gljakal.com – blog

“What are you doing?”

gljakal’s WAYD is the new software that helps you keep track of the time you spend in front of your computer. It does so in two ways:

1. the first is by keeping track of what programs you use
2. The second is by downright asking you! Every set amount of time, a full-screen window will pop up asking: “What are you doing?” You can then type in your answer or choose one of the latest answers you gave it.

When you are ready to review your workdays, WAYD’s log viewer can show you your answers or the programs you were using in the specified time period. The log can also be exported to CSV files that you can open with Microsoft Excel® or OpenOffice Calc.

I think that WAYD can be really useful to professionals and freelancers that need to keep an eye on their time. For example, it can be especially useful when you need to determine how much time you worked for a customer last month or last week.
It also requires no discipline or effort on your part: instead of compiling a daily review of your work and storing it in some excel file somewhere in your documents folder, you are forced to report what you are working on every set amount of time (by default it’s every 30 minutes).

So, what are you waiting for? Head over to the download page to start tracking your time!

On the technical side…

Instead of the usual combination of c#/.net framework, I used C++ and the Qt Framework to develop WAYD. I also used Qt Creator as a development environment.

I chose Qt because it has two very important features: first, it’s a multiplatform toolkit, meaning that I could easily port WAYD to MAC and Linux. Second, I can package the Qt library files directly with my application, so users don’t have to install them separately. This wasn’t the case with Clock (that required the VB6 library files) or ToDo (that required users to download and install the .net framework v1.1). One added benefit is that writing WAYD in C++ instead of C# lowered its memory footprint consistently.

I have to say that working with Qt and Qt Creator was a very pleasant experience.
The Qt framework has classes for almost everything, from window management (obviously) to database to date/time formatting.
Qt Creator is a well-thought and easy to use IDE. I’m used to Visual Studio and I had no difficulty at all with it.

…and I’m going to document the whole process on this blog 🙂

It will be a 2D mario-style platformer, whith a twist: the game is set on a physically realistic world. More details to come soon!

I also have a very cool productivity (“serious”) application to release. Testing is complete, I just need to get the boring part done (creating setups, writing web pages…).

It’s finally out! Go get it!

I have updated gljakal’s ToDo to fix a nasty bug that occurred when you tried to create a new to-do list with the AdvancedStatus plugin disabled and the AutoBackup plugin enabled.
This was actually a kind of weird situation, since I always have both the plugins enabled all the time… Turns out that many ToDo users prefer to disable AdvancedStatus while leaving the backup feature enabled….
Anyway, thanks to the kind people who sent the error report! (yes, I do actually read them!)
Also, if any of you happen to send an error report, please do include your email address. This way I can contact you once the problem is resolved. (And you won’t say “this program sucks!” 🙂 )

You created a database for your application. You designed the perfect table structure, added some smart views and created the coolest stored procedures that make your application work like magic.

But now, you want to back them up together with the code of your program, using subversion or CVS. Afterall, they are part of the application logic.

Better yet, you would like to automate the extraction procedure so that you only need to launch a batch file and your backup is done.

Gljakal’s Sql Exporter does just that: it extracts tables, views, stored procedures and triggers from your database and saves them as individual text files.

Used together with a source control software, you can have a precise idea of what changed between the various releases, just like you do with your applications’ source code.

You can do that with the interface version (shown in the picture) as well as with the command line version, that you can automate to run whenever you want.

Plus, it’s a free download!

Finally!
Today I am releasing the new, improved version of gljakal’s ToDo:



New version highlights:

• Stable, documented plugin support:
  Now adapting ToDo to your needs is easier than ever. Plugin support is great for custom exports and imports, intranet integration, even synchronization with online services!
• New, nicer user interface, with famfamfam‘s famous icons.
• AdvancedStatus plugin
  Now you can set a task as 50% (or any %) complete!
• Copy & paste inside the details window
  You could already do this with CTRL-C and CTRL-V, but now there are also cut-copy-paste buttons inside the details window
• Help file
  Now you can press F1 inside todo and actually see something 🙂
• All the new features in the preview release

Comments & critics are welcome!

A lot of people asked me what’s the best way to launch Clock! as soon as they log into their computers.
In Windows, there is a very simple way to start any program right after you type your username and your password in the login screen. It’s called the “Startup Menu”.

The startup menu is simply a folder located under “All programs” in your Start menu. Every program located in this folder is automatically launched when you log into windows.
How do you add an item to the startup menu? The first thing to do is right-click it and choose Open. Now, probably you have a link to the program you would like to launch on your desktop. Just drag and drop your desktop icon inside the startup menu folder and there you have it: your favorite program will now start with windows!

Progress on Clock3D screensaver is slow, but ongoing!
Here you can see the new “Fashion watch” skin:

More pictures to come!

Finally, after way too much time, Clock has reached the stable version 2.3!

New features over the beta version:

• 
  Improved style manager: now you can create and save your custom skins, preview all the skins, customize all the details, hide the second hand.
• Quick calendar: a small calendar window, useful when you are planning a trip, or a visit to the doctor! The calendar window can be resized to display multiple months.
• Even more skins because they are never enough 🙂
• Improved stability: no more need for the library files setup, everything just works at the first install!

Of course, all the cool features that were in the beta versions also made it to the new stable:

• MP3 Support
• Antialiasing
• Transparent/click-thru mode

Get it now!

Have you ever visited the website of an independent musician? Often you will find that they are kind enough to let you download some of their tracks in mp3 format. But then you have to download the mp3 somewhere on your computer, wait for the transfer to complete and (if you still remember where you actually saved it!) open the mp3 file with your audio player of choice. Isn’t there a quicker way to listen to a song or a podcast? Sure there is!
Gljakal’s MP3Streamer does just that, in the simplest way possible: just copy the address of the song you want to listen in the “mp3 file address” field and hit “Stream” to start listening: no downloads, no waiting, it’s all set!
If you are a musician or a podcaster, you can also use the HTML code provided to embed the mp3 player directly into your site!
Also, if you are really really lazy like me, you can get a bookmarklet that will convert all the links to mp3 files in the page you are currently visiting in mp3 players :).
Have fun!