Recently active discussions in RescueTime about PC Data Collector

We've just published a update to the Windows Data Collector.

0.9.7.21 - 2007/12/05
Bugs Fixed

* There should be NO MORE multiple end times for records. If you notice any log entries with more than one end_time, please let team@rescuetime.com know.
* RescueTime will now recognize when a user has locked the machine (Windows-L) or CTRL-ALT-DEL "Lock Computer" and immediately stop logging time.
* Fixed spelling in the CTRL-ALT wording on the Basic tab
* Fixed issue with missing time when Internet Explorer was not able to resolve URLs.

New Features

* The debug log now contains the name of the log file that is being sent to the Web Service. This should help in tracking down problems since users will be able to quickly identify the log file

I'm impressed by RescueTime, your company, and your revenue model! As a productivity coach, I'm recommending this to all my clients. See my new blog review:

http://www.priacta.com/troblog/rescue...

This article will probably be republished on a major blog soon. Keep up the good work!

We have released an update to the Windows Data Collector.

You can read about other changes released today at our blog: http://blog.rescuetime.com/2008/02/10...

Bugs Fixed

• Dramatically reduced physical memory footprint for RescueTime.exe. Physical memory should now be around 2 MB (vs 32 MB) during most operations. Physical memory will jump to 11 MB when uploading log files to the RescueTime server, but should drop
  back down to the 2 MB range after the upload completes. Note: Virtual Memory numbers are not affected by this change, which will still report roughly 32 MB, due to the way .Net framework allocates memory.
  
• Additional large file checks to prevent files larger than 1,000K from being sent to the RescueTime.com server.
  
• Removed updater service. This has been causing a number of our users issues and I don't think we are seeing a whole lot of benefit from it. RescueTime will still check for updates upon startup and through the "Check for updates" menu option.

New Features

• URL support for Opera
  
• URL support for Flock

I have been working on a few significant modifications to the Windows Data Collector that I would like to get a handful of Windows users involved with.

If you are interested in helping out, read on.

Windows Data Collector - 0.9.9

Fixes:

* Dramatically reduced physical memory footprint for RescueTime.exe. Physical memory should now be around 2 MB (vs 32 MB) during most operations. Physical memory will jump to 11 MB when uploading log files to the RescueTime server, but should drop back down to the 2 MB range after the upload completes. Note, Virtual Memory numbers are not affected by this change, which will still report roughly 32 MB, mostly due to the way .Net framework allocates memory.

* Additional large file checks to prevent files larger than 1,000K from being sent to the RescueTime.com server.

* Removed updater service. This has been causing a number of our users issues and I don't think we are seeing a whole lot of benefit from it. RescueTime will still check for updates upon startup and through the "Check for updates" menu option.

New Features:

* URL support for Opera

* URL support for Flock

Specific Testing I'm asking for:

* Feedback on the update process. To remove the updater service, there are some scripted commands that run during the update. These commands should remove the RescueTimeStart process owned by the SYSTEM user (which can be seen in the Task Manager). If you still see a RescueTimeStart process running after completing the update let me know. Also, please report any errors or unexpected behavior during the update process.

* Memory utilization and performance impacts after the install. The aggressive memory reclamation that I'm doing does take some processing. On the test systems that I've run the new data collector on I have not noticed any performance degradation and CPU utilization is typically < 1%.

* Opera and Flock URL support feedback. To get current URL's from Opera, I had to deploy DDE libraries which is why you will see a couple of new files in your installation directory.

How to get the update:

* In the directory where RescueTime is installed (default c:\Program Files\RescueTime), there is a file named UpdateServer.ini. Change the contents of that ini file from "www.rescuetime.com/updates" to "dev.rescuetime.com/updates"
* Select "Check for updates" from the RescueTime menu or restart RescueTime with the RescueTimeStart.exe and you should be informed that there are new updates available.

Respond to this forum post with any feedback you have.

Thank you!

We have published updates to both the OS X (0.9.5) and Windows (0.9.8) Data Collectors.

New features -

* By popular demand, RescueTime now has the ability to differentiate between Google “applications”. For instance: www.google.com/reader will now be considered different than www.google.com. We are doing this for the following Google sites:

o google.com/reader
o google.com/ig (iGoogle)
o google.com/notebook
o google.com/calendar
o google.com/talk
o google.com/analytics

* We have added the ability to send updates from the application menu - “Send Update Now”

Fixes - OS X

* Fixed error dialog that would appear when RescueTime.com was down for maintenance or other situations where there data collector timed out when communicating with the RescueTime.com servers
* The Preferences dialog should now properly get focus and become active when opening from the System menu icon

Fixed - Windows

* Fix to prevent log files larger than 500k from being generated.

We've just published a update to the Windows Data Collector. Have fun - and let us know of any issues you find.

0.9.6.78 - 2007/10/21
Bugs Fixed

- Numerous changes to support additional national date and time formats
- Fixed crash which was specific to Turkish language settings
- RescueTime will now gracefully handle situations where there is no default browser defined in the system
- Fix for duplicate logs being generated
- Fixed issue where the status for "Send Update Now" would report successful when it was not

New Features

- URLs in FireFox should now work with more languages
- URL resolution now supports Netscape Navigator. Opera and Safari URL resolution is still being worked on :(
- Preliminary support for HTTP proxy servers
- Added the ability to change the HotKey character to assist when the default CRTL+ALT+L was conflicting
- Added preference to enable double clicking on the system tray icon to take you directly to your dashboard
- Update checks during startup will now run in the background getting rid of that annoying update window. Manual update checks will still show the status window

Multiple users have reported issues with the 0.9.6 release where Firefox CPU usage would go to 100% when RescueTime was running.

I have just published a patch which I hope will resolve the issue. Unfortunately we have been unable to reproduce the issue on our test systems, so I will be looking for verification that this does or does not resolve the issue for you.

Here are the release notes for this patch:

0.9.6.83 - 2007/10/23
Bugs Fixed

- Reverted Firefox URL routines to a non-recursive solution. Hopefully this will prevent the high Firefox CPU usage being reported by users. Unfortunately this has the side affect of no longer allowing Netscape Navigator URLs from being parsed. A longer term solution is being looked at.