] I wish more developers had as good a marketing mind as this one.

moe52

Watching the "good stuff" that was sent via email. Going the mystery site to download the vids. Then told friends how awesome it was and even wrote a plain text review. Submitted said review on stumble, digg, and bloglines using internet explorer. Then ending the day telling everyone how exhausting it was on twitter.

boom

dorylomorphs

Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys. Hint: in order to write this post, I needed to have a certain website open. ;)

tamar

Just installed it and it's using 33megs of memory. I really like to keep my system tray apps at a minimum and this seems steep.

rryan

@dataguy: I think i'm starting to see your point...

stratman3001

That's funny. I clicked over to see what you all would be saying about the smudged out site. I'm happy to say my mind didn't go immediately to porn. :-)

dr.coop

I'm surprised no one has raised any privacy concern yet.
I would love a free tool like that, but publishing this info on the web seems to much.
At the moment, I'm using TimeSnapper, which is a bit different, but works.
If anyone has another suggestion?

nicoco

I've been using their closed beta for a while now and I know the guy who runs RT. He's very sensitive to the privacy of users and not turning this into spyware for employers. IMO it's a great product with a very bright future.

MarkM2

I've been using it for a month now. I really love it, and the weekly status report.

engtech

The fact that it's web-based leads me to believe it would make a fantastic user-profiling tool for advertisers. They could present to advertisers the option to display a particular ad only tho those who use particular programs or (as many have already done) those who visit particular websites.

I'm guessing this is how they plan to monetize this idea, otherwise writing a native "dashboard viewer" would have been easy enough.

RogWilco

Funny, I just wrote the Procrastination Monitor a couple of days ago. It is just an AutoHotkey script but tracks everything, including what documents you work on, and keeps all the data safely on your PC. Try it if you like (Windows only, sorry), [praganix.wz.cz]

Praganix

Apparently the example user is a fan of Fleshbot. VLC to watch, GMail the mistress, and rapidshare? mega-ertc? .com to download said VLC files. Tip: Block its access with ZoneAlarm.

Mic Check ... 2 3

I was looking for something like this for quite some time. actually wondering if something like this exists.

But Now I have switched to Linux(Ubuntu)

Any alternative for Ubuntu to keep track of your activities??

rungss

I personally use TimeSnapper and like it; but maybe I will give rescue time a shot and see if it works better for me. There are reviews of both at [www.thetechbrief.com]
and
[www.thetechbrief.com]

Emad

It's currently in beta so I wouldn't put this in my production servers. Bummer, just want to see what's running in my servers after office hours.

BlackBeard

Alright! I found the perfect app!
It's called... TimeTracker (like many other apps out there): [ttracker.sourceforge.net]

Free, very light, dead-simple, and does the job perfectly, without publishing your private data to any 3rd party. Granted, the chart in RescueTime is sexier, but you can export to csv, so... you can do any chart you want!

nicoco

I don't see the added user value to having a web-based service that still relies on an application for data collection. Why not just use an application that does the analysis as well like TimeTracker? And that doesn't pass on your application use behaviour to be aggregated and sold on to a third party?

Why does LifeHacker seem to forget to mention all the better solutions it has already offered to a problem when it announces a new product?

davidbrake

The fact that this is web-based is a death sentence, as far as I'm concerned.

jarmod

The only benefit I can think of to having it be web based is if it can aggregate data across machines. If I could log in simultaneously from the 3 different computers I regularly use, then it might be handy for capturing my overall usage since sometimes I'll toggle over from one machine to do some work on another . . .

But in general I'd lean towards a standalone app.

Jason

consider for a moment: would you want your identity and usage information purchased by a data mining conglomerate or your friend world domination bent "search engine" company?

think before volunteering copious amounts of personal information to a black box online service

Euthanize_Hippies

I've been using RescueTime for about a month now and for me it's a keeper. I use it to effectively monitor the time I spend on mail, reading RSS feeds and social networking. This can quickly can run out of hand.

zvikico