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RescueTime Hack: Log your meetings and phone calls (OSX only)
Hi all,
I've built a little something-something to add time spent in meetings and on the phone to RT.
(Don't let the word "hack" fool you, neither existing RescueTime files NOR the RescueTime application will be touched or tinkered with.)
It's basically an Applescript with a wee bit of shell scripting peppered on, wrapped up as application.
Take a look at my blog:
http://carlo.zottmann.org/2008/02/13/...
Might be useful for some of you. It's useful to me, so it's a success already. ;)
Cheers,
Carlo
I've built a little something-something to add time spent in meetings and on the phone to RT.
(Don't let the word "hack" fool you, neither existing RescueTime files NOR the RescueTime application will be touched or tinkered with.)
It's basically an Applescript with a wee bit of shell scripting peppered on, wrapped up as application.
Take a look at my blog:
http://carlo.zottmann.org/2008/02/13/...
Might be useful for some of you. It's useful to me, so it's a success already. ;)
Cheers,
Carlo
I’m excited
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Inappropriate?This is awesome Carlo, the RescueTeam has been excitedly following your twitters and I'm getting your app installed now to test it out. This is certainly the type of functionality that we'd like to eventually integrate into the data collectors.
Thanks for hacking! ;)
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Inappropriate?Unfortunately I can't use a MAC but this would be great for us windows users (if you could set up your own tags even better!).
Nice work Carlo.
I’m impressed.
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Inappropriate?Sorry, I don't have a Windows box anymore... On top of that, I doubt there is a simple way to build something like this on Win as there is on OSX. I've created it with tools that come pre-installed on the Mac (Script Editor), and I don't think it will be quite as easy on any other platform.
Not dissing Windows here, mind you. I am just saying that *I* can't do it, sorry. -
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Inappropriate?Explain, please.
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Inappropriate?Is there a way to manually input time into RescueTime? If I know that I drive from 8-9am and 5-6pm going back and forward from work, it would be nice to add that in my dashboard.
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Inappropriate?At the moment, there is not. Unless you are willing to manually write YAML files (RT's log format, just text files, really)...
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Inappropriate?I'm definitely willing :)
I was reading your post, but I'm on a PC and I'm trying to figure it out how to do it on XP. Do you know if the PC version also uses YAML and if the log folder is in "C:\Program Files\RescueTime\AutoUpdateFiles" ?
Thanks!
I’m hopeful
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Inappropriate?At the moment the PC version uses XML files, which I intend to convert to YAML at some point in the next few months.
The log files are stored in
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\RescueTime.com\logs\
There are two directories, pending and uploaded which contain the logs that haven't yet been sent and those that have been successfully uploaded.
They should be fairly human readable, and you can play around with changing the contents of those files to insert the manual information you want to add to your RescueTime account.
A couple of words of caution:
1. When RescueTime is running, it continually writes to the newest log file in the pending directory. If you open or modify that specific file, it can cause issues if RescueTime is not able to manipulate it - because of file locks. I would suggest doing it the way that Carlo did, which was to create a new file with a .XML extension and put your manual information in there in the same format as the RescueTime generated XML files.
2. The RescueTime web service has a couple of sanity checks for incoming data to prevent really odd data from coming in. Currently RescueTime will reject the following records:
- Any single record with a total duration of over 4 hours
- A record where the duration is negative
- Records that are missing key elements, (OS Username, Application, Start Time, End Time)
All that being said, we do have intentions of giving people the ability to manually add records, however those features are at least a couple of months out. We also plan on publishing a more detailed API reference for developers to help them develop applications for RescueTime.
Hope this helps you get pointed in the right direction!</username> -
Inappropriate?Thanks for all the info, that's all I needed.
You guys are doing a great job.
I’m thankful
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Inappropriate?For those interested i've made a windows version : http://monkeyget.wordpress.com/2008/0...
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Inappropriate?I've also put together a small vb.NET application for windows to do this kinda thing. I'm guinea pigging the program now but I will make it available once I've finished beta testing the applciation. Screenshot can be foundat http://ddixon.castoracer.com/images/s...
I’m kinda excited about this thang
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Inappropriate?I have a question to Joe. Do you think the capturing of idle time or non-online time could be added to the base RescueTime application? It seems like it would be a perfect fit for the standard RescueTime application since the application already polls at predetermined intervals. Hey, this is just one mammal's opinion.
I’m unsure if this gets a response
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