Time trackers for the console

It’s time for a few more console applications. I had hoped to post a few of these yesterday but real-life chores got in the way, so I had to wait a day.

I have four or five here that are all … I’m not sure what to call them, but I think “time trackers” or “time managers” might be accurate. They all have a time-punch function that can be terrifically useful for anyone who needs to watch time devoted between tasks.

Here’s the first one: worklog.

worklog is very straightforward, with an adjustable list of projects that you determine keystrokes for. Press a key to start timing a job and press it again to stop it.

You can increase or decrease time arbitrarily and enter descriptions as well. It’s probably not fair to say this, but worklog is probably what I use mentally, as the generic time tracker application.

There are a few things I don’t like about it; for one, some of the keystrokes you see — like the DEL key to quit — don’t seem to work. I have to quit by CTRL+C.

And the “projects” file has to have its details listed in reverse order, which strikes me as odd, in this day and age. Twenty-five years ago when I had to list things in reverse order on my C64 for it to look right, I just took it in stride. These days, that’s unusual. Maybe the problem is me.

Regardless, little points like that make me think worklog is a work-in-progress, and just needs a little more time to mellow.

The next is wtime.

A simple switch flag for turns on and off a counter, and another switches between projects. You have the choice of a running count for time spent, or a range of dates and total time accumulated.

It’s very simplistic when compared with some of these others, but programs like this are usually the groundwork for larger, more intricate interfaces.

It’s a little dated (last release in 2006), and it’s not real flashy, so it might not be practical unless you’re willing to incorporate it into a larger tool.

The next two are a pair of sorts. timebook and a derivative called timetrap.

 

As I understand it, timebook is python-based while timetrap is a ruby version, and they both have similar structures and functions.

From a strictly superficial standpoint, timetrap seems to have a few more options than its predecessor, but that might just be the benefit of working in the wake of another program.

Personally I see little difference between the two, so you might have to install one, try it out, then install the other and see how each one ranks.

(I notice that they share commands — they both scramble for the “t” command as their default application name — so you might have to unplug one before trying the other.)

For my money both python and ruby applications tend to bog down low-end hardware, and so if I have to make a life-and-death selection, I would probably go with timebook. To each his own though, and if you have a lot of processor power, it won’t matter.

Last but not least is punch, a/k/a punch-time-tracking on Google Code, which works atop of todo.txt, which is a list manager.

I don’t have a screenshot for that one, mostly because I had trouble getting the two to work together. For some reason there seemed to be a disagreement over what the configuration file should be called.

Judging by the examples on the home page though, it appears to work much like the others. If you already use todo.txt, this might be a natural choice for you.

And there you have it. The odd part of this little essay is that few of these are in the repositories for the two distros I usually check — Arch or Ubuntu.

worklog is in the Ubuntu repos for Dapper onward, and AUR has only timebook-hg to speak of. So in that sense, if you’re looking for some very, very easy projects to sponsor, here are a few.

Enjoy.

A few notes for Arch Linux

Time is short today and I have been wanting to make note of a few links specific to Arch Linux. If you’re already an Arch user then there are probably no big secrets here.

On the other hand, I occasionally have to look for these links again when I install a new system, and that means they’re probably best kept here, where I can find them quicker.

Probably 95 percent of the Arch screenshots you see include a nifty logo and rundown on the guts of a system. For example …

That one is Archey, which is in AUR here. Archey has a few small options available to it, but otherwise, what you see above is what it does. I should convert it to Crux. Nah.

The page in the wiki on additional repositories mentions the Arch Games repo, of which only one of the sites works for me.

I use this one as a backup, and thus far it seems to work for me.

[arch-games]
Server = http://pseudoform.org/arch-games/games/i686

Of course, you should always be skeptical of software installed from unofficial sources, etc., etc.

Another good site to remember is the Arch Rollback Machine, which can save you from a dead system in case an update creeps through that scrambles your installation.

The rollback system is discussed in full on the forums, here. There’s a lot that’s involved in rolling back your system though, so beyond that link I can’t get into too much detail.

It’s rare (for me) that an update breaks something, and Arch definitely not the only distro, in my experience, to install a broken package. But knowing how to get out of a tight spot is important for any computer user — regardless of OS.

And I’ll mention it last because of my own bias — there is a site that focuses solely on Arch Linux blogs, and it is updated fairly regularly.

archlinux.me is worth looking at once and revisiting again, if you’re the least bit interested or concerned with the distro.

No guarantees of course, as to quality or frequency of updates. Like I have mentioned in the past, I consider blogging to be at the bottom of a long list of worthless pastimes, but it has its followers.

That’s it for now. Real-life commitments are calling me. …

There are no ugly GUIs

I probably shouldn’t get involved in discussions like this one, because they’re usually the ones that make me wonder if my ideas are out of whack.

But any thread that asks why so many people choose ugly or text-based interfaces needs at least one dissenting opinion.

I won’t waste time repeating what I said there, except to underscore that without the freedom that Linux offers, the whole planet would have a grand number of two, maybe three choices for their GUI.

Whether or not it’s ugly or out of date or text-based or pointer-based or driven by the electrodes taped to your skull … I could care less. Do what you like to your interface, because it’s yours.

The only person who has to suffer through it, is you.

And before some wag shouts it out, yes, I know, pretty is a feature. And there is nothing to be inferred in my preference for a text interface. Your way is the right way.

P.S.: You can link to an awful CDE desktop or Windows BOB if you want, but I can guarantee someone out there on the planet thinks those are quite attractive. Humans are weird that way.

One more anniversary

It’s not all sad news around the house today though. This month has been chock full of anniversaries and milestones, and yesterday I noticed another one: the “birthday” of the Pentium I use on a daily basis.

Yep, a year ago I found a museum-quality Pentium computer in a thrift shop down the road, dropped a single 1000-yen note on the counter top and brought it home.

Since then it has supplanted just about every other machine I’ve owned in the past decade, accomplishing the same day-to-day tasks on a fraction of the power and resources, and hopefully inspiring a person or two in the process.

It’s taught me a lot about usability, function, power and efficiency, and even served as the guinea pig for one of the most gratifying experiments I personally have ever conducted with a computer.

So here’s a first-anniversary snapshot, just for the record and to preserve a memory. Ladies and gentlemen, the Fujitsu FMV-5120 NU2/W. Fourteen years old and in its prime.

Cheers, and may all your prized possessions likewise last beyond their intended lifespan.

So depressing

Sometimes life just isn’t fair.

I didn’t do anything to deserve this, meaning it wasn’t dropped or smacked into a door frame or something.

I had noticed a tiny hairline crack creeping around that hinge mount there, and today when I opened the case there was a terrifying splintering noise.

 

It looks like someone stabbed it with a box cutter.

Very depressing, really. This is the machine I bought almost three years ago in a recycling shop on the other side of the island, at what seemed like a rather trivial price, for what I was getting.

At first I thought this wouldn’t affect its function, but now I’m not so sure. The hinges and screen must be torquing the motherboard or power connections, because now when I try to push in a USB drive, power drops immediately. That top picture is the last one I have with the power working alongside USB.

The smaller irony here is that I had an inkling that I might give this one away in the near future. It has a legitimate Windows ME serial number, even if that’s something of a curse.

The thought was that any of the machines I keep as “spares” could probably take over the two or three jobs this one does, and this could possibly work for someone else as a fully functional machine.

That’s just impossible now. It’s visibly damaged and behaves badly. Scarred machines don’t have much appeal, even when the price is zero yen.

I guess I’ll keep using it for as long as I can suffer to look at it, in its new, battered state. Things like that just make you feel bad though.

Reaching way back: Bonzai Linux

Here and there, where I can, I have come across some workable distros that will run on a 150Mhz Pentium with only 32Mb of memory. It’s a rarity though, and even more unusual to find one that will boot and install, in that small a space.

In fact, more than ever it seems the issue I have to confront is not a lack of processor speed or even hard drive speed, but simply memory overhead. That’s my limiting factor.

I get around it by installing from a live CD to a virtual machine, and then writing that image to the host drive with dd. (dd is quickly becoming another of my favorite tools.)

That was the case with Bonzai Linux, which I am reaching way, waaay back into the past to show off.

 

“Show off” is kind of an overstatement though. Unless you’re an old-school KDE fan or someone who also has a very low-end machine to resurrect, this is a bit plain.

As I understand it, this was one of the earliest efforts to put a complete graphical desktop on a bootable ISO, dates back as far as 2003, and is using Debian Woody as its backbone in the final release. I could be wrong on any one (or all) of those points though.

And while it couldn’t install straightaway from the ISO, it had no problem with the bait-and-switch installation style, and actually booted on the Mebius.

After that, I had a nifty full-color, proper resolution KDE 3.1 desktop, floppy access, graphical file managers, browsers, etc. Kernel is 2.4.20, and the entire business had no problem fitting into a 1Gb drive space.

On the other hand, a kernel that old lacked some of the modules I am accustomed to seeing in the 2.6.3x series, and sound was also an issue. And the screenshot you see above is much nicer than what I was actually seeing on the screen — bad artifacts, fractured dialog boxes, mouse trails and so forth. …

But it worked. It booted on 32Mb, gave a full graphical desktop in that distinct KDE style, and while definitely not perfect, it’s one of the “winners” in recent days.

So you can, if you have to, reach all the way back six or seven years in the history of Linux desktops, and occasionally come up with a working machine. Just more proof that old applications don’t die.

1984 vs. 2007

Not really Linux-related, but a quick thanks to Astute Reader No. 1, who sent along a great three-minute clip off of (gasp!) YouTube from a year ago or so, showing simultaneous boots on a Vista-laden PC from 2007 and an ancient floppy-driven Macintosh Classic from 1984.

Rationalize all you want, it’s still taking far longer for a vastly more powerful computer to get to a workable starting point than a lowly 16-bit floppy-driven machine.

This is the part where I usually insert a long and windy tirade about bloated software and inefficient programming and why it’s ridiculous to waste money on newer faster machines when obviously the old ones will work, if given a chance.

But I’ll spare you. You can use your imagination for that point, and even use a creaky old librarian lady voice if it makes things more amusing.

P.S.: For goodness’ sake, don’t read the comments to that video. I don’t know what it is about YouTube that attracts the weakest minds on the planet, but. …

Poor man’s SSD: Of course, you know, this means war …

It’s been a month now since I swapped out the hard drive in my 14-year-old Pentium for a commonplace 8Gb CF card and connector. And to be honest, I’m almost disappointed.

Because nothing has happened. Everything works just the same as a conventional hard drive, only lighter, faster, cleaner, cooler and with less stress.

I really wish there was something to report, but the whole experience started out perfectly and hasn’t skipped a beat. I regularly power on the machine, boot, sometimes disk check, continue on with the events of the day, and power off.

I read, write, save files and images. I compile new software, make updates, build kernels, troubleshoot configurations and experiment same as ever — all the while writing and reading the entire system to the card.

And there have been no problems. No hiccups, no disk errors, no transfer issues, no evident size reduction, no measurable space constriction, no mistakes, glitches, bumps, kerfuffles or rigmaroles. It’s been smooth sailing since the first power-on.

So what can I say? It’s lasted longer than I expected, and shows no signs of breaking or quitting. The rumor is false. CF cards aren’t any less or more reliable than conventional drives — and I feel qualified to make that statement, considering I’ve lost two standard drives to hardware faults in as many years.

In fact, the entire experience only makes me want to really kick one in the shins — really put it through the wringer, and see what happens to it. Something beyond day-to-day use, and more in the realm of intense, sustained abuse.

So I’ve ordered another one, as well as another adapter, and I’m going to hunt down something that is designed to kill hard drives — some application that will simply thrash away at disk space and force the darned thing to quit.

I’m going to start the thing and let it run until it freezes, catches fire or collapses in a puddle of tears, begging for mercy.

It’s all purely in the name of science, of course. I’ve already exploded the myth sufficiently to prove in my mind that any computer I salvage or keep in the next decade will be fitted with similar connectors and cards.

But this is no longer about just using an unconventional solution for an everyday tool, or about saving a little power and perhaps gaining a tiny sliver of speed. It’s not a gimmick or a stunt now. This is a mission. This is war. This is … SCIENCE!

The spare spare spare computer

The leftover Pentium I bought about ten days ago has thrown me for a loop … mostly because, it’s just not a leftover Pentium.

Originally I had planned to scavenge the machine, stealing the memory and possibly the CD drive for use in this one. That might seem like overkill, but with the market price for a used stick of PC66 laptop memory hovering around US$1.50 plus shipping, it just makes sense.

After all, the whole machine cost me about US$10, and I’d pay that much — if not more — for that single stick of antique computer memory. Why buy the milk when you can have the whole cow for the same price?

As luck would have it though, it’s a viable machine in its own right. After I cleaned away the dirt and grime from the screen, it turned out as clean and clear as either of the other two Pentium machines I own, save a faint bleached area in the upper left corner.

That screen is also slightly bigger than its predecessor’s — probably something like 12″ as opposed to 11.1″ — which means the porthole screen I have learned to ignore is a non-issue with the new one.

And I have desperately lusted after a CDROM for the older machine. For every time I have had to pull the drive, connect it to another computer, compile or troubleshoot, then swap it back again to continue … a simple live CD would have saved me hours.

That CDROM, as I have discovered, works fine and is quite speedy when compared to the one in this one. I still haven’t managed to make it boot in the older one, but otherwise it works as it should.

Add to that a battery that lasts two hours and recharges in the same amount of time, a more-than-adequate 32Mb of memory and a fully working keyboard, and you have the machine I wanted very badly … about two years ago.

Aye, there’s the rub. I’ve already got a low-speed machine in the house, as well as a fractionally faster one with a bootable CD drive, bootable floppy, the same amount of memory, a 17-megahertz edge in processor power, a working battery, stereo sound, the same video card, similar physical condition, easy access to the interior, and the immeasurable bonus and convenience of a single, solitary, antiquated USB port.

You wouldn’t believe how often I use that USB port.

And so that’s the spot I find myself in these days: I am the owner of not one, not two, but three low-end excellent condition antique computers — any one of which could easily keep me occupied for years to come.

I can’t bear to throw it out, because it’s in good shape. Nobody but me (and maybe you) could possibly find it useful, and even if I have dozens of uses for it, the restraining factor is time.

So I imagine I’ll put it on hold for a little while. At some point I will probably need or want another low-, low-end computer for testing or something, and it will come in handy.

In the mean time, I have a few other things that need my attention. …

Thinking things through: dd over USB1.1

I’m still learning about dd. It took me a while to discover it, but now I use it on a daily basis (well, maybe not quite ) to clone systems, backup entire drives, get visual snapshots of the data on a disk or to scramble the contents of a floppy or USB drive.

A couple of days ago I got a 60Gb hand-me-down hard drive that I didn’t want to look at, and arbitrarily plugged it into an always-on machine and put it to work with time dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda.

And as promised, it dutifully started dumping random information into the drive, churning away for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour. …

By this point I was starting to itch to use the drive. But it was time to take care of some real-life issues, I let it run while I left the house.

When I came home at the end of the day I expected to see a report, but it was still running. I didn’t have time to fiddle with it, so again, I left it run, this time overnight.

In the morning, it was still going. And at the end of the day yesterday, it was still going. …

And this morning I decided to arbitrarily cut things short. I suspect that over USB1.1 I probably should have employed different flags or block sizes, to avoid a two-day session writing out random nonsense to a hard drive.

But I definitely blame myself for this little inconvenience — after all, I should have thought about what was happening: the transfer of 60Gb of information over USB1.1.

I’m no stranger to slow speeds over USB1.1, and so the little alarm bells should have gone off after only a few minutes. Even USB2.0 would take a while, for something of that size.

In any case, I have learned my lesson. If you want to blank a drive with dd, for goodness sake don’t do it over a slow USB connection.